Heritage Auctions: Why do the archives have so many identical prices?

[Gotham Kid]

Amen

 

I prefer conspiracies though.

 

 

 

Ohhhh Yeahhhh !! Would we have gown down that path, we'd be into double-digit pages for this thread by now .

[cheetah]

I feel like such a buzz-kill.

[VintageComics]

I feel like such a kill-buzz.

 

Naw, don't worry about it. You're perfect. Sal says you know everything there is to know.

 

 

I still chuckle every time I think about it.

 

 

[Doohickamabob]

Bingo! There are a lot of books on Heritage that sell for $227.05. It is the price for a base bid of $190.

Why is it $227.05 instead of $228? ($190 plus 20 percent = $228)

 

I guess it makes sense if it's part of the whole bid increment thing, plus the 20% buyer's premium. But it's also tempting to see it as an IT/database problem. I've seen the same prices for higher-value books, and that's when it really looks weird. In those cases, the only explanation that makes sense is that BOTH the topmost bidders were basing their high bid on a previous price realized in the auction archives, which is entirely possible but seems less likely in the high price brackets.

 

By the way, regarding an early message in this thread: I did not post this question in order to insinuate anything about the integrity of the Heritage auctions.

[namisgr]

Bingo! There are a lot of books on Heritage that sell for $227.05. It is the price for a base bid of $190.

Why is it $227.05 instead of $228? ($190 plus 20 percent = $228)

 

I guess it makes sense if it's part of the whole bid increment thing, plus the 20% buyer's premium. But it's also tempting to see it as an IT/database problem. I've seen the same prices for higher-value books, and that's when it really looks weird. In those cases, the only explanation that makes sense is that BOTH the topmost bidders were basing their high bid on a previous price realized in the auction archives, which seems somewhat unlikely.

 

 

Because the Heritage buyer's premium is 19.5% and not 20%.

 

Try it out for yourself now. Go to a current auction, enter a bid for $190, and you'll see that the total price including premium comes to $227.05. I just did.

[Doohickamabob]

Because the Heritage buyer's premium is 19.5% and not 20%.

 

Ha ha, you got me there. My mind automatically rounds up, just like when I'm at the gas station and it says $3.67 9/10, I automatically think $3.68, etc. Funny how much consumer marketing relies on pricing things just shy of multiples of ten, whether it's 99-cent comic auctions or real estate sales that end with $99 thousand.

 

[Doohickamabob]

Here's another example, just to show I am not completely insane (only partially insane):

 

 

Based on the 19.5% buyer's premium, the base price was $4,250. Admittedly, this all makes much more sense once you realize the base prices are more common increments than the resulting post-premium prices.

[cheetah]

People will pay more than $4,000 but won't pay $4,500. If it is in a live auction, those are your choices (unless someone places a cut bid, but that's just going to make things seem more complicsomeone to explain a cut bid).