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Hello, I am Kenny!
I am 43, live in St. Louis, am a Cancer, enjoy reading eBay “sold” listings, and long walks on the muddy, Mississippi river bank. I have been listening to the podcast for over a year now, and have even called in once, but I’m not a huge forum person, so I have never posted.
I’m an auction person. I work for two auction houses here in StL, both ringing and clerking. As of a couple of weeks ago, I did the two auction house gigs, a beginner store with 200 items, and a full-time crappy job with benefits. When I did my taxes this year, I realized that I grossed more with my part-time store than I did with my crap job. So here we go…
Since I quit my crap job, I have increased already to over 300 listings. I love sourcing (of course) and shipping, so it really is just the listing monster that I will have to deal with from here on.
I’ll try to not be such a lurker from here on out.
Kenny
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What does “ringing” at an auction mean? Are you the one that gets up on the platform and calls the bids?
Some of the auctioneers at one of the auctions I go to have such musical voices. I’m sure that they have nice singing voices. Sometimes, when I’m not interested in the wares up for bid, I just sit back and listen to their sing-song chanting.
The last auction I went to, one of the auctioneers was getting a bit pissed at the attendees, I think for trying to negotiate or slowing down the bidding. That was fun too …
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Welcome!
Can you help us dispel some myths about auction houses? I’ve seen folks often say how auction houses are scams, but we’ve always had good experiences since they’re often family run.
–Is it common for auctioneers to artificially inflate prices by using shill bidders?
–At storage locker auctions, do they go trough the storage locker first and take out the good stuff?)
–(i forgot the rest of the bad stuff people think are happening) -
The ringer is the guy or girl who picks out what is up for sale and holds it up or directs peoples attention to it. There can be several working at one time, and they keep things moving at a fast pace. The clerk is the person sitting beside the auctioneer whose job it is to write everything down.
On auctions being scams, in my experience, it boils down to trust. Regular auction goers watch like hawks for any type of BS when they are at an auction, and getting caught can ruin your reputation in the community, so the established auction houses are not going to be risking their rep so they can run you up $5. And if they were using shill bidders, they inevitably would get stuck with stuff that they then would have to try and re-sell at a later date. The buyers loves to look for recycled merchandise, because this also looks bad on the auction houses. It is best to bid lightly until you know you can trust an auction house, but the vast majority are on the up and up.
There are two things that do appear like shill bidding that people may be observing and mis-interpreting. Call in bids are usually taken if someone wants to buy an item but can’t attend, and that can appear like an employee running up the price. The other thing is people who work at auctions like myself are often re-sellers as well. Some high end auctions (think Sotheby’s) do not allow employees to buy things, but your average mom and pop auction house can not afford to pay a livable salary to all the people working on auction day. So by necessity those people are part time, and many supplement their income by ebay or flea market selling or antique malls. In either of those circumstances it can look like an employee is running you up, but both are legit.
As far as storage lockers, they certainly can be looked through once the locks are cut by either the auctioneer or the storage locker manager. I would recommend only going to storage locker auctions where they cut the locks at the auction.
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Now I know what you mean by ringer. There are usually one or two at a table. The clerk sits at a desk elsewhere in the room. Sometimes she has to ask for clarification, so she will come on the loudspeaker “out of nowhere” to ask her question.
Every once in a while the clerk will want something, so this “disembodied voice” will be bidding on an item. Maybe those are call-in bids.
I also see some of the employees bidding on items. They will usually pull out an item from a box lot. When one of them does that, the price starts at $10, so I don’t think that they are resellers.
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