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<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: rubbinisracing</div><div class="ubbcode-body">From past experience I have found it helpful to have instructions for the seller's assistant who will work with you as your car is being auctioned. The 90 to 150 seconds while your car is active is not a good time to develop strategy. There are basically 2 methods the auction house can use for cars with a reserve.

1.) The seller's assistant will ask you about your reserve price and if your firm on that dollar amount. If he senses that you’re adamant on not letting your car go for anything less than your reserve they will most likely proceed as follows. They will recognize real and non-existent bids, as allowed by their agreement, very quickly to just short of the reserve to see if there is any real money on your car at that price. If there is real money on the car they will work to get the bids to the reserve. If not, they will quickly move to the next car and your time in the sun is over.

2.) If you instruct the seller's assistant that you want to know where the real money is and that you might lower your reserve or accept an amount lower depending on the level, the auctioneer after initially acknowledging non-existent bids to get the pump primed will switch to only real money bids. Now you can see the bids you have to work with and can make a judgment, albeit quick, on how to proceed. If the real money is close to the reserve and there is more than one interested bidder the auctioneer will work to get the bidding to the reserve or an acceptable level for the consignor to accept. If the real money is far short of the reserve and a deal can't be made they will close the bidding and move to the next car.

Both methods have their advantages. With the former, the auction house has a much higher &quot;bid to&quot; amount to work deals from post block. The consignor leaves the auction with a car that just fell short of his reserve with verifiable auction results to support his price. But unfortunately, in the quick run up of the bidding to reach a level just below the reserve amount real money bidders may have been bounced off the car while it was on the block. Meaning that real money that fell 5 to 10k short of where the auctioneer took the bidding has been lost and the consignor has lost those bids and has no way to accept them. Thus, the consignor has no real feedback on the perceived value of his car.

With the later, the consignor has good information about how the bidders felt about the car and had an opportunity to work a deal for real money. Unfortunately in this method the consignor may leave the auction with a high bid that is tens of thousands less than what he had hoped for and the auction house has a large gap to bridge in trying to work post block sales. In addition, there may be less than favorable historical bids that can be used as a gauge for subsequent efforts to sell/purchase the car. These precedents can give pause to buyers who may have wanted to pony up for the car initially.

If I really want to move the car I go with no. 2. If I plan on attending other auctions and don't mind the expense and time of prepping the car for auction and see it as entertainment and enjoy the ride I use no.1.

Just some thoughts that might help! </div></div>

Howard -

Thanks for the detailed explanation; crucial info for someone headed to his first auction.

I do want to sell the car, so option #2 makes more sense to me.

Thanks again,

Scott