The online system (ARTFACT) bugged out just during the phaser bidding. They deliberately passed it rather than miss any internet bids. I was on the phone with Profiles at the time and told them about the bug-out. They then stopped bidding to reboot, about 10-15 minutes.
Profiles in History - Auction #56
- Thread starter Art Andrews
- Start date
Monkey67
Sr Member
That system froze a few times. How many fair warning do they do? I saw some get like 3 others had about 8 before bidding closed. My one item did 7 before..someone bid on the 7th. then did 3 on their last bid before closing the item. Which I upbid during the 3rd count, but item closed and my bid went to the next item. Wtf is tha crap??
newworld
Well-Known Member
While anything is possible, I kind of doubt anyone willing to place a starting bid of $96,000 (with kicker) for the phaser would do so via the internet. I'd be either on the phone or there in person to ensure a smooth process. Bottom line on the phaser was that the start was too high and the results prove the point. A hero could have commanded that price (and maybe more) but apparently not a beat-up mid-grade that is missing parts.
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newworld
Well-Known Member
There was general confusion going on during the Phaser lot because apparently there was suddenly an issue with the internet bidding. According to the auctioneer they thought there was a single internet bid but the seller has since said it didn't sell. The Artfact listing showed it at $0.
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Rik1138
Sr Member
People really need to stop using the word 'estimate' with PIH auctions...
PIH _DOES NOT DO ESTIMATES_! There is nothing to the 'estimate' printed in the catalog that is in any way related to the value of the item. PIH prints the _reserve_ in the catalog (and then adds a couple of hundred or thousand, and calls that an 'estimate'), and does not make any effort to actually estimate it's value.
If I wanted to sell the ruby slippers from Oz, and was willing to sell them for $200, the PIH catalog would say the 'estimate' is $200-400, knowing damn well they'd probably sell for a million... The seller comes up with a minimum price he'll sell for, and suddenly that becomes the 'estimate'.
Saying something sold for more than the reserve price just means the seller got more than the minimum we was willing to sell it for. Sure, sometimes those numbers do fall in the correct range, but if the seller just wants to get rid of it for whatever he can get, the 'estimate' (reserve) is lower.
newworld
Well-Known Member
$2500 + kicker
I'm not totally sure I entirely agree with that assessment. When I determined the reserve amount on the TOS Phaser in discussions with Profiles, we were mindful of the $79,950 final price realized in December, 2011 for the TOS hand phaser that they auctioned (and also the incredible nearly quarter million dollar final amount realized in the recent WNMHGB Phaser Rifle sale). Our thoughts were that a Phaser Pistol (even missing some small dials) could be considered a much more substantial prop than a hand phaser, and that's why the opening bid was set to $80,000 (admittedly, close to $98K with premium yet still the same ballpark as the hand phaser). It's true that given the rarity of some of these items, and the lack of many historical records on previous sales of similar pieces, it is difficult to estimate with great accuracy at times. And I'm not certain if other consignors tried to study past sales at all in their formulation of the reserve amount, but hopefully they tried to be reasonable. (Though I do recall some recent TOS extras / guest cast costumes offered at auction at significantly inflated amounts - in the 25K range - which might support your argument, LOL.)
Rik1138
Sr Member
But it's still not an 'estimate', it's a reserve. It's a price you (well, the seller), decides is the LOWEST he will take for the item. If more than two people bid on anything once or twice, it will almost always go out of the range of the 'estimate'. A true estimate should not be the same as the starting bid (and, in fact, as far as I know PIH is the only auction house that does this... Well, now Screen Used as well...). Every other fine-art, collectible or even liquidation auction will put a more-or-less educated-guess estimated value on something, and the bidding starts at a lower amount. Maybe not much lower, but if they are any good at determining estimates, the bidding will get pretty close anyway most likely. And if it doesn't, maybe the estimate was a little off... So what?
And, in this case, you (assuming you are the consignor of that piece?) actually discussed it, etc... And then you decided that you wanted the reserve to be the estimate value you discussed. Again, that's just a reserve, not an estimate. It might be based on a discussed estimated value, but it's still just a reserve.
Look at all the Star Trek stuff Screen Used sold in their last auction. The consignor just wanted to sell _everything_, she didn't really care what it sold for, just wanted it all sold. No reserves, if it gets a bid, it sells. So, since they use the same system as PIH for some reason, every item had a starting bid of $200, and an estimate of $200-400 (or so). So advertising that a lot of those items sold 'well above the estimates!!!' is just silly. Those weren't estimates, just the lowest price accepted. If they were completely honest in their descriptions, they would state:
Opening bid: $200
Eastimate: $1000-1500
Or whatever...
Yeah, PIH will talk with you about your price (I'm sure they wouldn't _want_ to list the ruby slippers at $200...
), but in the end don't you have final say? If you agreed with them (and anyone else you discussed with) that the phaser was worth ~$80,000, but you would have been happy selling it for half that, it would have been listed in PIH as having an _estimated value_ of $40,000, even if they (and you) really felt it was worth more (and the bidding might have reflected that).
It's just sort of a deceptive auction listing. They should just list 'Starting Bid:' in their catalogs and leave it at that...
And getting a fair estimate on some of this stuff is difficult I imagine, especially if there isn't a lot to base it on.
It's just funny when people state things basically like 'Everything sold at the last PIH auction either met or exceeded the estimated values!' Well, yeah, of course it did... It's impossible for it not to. If it sells, it's at least within the estimate (or within maybe one bid increment), they've designed their auctions to work that way.
The accurate way to state that would be 'Everything that sold at the last PIH auction met the consignor's reserve price!'
See how silly that sounds? But that's what happened, they (PIH) just mis-use a different word in place of 'reserve'
And, in this case, you (assuming you are the consignor of that piece?) actually discussed it, etc... And then you decided that you wanted the reserve to be the estimate value you discussed. Again, that's just a reserve, not an estimate. It might be based on a discussed estimated value, but it's still just a reserve.
Look at all the Star Trek stuff Screen Used sold in their last auction. The consignor just wanted to sell _everything_, she didn't really care what it sold for, just wanted it all sold. No reserves, if it gets a bid, it sells. So, since they use the same system as PIH for some reason, every item had a starting bid of $200, and an estimate of $200-400 (or so). So advertising that a lot of those items sold 'well above the estimates!!!' is just silly. Those weren't estimates, just the lowest price accepted. If they were completely honest in their descriptions, they would state:
Opening bid: $200
Eastimate: $1000-1500
Or whatever...
Yeah, PIH will talk with you about your price (I'm sure they wouldn't _want_ to list the ruby slippers at $200...
), but in the end don't you have final say? If you agreed with them (and anyone else you discussed with) that the phaser was worth ~$80,000, but you would have been happy selling it for half that, it would have been listed in PIH as having an _estimated value_ of $40,000, even if they (and you) really felt it was worth more (and the bidding might have reflected that).It's just sort of a deceptive auction listing. They should just list 'Starting Bid:' in their catalogs and leave it at that...
And getting a fair estimate on some of this stuff is difficult I imagine, especially if there isn't a lot to base it on.
It's just funny when people state things basically like 'Everything sold at the last PIH auction either met or exceeded the estimated values!' Well, yeah, of course it did... It's impossible for it not to. If it sells, it's at least within the estimate (or within maybe one bid increment), they've designed their auctions to work that way.
The accurate way to state that would be 'Everything that sold at the last PIH auction met the consignor's reserve price!'
See how silly that sounds? But that's what happened, they (PIH) just mis-use a different word in place of 'reserve'
MoviePropCollector
Sr Member
My comment above is accurate concerning prices realized on many of the lots sold. I also correctly described how the items are/were listed. Just about every auction house has and uses the word, "estimate", as a guideline for bidding and is listed in auction descriptions.
Saying something sold for more than the estimate, reserve, or expected price means exactly that. When two bidders want something enough they sometimes bid over what is listed as the estimate. Who said any different?
Why are you so upset about this?
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Rik1138
Sr Member
Yeah, I mentioned that above...
I _KNOW_ auction houses use estimates... And they are usually that- _estimates_. They are an educated guess of what something will sell for based on what similar items have sold for in the past.
They are NOT the guaranteed minimum price the item will sell for if it gets any bids.
That is called a reserve. In auctions, these are two completely different things. There should be a reserve _AND_ an estimate (if the sellers wants a reserve), but they usually aren't the exact same number... You have a price you want to get for the item, and you and others also have an educated guess what others might think it's worth... If you know for a FACT that it's worth exactly $10,000, and no one will ever pay more than $10,000, and you list it with a reserve and start price of $10,000, and you get the one bid you knew you'd get... That's a sale, not an auction.
A reserve is the minimum price a seller will sell an item for. The estimate is an educated guess of what it's worth and likely to sell for.
Take the violin in your example above. It's _estimated_ to be worth $3000-4000 or so, probably based on similar violins selling in the past. But if I bid $1500, and no one else bids, I'll get it for $1500. Less than the estimate...
How many times does that happen with PIH?
I didn't sign into any of those auctions, but is the low-end of the estimate the minimum starting bid on any of those auctions? Maybe more companies are just using the reserve price as the low estimate these days... It's just not something I _ever_ saw until PIH... Or maybe most people that follow prop auctions don't really participate in other auctions and think it's normal... (Like when someone suggest at any auction other then eBay to just bid right at the end and you have a better chance of winning... :facepalm )
But those terms are NOT interchangeable... They mean different things..
You aren't saying 'different', but you are using the examples of items selling above their reserve prices to indicate a _REALLY_ successful sale... (As in, lots of things selling far above what people assumed the items are worth). That's not the case. They simply sold above the minimum price the seller would accept (i.e., sold above the reserve). There was no way in hell the Marylin Monroe pictures were going to sell for $3000 or less. No way the original poster art was going to sell for $600... Etc. Those weren't 'estimates' based on educated guesses of the value, those were just minimum sale prices...
Sure, some things sold for far above what anyone would have ever guessed, that happens with any auction (and probably pretty frequently in PIH ones...). And it's fine to say it sold for more than the number PIH printed in their catalog, but for many of those things no one believed they would sell anywhere near those prices...
I think it's more surprised that people just don't understand what the numbers mean in the PIH catalog. If it's an estimate, then some times things will sell below, sometimes above... It's just weird how they do it and how they word it. I think they do it so they can basically tell people that nothing ever sells for less than their 'estimates'. I guess it could look bad if you estimate a lot of things at, say, $5000, and most of them sell for $1500 or something.
People will also say things like 'Wow, I guess the economy isn't so bad after all if people can bid so much more than these items are estimated to be worth...' Someone says that every time there's a PIH auction...
Of course, you are probably right with that last comment, just shouldn't let it bug me... :lol
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MoviePropCollector
Sr Member
Not in your response while quoting me.
Already know that. The article was not a discussion about reserves and estimates. It listed estimates as described in the auction and their selling prices.
I said many items sold well above their auction estimates (which are listed in the sale). I never said anything concerning any items reserve. You did in your comment.
You need to contact the various auction houses for their policies as I am sure they vary.
I never said they were interchangeable and know they mean two different things
.Not entirely accurate.
If any item, including the MM items, had an estimate listed for say $1,000-$2,000,(and some did), and their was only one bid, that item would sell for $1,000.
As an example of your estimate being the reserve (and I never said the estimate is or is not the reserve. For that info one would need to ask the auction house and not speculate). Check out these Warner Archives items estimates, and what they sold for:
Lot 941: Lucille Ball "Mame Dennis" costume created for Mame. Estimated Price: $10,000 - $15,000. Sold for $8,000
Lot 943: Gremlin puppet mounted on helmet created for Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Estimated Price: $4,000 - $6,000. Sold for $3,000
Lot 955: Mark Kubr "Hunter Morlock" Costume created for The Time Machine. Estimated Price: $1,000 - $2,000. Sold for $600
Lot 958: George Clooney "Batman" costume created for Batman and Robin. Estimated Price: $30,000 - $50,000. Sold for $27,500
There were others.
If anyone wants to know information on a particular auction they should inquire by email or phone before the auction. This goes for all auction houses. I am sure the minimum required to win an item varies according to the auction, item, and terms of the particular sale.
I just got back from LA and need to get some sleep. Please know it's all good and I'm not saying you aren't entitled to your views or anything like that. Just wanted to add to the discussion
.
Rik1138
Sr Member
I guess that's where we differ on our definitions. PIH's 'estimates' are actually reserves (regardless of whether anyone thinks they are also a fair estimate price or not. Sometimes they are, I'm sure, but not always). Why do you think the bidding _STARTS_ at those values (and is frequently fake-bid up to by the auctioneer). They just don't do hidden reserves like most auction houses, they just put the reserve out there for all to see.
As you pointed out, the only time this really isn't the case is with studio items. I'm not sure what their agreements are with the studios, but the bidding usually starts one or two bid increments below the low end of the estimate. I have actually won things for just a tad under the estimate, and they came directly from the studio. But you will never see an item in PIH with a $10,000+ estimate start bidding (with real bids) at $1000.
I'm just used to auctions that have 3 price variables:
Starting price
Reserve price (optional)
Estimated value
They usually fall in that order, and they usually aren't the same number between the 3.
Example: Bidding starts at $1000, there's a (optional) reserve of $2000, and the estimate is $4000-5000 based on past sales of similar items... It could sell for $1000 if there's no reserve, it could sell for $2000. It could sell for $15,000. But the expectation is $4000-5000 at least, but it's not guaranteed even if the items sells. Auctions are sort of like gambling.. :cool
And, yes, the items (like the MM pics) could have sold for just the starting bid, but no one that knows what things like that sell for would have ever bet money on that... Sure, you can't predict anything, but after watching past auctions of similar items it's obvious what most people think it will do. But notice, even if it sold with one bid (other than the studio stuff) it would still be selling within the estimate.
I just think they list their auctions in a weird way.
newworld
Well-Known Member
You have to start differentiating between someone simply disagreeing with you and them being "mean-spirited" and "intellectually dishonest". Your comments are naturally self-serving – you were the seller. To say that no one else has written about the phaser write-up as I have is probably true, since the only other person to write anything was you, the seller. I've not heard from anyone else who thought my review was anything but accurate. I'm wondering who these people are that you say "have applauded the level of detailed, comprehensive analysis contained in the description that genuinely attempts to provide the reader with meaningful evidence of authenticity for the prop". I haven't read about anyone applauding. Where, exactly, can we read about that?
The bottom line on the phaser was I agreed with you that it was (probably) real. I guess I didn't agree hard enough?
Yes, I'm sure you do believe the write-up is clear. It's written in the same murky style that you seem to prefer. It words things in such a way that leads the reader to imply whatever they want it to mean. I had 3 other Star Trek collectors read the Phaser description and tell me what they felt it meant. Two agreed with me that it said the piece was screen-matched to multiple eps, while the third said said they weren't sure WHAT it meant, it was so confusing. I guess we're all morons.
As a perfect example of the misleading aspect of the copy, in your comments about your Phaser, you cherry-picked the key words in a sentence to yield the meaning you want:
"major features ... in its design ... have been screen matched"
But this is also what it says:
"with all of its...numerous subtle contours in its design painstakingly screen-matched"
If "contours" are "screen-matched", then that is a claim it was specifically used in the cited episodes, IMO. And the opinion of others as well. I guess we'll haver to agree to disagree.
How hard is it to simply say "elements are consistent with on-screen pieces" instead of "This fiberglass mid-grade pistol phaser is perhaps the most extensively researched TOS prop that we have ever auctioned, with all of its major features and numerous subtle contours in its design painstakingly screen-matched to several late 2nd and 3rd season The Original Series episodes including “Assignment: Earth”, “Spock’s Brain”, “Plato’s Stepchildren” and “The Cloud Minders”. "? The quoted passage is designed to mislead, IMO, pure and simple. YMMV.
As for the value of the piece, if someone (anyone!) had felt it was worth almost $100,000 of their money, they would have bought it, period. Since it didn't sell, the market is saying it's not worth that much, whatever the P1 and Phaser Rifle went for.
Rik, you're trying to debunk what I call "auctionese", the self-serving, confusing language used by some auction houses to push their product (see above). It's misleading, to say the least, but it is ultimately successful as demonstrated right here on this forum. Posters write about "the estimate" as you pointed out, not "the reserve". The fact that it is not ALWAYS the reserve (but usually is) adds to the confusion. They've drank the Kool-Aid, which is especially ironic given that seasoned collectors should know better.
I'm in advertising. I value clarity and I know BS when I read it. And PIH is fluent in BS.
FWIW, Rik, I completely agree with your take.
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Stairstars
Well-Known Member
Nice to read good spirited debates.
Below are some remarks made by members of the Star Trek Props, Costumes & Auctions Forum (startrek.invisionzone.com) in the "Screen Matched Assignment:Earth TOS Phaser Pistol In Profiles July 2013 Hollywood Auction" thread that I created there, in which I also embedded the full set of annotated screen-matched images (the same set appearing earlier in this thread). These remarks were made in response to those annotated images. I blacked out the identities of the writers to respect their privacy ... as I didn't obtain permission to quote them here in another forum ... but their comments and indentities are not anonymous in the invisionzone forum thread. Several are very well respected, knowledgeable Star Trek collectors with a great level of expertise, IMO. Again, just clicking on the thumbnails will present a much larger image ...
I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the clarity of the write-up. It certainly wasn't intended to mislead and I believe it's perfectly clear in asserting screen use of this unique prop only in the episode "Assignment: Earth". There is even the direct statement in the Profiles description "... match those evident on a screen capture from "Assignment: Earth" (first airdate: Mar 29, 1968), which directly establishes the on-screen use of this prop in that highly memorable The Original Series time-travel episode." Why would that line of description even be necessary if there was a declaration of screen use of the unique prop in 4 episodes made earlier in the write-up, as you suggest? If someone is intent on being mean-spirited and asserting malicious behavior, then they will imagine deception where there is none and no amount of reasonable debate/evidence will convince them otherwise, I think.
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newworld
Well-Known Member
I know I'm getting old, but all I see are a bunch of "attaboys". If you think those generic remarks as mean they "have applauded the level of detailed, comprehensive analysis contained in the description that genuinely attempts to provide the reader with meaningful evidence of authenticity for the prop", then I can see wherein the problem lies.
You see what you want to see.
I'm guilty of critical thinking, not maliciousness. If I were truly the scoundrel you claim I am, I would have done one of two things:
1. Dumped on the phaser and discredit it, or
2. Not written about the phaser at all.
I did neither. My goal is to be an honest and fair presenter of facts, period. Not "hopes", not "maybes" – facts.
I don't know if it is PIH's intent to mislead or if they simply suck at writing simple, easy-to-understand copy. But the best I can say about the PIH text is that if a sentence has to be diagramed and explained for people to clearly understand its intent, it's lousy copy. It could be written clearly and still sell effectively. I don't know what their intent is. I only know the outcome. Confusion.
YMMV.
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You see what you want to see.
I'm guilty of critical thinking, not maliciousness. If I were truly the scoundrel you claim I am, I would have done one of two things:
1. Dumped on the phaser and discredit it, or
2. Not written about the phaser at all.
I did neither. My goal is to be an honest and fair presenter of facts, period. Not "hopes", not "maybes" – facts.
I don't know if it is PIH's intent to mislead or if they simply suck at writing simple, easy-to-understand copy. But the best I can say about the PIH text is that if a sentence has to be diagramed and explained for people to clearly understand its intent, it's lousy copy. It could be written clearly and still sell effectively. I don't know what their intent is. I only know the outcome. Confusion.
YMMV.
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newworld
Well-Known Member
They didn't sell. No bids. You can see the prices here:
Hollywood Auction 56 - Day 2 - Profiles in History
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