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William Henry Hunt, Girl in a Wood House, 1837 & My Thoughts on Auctions, Pt. 4

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Artwork Details

Title:	William Henry Hunt, Girl in a Wood House, 1837 & My Thoughts on Auctions, Pt. 4
Artist:	William Henry Hunt (All)
Media Type:	Paint - Watercolor
Art Type:	Other
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	270
Likes on CAF:	2 3
Comments:	0
Added to Site:	6/19/2021
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Description

Although I have done it many, many times, I hate buying against reserves. It's not always easy to tell that no one is really bidding against you but that the auctioneer is calling out bids "from the chandelier" until the lone actual bidder is driven up to the amount of the undisclosed reserve price. Under those circumstances, which can never be detected with online auctions but only when the bidder is physically present at a live auction, the auction is not truly an auction. Instead it is a sale at a price which the sole "bidder" is willing to pay.

Auctioneers love "no reserve" auctions, since they are certain to make money o n every lot which has even slight interest from even one bidder. Reserves really only benefit consignors/sellers, and they can be subject to abuse when an auctioneer permits high reserves, those which are above market values . The only way to prevent reserves that thwart the actual, literal purpose of auctions, i.e., a forum for selling based on what bidders are willing to pay, are the laws of most jurisdictions that do not allow reserve amounts to exceed either the low (N.Y.) or high (London) estimate amounts. Estimates, which are provided by almost all of the major auction houses, allow potential bidders to decide in advance if there is at least some chance that the lot will sell for an amount that they would be willing to pay, i.e., that they won't be wasting their time by even participating in the bidding or that they shouldn't be under any delusions that they have a prayer that they will be the high bidder. When an auction house refuses to provide reserves, (1) there is no way to determine that they are complying with the laws of jurisdictions in which they do business, (2) bidders are drawn in when they wouldn't be if estimates were provided. This ensures that there will be a floor provided by at least some bids, ensuring that a least some money will result from the auctioning of the lots in the sale, and (3) the auctioneer will have greater flexibility, since there will be no standard by which bidders can determine that the bidding is likely legitimate. Although I don't believe that estimates are in any way authoritative, I have known several people who won't bid one cent above an upper estimate, since they believe that is the maximum amount that the lot is worth. But I know of no legitimate reason for any auctioneer to refuse to provide reserves for any type of items -- it certainly isn't a "visionary" decision. Comic art is no more difficult to evaluate than any form of art, even in a rapidly rising market.

I also hate it when the staff of auction houses hype a lot. For example, I recently heard someone say that Peanuts Sunday pages from the early-mid 1950s are particularly hard to find. This is simply not true. I used to own a 1954 Sunday with Charlie Brown and Schroeder and with both Christmas and and Beethoven themes. I didn't sell it for anything close to a premium price. Nor did the many early 50s Sunday original sold at auctions by Christie's and Sotheby's achieve especially high prices. In my opinion, the early strips are far less appealing than those from the early 1960s, especially those with Snoopy. That character didn't have a great deal of personality in the early years. I also find it very annoying when an auctioneer, when actually selling a lot, inserts his/her personal opinion regarding the lot being sold, e.g., "this is one of my favoite items in the auction. I don't really care if someone likes a lot, and such banter is often just used to prolong the time for potential bidders to actually start bidding.

Which leads to another one of my pet pieves. I absolutely hate it when an auctioneer is slow at closing a lot and clearly tries to milk out more bids by dragging their feet. And this tactic often results in new bids long after the bidding has pretty much slowed to nothing. Modern computer programs for auctions would make it very simple for a "fair waning" to be given after a fixed number of seconds after the last bid recorded and to close the lot a fixed number of seconds after the warning. This is what happens, I believe, in online auctions with no live auctioneers. There is no reason why a high bidder should have to wait longer for an expensive lot to close than the high bidder on a cheap lot has to wait.

One very significant tactic which, although not illegal, seems to me to be very abusive. Some auction houses seem to have an inordinate number of lots which are not paid for by the persons who won the lots. Obtaining timely payments has long been a problem with comic/comic art auctions. When I registered to bid in such sales when I attended them in person in New York, I (and everyone else that had no significant history of bidding at such sales) was required to provide financial references and to identify how much I expected to spend at the auction. Sotheby's actually called my bank, cont.

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	C E
Joined:	April 2006
Last Login:	August 2025
Country:	UNITED STATES
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