Buying a car at auction is inherently risky. Beyond the potential for bidding wars and the as-is nature of sales, the real power is held by the auction house, and sometimes it’s not wielded with the utmost discretion. Case in point: Classic car dealer Bobby Adams claims that at the Mecum auction in Monterey on Aug. 16, the auctioneer sold a car out from under him and that it was all caught on camera.
Here’s what the video appears to depict: With a beautiful Continental Mark II (retcon’d Dino-style as a Lincoln Continental Mark II by FoMoCo) on the red carpet, Adams puts in a bid of $31,000, and after some waffling, the seller takes the reserve off the car. With that done, the auctioneer appears to drop the gavel and say “sold.” However, the auctioneer then appears to re-open bidding on the Lincoln and it goes up to $33,000.
Unsurprisingly, Adams was upset by this and responded in a way many of us would, to which the auctioneer asks “Were you here for the morning announcement?” After other bidders voice their displeasure over how things went down, the video cuts to a shot of a man in a Mecum shirt claiming that the auctioneer “did not say sold” even though it certainly sounds like he did on the video. So what on earth is going on here?
@bobbyadamsworld They stole our car!! ???? What would you do? #classiccar ♬ original sound – bobbyadamsworld
Well, let’s start by hitting the books. As it turns out, California Commercial Code section 2328 states that bidding can open back up after the gavel drops, but only under certain conditions. Here’s what the law actually says:
A sale by auction is complete when the auctioneer so announces by the fall of the hammer or in other customary manner. Where a bid is made while the hammer is falling in acceptance of a prior bid the auctioneer may in his discretion reopen the bidding or declare the goods sold under the bid on which the hammer was falling.
So, the big question now is whether or not saying “sold” (which is how it appeared in the clipl) after the gavel dropped on the $31,000 bid would constitute declaring the Lincoln as sold. While many auction houses would call it done, Mecum may argue that a last-minute bid was placed, and under that circumstance, bidding could be reopened. If that rubs you the wrong way, there’s probably a reason for that. As for that morning announcement, when it came to declaring a sale, Mecum’s declaration at the start of the auction only stated “know what you’re bidding on, know what you’re buying because fall of the hammer and the auctioneer announces ‘sold,’ ownership transfers, it’s then your vehicle.”
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While it’s sometimes hard to piece together exactly what happened from social media clips, Mecum doesn’t just happen behind closed doors. It broadcasts all of its auctions, which means we also get to see the incident from the view of the official cameras. The auctioneer appears to declare the Lincoln sold after dropping the hammer on the $31,000 bid, and the chyron on the official video feed appears to show the car as being sold at $31,000.
Understandably, this situation has caused some uproar. One TikTok user commented, “Mecum just lost a LOT of credibility,” while another commented “one of the crookedest things I have seen on an auction block in 40 years.” Over on Instagram, sentiments are much the same, with one user commenting:
So do you think the backlash the auction is getting worth the extra 2k they got which is what? Like $500 more to the auction if that. I swear I’ll never understand how people process things. ???? like now look at the damage that’s been done for not setting the rules you made for the auction.
We reached out to Mecum regarding this incident, but the company has not yet returned our requests for comment. As it turns out, Adams also claims not to have heard anything from Mecum as of Thursday. In any case, between auction house commissions and live incidents like this, it’s not surprising to see digital auction houses like Bring A Trailer and Cars & Bids becoming the new establishment. While those platforms certainly aren’t perfect, the way they work means the situation seen here likely wouldn’t have played out the same for cars sold exclusively online.
Top graphic image: Mecum
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Stuff like this is the perfect reason why I will never auction off my Pinto that Alice Cooper once farted in…YMMV of course.
If that went across the auction block it might kick up a stink.
An appropriate vehicle for just such an explosion out back.
I’ve been to a lot of auctions in my life. Regular cars, collector cars, antiques. For years I would go twice a week. Late bids like this happen all the time. It’s a normal thing. Nobody cares. This guy is making a big deal about nothing.
I have witnessed Mecum doing some sketchy things in the past, so it doesn’t surprise me at all.
Auctions – the guaranteed way to make sure you pay more than anyone else is willing to pay.
In a perfect world, it’s a truly efficient (in an economic sense) transaction. So that means it’s also the cheapest you could have paid.
That’s exactly the point of an Auction.
Apparently Mecum’s going on the technicality that the auctioneer, having dropped the hammer and gotten 3/4 of the way through saying “sold”, didn’t say the final consonant. Which is one hell of a technicality. You can argue the finer points of the law and the auctioneer’s duty being to the seller, but reputationally that technicality makes them look like a little “d”.
At this point the least worst thing to do is to do the sale to Adams at $31k and for Mecum to make up the extra couple grand to the seller and probably also waive/refund their seller’s fee and commission.
I went back and listened again. Someone clearly raised the bid before sold was said and before the hammer dropped.
I’ll have to watch but so? This isn’t eBay where the bidding stops at 11:59:59:59. Using the most charitable sequence: Buyer A was in at 31, then before the sold and/or hammer hit buyer B got in at 34, so then the bidding isn’t closed, buyer A can (in fact must be allowed to) offer 35. Saying (and I’m not trying to argue with you) that the 34 bid coming in before the “sold”, applied to the “sold” is disingenuous. The nature and accepted process of bidding is that all buyers in attendance (or online/phone) have at least a few seconds and at least a warning (the classic “going once, twice, sold”). This was basically sniping, which applies to time based auctions (like eBay), not “live” ones.
Edit, I watched it and it’s garbage. He was looking for 32, wasn’t getting it and hammered at 31.
He actually did get 32, you can hear it when the hammer is at the apex. The next word out of his mouth after sold was 32, and then he kept going for another 30 seconds where he got 33 and tried to get 34. So pissed off dude did have a chance to increase, but he got butthurt because he didn’t get his way on the auction ending.
That auction is hot garbage, like I say below, best case Adams should have been allowed to counter the 32, he had no chance.
He did have a chance. That’s how it got to 33. He had 30 seconds after the first sold where the auctioneer was still taking bids, during which time the auctioneer was explaining why he kept taking bids (the 32 bid came when the hammer was at it’s apex, and before Sold was said.)
Oh! I see what you mean now, so when the auctioneer was saying “were you here this morning?” that was referring to the bidding reopening at the last millisecond?
Yes.
I have no knowledge of auction etiquette but all the ones I have attended have finished with going once, going twice, going for $x for the final time and closed on the hammer sound. I may have missed something but it seems after he announced reserve lifted he went straight to sold. Thereby screwed the seller I say a quality move by the auction house not to sell on a technical
I saw a social media clip of the RM Sotheby’s auction where the auctioneer was very clearly saying sixty and seventy and the screens showed as such, but then when they realized their fake bids had no real bids, they claimed he was really saying sixteen and seventeen and hoped for real bids.
Everything about Car Week is a scam and/or money laundering.
I’ve attempted to buy a car twice via auction. My experience was there are always a few idiots in the crowd that feel they need to “win”… and will overpay so they can “win”
When I buy a vehicle, I want to get a good deal. I don’t want to have to compete with other buyers who are often idiots who lack self-control and overpay in order to “win”
And on one of those times, I saw the auctioneer do the odd weird shit… like one time, instead of doing the usual ‘going once… going twice… sold’, I watched the guy say:
“Going once…. …. ….. … Going twice… … … …. any other bids?…… anyone?…. anyone?… … … .. . … … … sold”
I could see the guy with the top bid getting pissed… and I would have been pissed too.
And getting back to the idiot bidders… I saw a few idiots ‘win’… and then realized they overpaid and literally tried running out the door so they wouldn’t have to pay up for the auction they “won” because of their idiocy and lack of self-control.
No thanks.
To me, auctions are THE WORST way to buy a car.
The only good time you might get a deal is if an auction is poorly attended and you put in a low bid on something nobody else is interested in.
The auctioneer’s job is not to please the leading bidder, it’s to tease out the last dollar from any other potential buyer still in the crowd.
If the leading bidder got mad about the auctioneer doing his job more thoroughly than others, that person doesn’t really belong at an auction, because they’re 100% wrong.
The auctioneer is hired by the seller for the sole purpose of getting the most money for an item, quickly.
If you’re setting limits and sticking to them, you’re doing it right for you.
I get plenty of great deals at auction. I usually spend my entire budget on great deals, and leave before the auction ends, even at well-attended auctions. I do this mostly by knowing more about what I’m buying and what I’m passing over than a majority of the other bidders. Information is power and worth a lot of money at auctions.
“If the leading bidder got mad about the auctioneer doing his job more thoroughly than others, that person doesn’t really belong at an auction, because they’re 100% wrong.”
But it wasn’t the case. I’m talking about the same auctioneer doing different things and different amounts of waiting seemingly dependent on whether certain bidders were in the lead… almost like he was using his position to play favourites within the parameters he was allowed to.
It doesn’t matter. The auctioneer’s job is to play favorites to the person upping the bid, regardless.
Most people will bid higher under pressure. Snap bidders who will up the bid because time is running out and they might miss out on that thing they want.
But there are others, you can usually spot them if you try, who will only raise their bid after they’ve paused a moment or two, as if fearful of being run over by the auctioneer. Afraid to overspend. Afraid to look foolish or impulsive.
If the auctioneer thinks that someone is likely to up their bid if given an extra moment, he’s actually obligated by his profession to give them the extra moment.
Sorry if it doesn’t look fair. It’s just a professional who’s better at his job than you’re giving him credit for. He’s just to both the “fear of missing out” people as well as the “fear of bidding badly” people. If he only plays to one type, he isn’t getting full value, and isn’t a good auctioneer.
this is a good point. an auction is’nt supposed to be a ‘lightning round’ it often is due to lack of time and a ton of other items that need to auctioned but it can go at whatever pace.
The best advice I can give an auction buyer is to pay attention to the early lots, because in addition to knowing what you’re buying and what you should pay, you need to know the auctioneer and the buyers in attendance as well as you possibly can.
Nah… fuck all that. I’d rather just deal with a seller directly… even if the seller is a used car dealer.
There are many different strategies as a purchaser. Sometimes quick bidding when you are well below you maximum will indicated to other bidders you are going to keep increasing until you win. Sometimes the slow bidder is already near or over their max, and is contemplating if they really want to spend that much.
Sounds like a real estate agent. Just as bad.
You wouldn’t be complaining if you were the seller and your agent netted you an extra $10K or more, would you?
Do you buy cars at auction, or other stuff? I’ve won some good deals on eBay before, but the few times I’ve been to in-person auctions for misc equipment, film props, cars, etc, I’ve not seen anyone get screaming deals, or do much better in the end that they might have with a direct sale (assuming that was ever an option for whatever they bought. I get 1 of 1 things like movie props are usually always sold at auctions).
I’ve bought “only” two cars at auction. Both were awesome deals. But I’ve attended and purchased at literally hundreds of auctions.
During an extended period of unemployment, buying items at auction for resale was my primary source of income. Knowing old watches, for example, can be very lucrative. Some of my best (and worst) purchases were very old watches.
During and for a while after the Great Depression, my grandfather was an auctioneer, so I have a lot of knowledge and stories about auctions and how they work.
Nobody gets mad at an auctioneer for doing his job, but if you drop the hammer and say sold, the auction is over. If the bidder tried to back out they would not allow that, so the auctioneer should not be able to back out. I have been to lots of auctions, and some auctioneers are very ethical, but others are outright cheats and liars. One local auctioneer in particular knows my bidding patterns quite well (I’m never competing for top bid on hot items, I’m getting bottom dollar lots that others don’t want) and occasionally uses me for ghost bids. I pretty much have to walk away so that he can’t point to me and claim that the bids went up. I’ve also seen him sell no reserve items to other auction staff that wasn’t bidding on an item – either to get the items himself or keep it from selling too low. Sometimes those items strangely cross the block again later in the day.
Auctions are a game of patience. If you are patiently bidding, but not over-bidding, eventually you will score a good deal.
Well Uncle Jesse, I was sooo patient that I always got outbid by the idiots and the auctions ended and I left without overpaying for anything.
Of course that’s because I didn’t buy anything… LOL
But how is that a problem? Others “overpaid” because they’re “idiots” and you, apparently the only smart guy in the room, left with his money still in his pocket.
“you, apparently the only smart guy in the room, left with his money still in his pocket.”
Correct.
I’d rather leave with my money in my pocket than leave without having the money and having paid too much.
“Going once…. …. ….. … Going twice… … … …. any other bids?…… anyone?…. anyone?… … … .. . … … … sold”
That occurs at literally any Christie’s or Sotheby’s art/antiques auction.
Nothing special or untoward there.
Hence, it reinforces my view that auctions are usually the worst place to buy cars… and other stuff as well.
“Just one of the quirks and features of certain dinosaur auction services.
On the other hand, THIS…..”
Oh good, so this adds to Mecum having 75 televised auctions a month (they do seem to have cut back on that now), while also somehow being the least exciting car auctions out there.
The prices were a bit more insane on Barrett-Jackson, but man the energy was just through the roof on Friday night and Saturday. They were fun to watch.
Mecum, by comparison, is an absolute snooze-fest.
This triggers PTSD from the decade I spent as a BINGO caller. Often multiple people would shout “Bingo!” We would send our volunteers to verify each one, and once every Bingo was verified or shown to be not a Bingo, the game would move on as soon as the words “Closing game ___ with ___ bingos” came out of my mouth.
Everyone once in a while, some slowpoke would shout Bingo while that sentence was coming out of my mouth. Policy was if I started to say it, the game was closed and no more Bingos could be checked. It was a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. If I caught myself before the first syllable, I could send someone to check the bingo. If it was a good bingo, the winners now got less prize money because they had to split it with yet another person. I wanted to make sure no winners missed out, but once those words left my mouth, I would tell the late Bingo they were too late and move on.
No matter what I did, someone was always pissed off and it sucked. Often, someone missed out on a Bingo, but rules are rules. This looks like the same thing. The bid might have come in as the gavel was dropping. Dude probably should have not taken the bid. However, no matter what he did, people were going to be pissed.
Glad I’m not an auctioneer and even more glad I am retired from calling Bingo.
“Pol… ” BINGO!!! “…icy was if…” I SAID BINGO!!! “… I started to say it… ” I SAID BINGO MOTHERFUCKER!!!!
LOL.
The bigger problem was the person with the quiet voice who I can’t hear and the crowd waits until I’ve closed to game to yell at me that I missed it when Little Lungs whispered Bingo. Or conversely, the person who yells something else that sounds vaguely like Bingo and everyone gets pissed if I stop to make sure it was or wasn’t Bingo before I move on.
Going to drink these memories away tonight for sure.
you sunk my battleship
The fact that Mecum charges a flat fee and commission to the seller AND an auction premium to the buyer always turned me off to ever paying attention to them anyway.
I asked ChatGPT to compare the selling fees/commissions across big in-person auctions and various online auction companies, and the general output is the in-person auction are only worth the costs when a vehicle is singularly unique or has some unique historical significance where a live in-person auction can play that up, otherwise you’ll make more money selling online.
I have always wondered when you see the mass-produced, fairly recent model cross the block and it doesn’t seem to get any special money. There are a bunch of them though every time if you watch outside the core Saturday lineup on the TV auctions. Hell it is probably bad money after you pay your auction fees.
Are these guys just the ultimate “I know what I’ve got” sellers who think their 2017 gray on black SL550 is some special car that will get the bidders going nuts?
I know sometimes there are whole collections being consigned, so I suppose the SL550 could be coming from the same place as a Aston Martin DB5, but I doubt that is all of them.
Quite likely, though I’m sure you’re right about many of them being part of larger collections sold all at once. I also know too that a lot of sellers are hoping to drum up some bidding fervor, where buyers dizzy with the adrenaline of the auction environment end up bidding up far higher than the car is really worth. That’s why auctioneers have their characteristic speeches
But yeah, I don’t see what makes these big in-person auctions attractive to any seller, unless maybe someone is looking to “trade” for a vehicle in the auction so the proceeds from selling a car at auction would go right back into bidding on another, and they were planning to go to the auction anyway. Tyler Hoover of Hoovie’s garage has alluded to that in the past, but I’m not sure if the auction house cuts you a break on commissions at all if you do that.
the goal is probably to get more than trade-in and not have to deal with tire kickers or people showing up to their house / gated community.
maybe maybe not. its basically gambleing. As a seller you take the car to the big events where there are lots of hungry buyers and you could have a bidding war. or at least have it sold today. If you sell it private it could take a long time to even sell and there is a chance it might not?
I guess it depends on the car and situation, but I guess I meant more “non-auction” like consignment vs. pure private party sale like someone bringing a stack of bills to your house and picking up the car.
I haven’t sold a classic car before, but I have sold four cars private party via craigslist / FB / etc, and all of them sold in under a week and I got what I was hoping to get out of each of them.
Not to mention there is a VERY long standing understanding/rumor/what have you that Mecum takes ghost bids on a very regular basis to pump results, and I have seen so many stories online of sellers releasing reserve when it hits an acceptable number, no new bids come in, and they end up not selling due to that magic bid being fabricated by the auctioneer.
Mecum gets their very high fee from the seller regardless, and cashes in on pumping up hype for people with far more money than sense. It’s and an auction environment I have been wary of, and there’s far too many anecdotes like these online to make me change my mind any time soon .
So this mechanism where you are allowed to remove the reserve mid-auction, is an encouragement for shill bidders and scammers.
What bothers me MORE than the Mecum kerfuffle, Thomas, is you referring to this car as a “Lincoln Continental Mark II.”
It is not.
It never was.
It never will be.
Continental was its own separate division from 1954-57.
Check it out…
Nah, your pedantry is worse than his mistake, and Mecum is the worst of all
Thank you, Richard, for being here! And for your pedantry. You are correct.
I called it out too 🙂
I, um, have some bad news on the “It never will be” front. Technically, FoMoCo retcon’d the Continental Mark II as a Lincoln Continental years ago, to the point where Continental doesn’t show up as a separate marque in the Ford Heritage Vault even though Merkur and Monarch still do.
There’s this dude here in Detroit named Barry Wolk, the keeper of all important information regarding the Continental division. I met him because I did what you did in Automotive News and got the email equivalent of a 2×4 across the side of my head.
Then Barry and I became friends. He owns one of the three Continental (not Lincoln) convertibles.
He’s had some very interesting historical articles published on the Continental division and Lincoln, on Hagerty.
And…
Perhaps the topic would be good article fodder for this, my favorite site that isn’t one I write for.
It even had its own totally separate headquarters building in Ecorse Township, a good 7 miles away from Lincoln-Mercury’s offices in Dearborn (the Continental building was subsequently repurposed as Edsel headquarters)
This is a no-brainer and should head to court if not settled. I heard Sold and saw a hammer strike. If I was a judge or juror, it would take zero deliberation.
well, what would be the grounds for the lawsuit? That the guy was prevented from buying some car he wanted? I mean, I guess, but what’s his injury? That he was blocked from spending $31,000? I’m not sure what sort of damages you could claim on that, and you’d probably have a hard time getting a lawyer to take it
IANAL. Breach of contract.
What’s the damages? The would-be buyer literally isnt out anything, he didn’t lose any money, and it isnt clear that he was getting a good enough deal on the car to be able to claim he missed out on a future gain by being blocked from buying it
And how strong of a case is it, anyway, when it appears that the law does allow a sale to be stopped if another bid comes in as the auctioneer is completing the bidding
A court is only going to be able to award monetary damages, you’d have to be able to demonstrate a financially quantifiable injury with a firm dollar amount
I agree! You have proved me wrong!
Shades of attending dealer auctions ages ago in which the auctioneer was definitely taking bids from the Coke machine in Lane #2.
Also, observation: two of the country’s major collector car auction companies are B-J and Mecum.
Wasn’t there also some controversy last year at the Mecum motorcycle auction? IIRC a Kawasaki H2/H3 had a curious looking VIN stamped on the frame.
Bidding was still happening. He could still have bid and won.
He chose to whine on the internet.
Why should he pay more when by their own rules (saying sold and dropping the hammer) he had already won the auction?
The hammer drop and “sold” is the establishment of a contract. I don’t think Mecum would let a winning bidder opt out of the contract and the same rules should bind the auction house once they’ve accepted a final bid.
If you had a contract to buy a car from a dealer and they then said there’s somebody else who is willing to pay more so your deal is void but you can pay more if you like, would you?
The state allows for other bids coming in. It’s not like he hammered and then started the bidding again after a long gap.
There was obviously a bid coming in while the auctioneer was calling it sold, so the bidding was not over.
No, bidding ended with “Sold.” And if you say it didn’t then it should still being going on because the auction didn’t end with the first fully valid “Sold”, so why should the second or any other “Sold” declaration count? Mecum is trapped in a logical fallacy here and there is no escape. By their illogic, the auction can never end.
There’s an easy way to distinguish.
If a bid is coming in while the auctioneer is dropping the gavel, he as the option to accept that bid.
If there are no more bids and there is no reserve preventing the sale, he can call the car sold.
I’m filing this under the same logic that you can never reach a destination because you perpetually have half the distance to cover.
And no, once the gavel hits and he says sold, it’s over. If the auctioneer errs, that’s his fault, no one else’s.
I’m the seller I’m not selling at the lower price. Either the lower bidder has to match the higher bid or the auction house. Neither is likely to happen, so it’s a no-sale situation anyway for the low bidder anyway.
Seller had to be close by since he had to lift the reserve just a few moments earlier. He would have known about the higher bid.
The seller did accept the lower bid and then so did the auctioneer. Then he struck the hammer. That’s the cutoff, by law. The auction house is responsible for their errors, not bidders or sellers.
I am just mildly playing devil’s advocate on this one because I can see the side of the seller and auction house.
I can also understand the frustration of the initial high bidder. By the rules of auctions in the post, it seems like it is within the law to take the higher bid. That doesn’t make it not sh*tty.
I’d think that Mecum would make it right just to avoid the negative press, but it seems like you p*ss off at least one party no matter what you do on this.
Totally cool. I don’t ‘play’ Devil’s Advocate, because I’m so devilish it just comes naturally.
I can also see what you’re saying, but the hammer came down and made contact and I heard Sold even if he did indeed try to choke it off. I simply can’t get past that admittedly very, very fine line in this case, but still the line for me.
But the weird thing here is the auctioneer a) never verbally acknowledged that $32,000 was the ‘new’ high bid, nor did he ask for further bids. He announced and hammered Sold when the high bid, announced by him was $31,000, and the first time anyone heard $32,000 was when he announced “Sold at $32,000.”
If there was a late bid, why not keep the auction open and see if there was a higher offer? Something doesn’t smell right here.
You are right, accepting abuse from private companies is a God given commandment, and it is best done in silence.
Disregarding the fact that this was a guy bidding on a $30k toy car, the auction seems to have been compliant with the posted rules for an auction.
If the auctioneer failed to take the higher bid, there’s no reason for the seller to have followed through with the sale anyway. If I were the seller and watched them ignore a higher bid, I wouldn’t release the car to the lower bidder.
That’s just not how it works.
It’s how it worked this time.
And it was in error.
The nature of the purchase is irrelevant. Posted rules say hammer + “sold”, not hammer + “sold” + 5 seconds, 30 seconds, one hour, or one day.
As you said yourself, the auction houses do seem to allow the sellers to back out. If they think better offers are still on the table, renegue on the deal and re-enter auction then. Still scummy, but at least it is more honest than what they did.
And having now listened to the whole thing again, the guy who bid $31,000 was clearly in the right. It was the last announced bid before the hammer dropped and the auctioneer said sold, but also under the rules of a mid-hammer bid it should have been then sold at $32,000. Instead he keeps the bidding open while the chyron that says sold at $31,000 simply disappears. There’s no Chyron recording the higher, and final bids.
Smells like day-old fish in the sun.
Mecum sounds like a word that Jar Jar Binks would use frequently.
Mecum
Mecum
Mecum Jar Jar!
Just wash that jar please.
I think the new bid was in before the hammer dropped and ‘sold’ was said, but the auctioneer’s body just didn’t respond quickly enough to stop. However, he clearly went right into the next bid without a pause, it’s not like he said sold, waited a few seconds and then continued.
In this case it’s a case of tie goes to the seller and auction house getting more money, not the guy thinking he’s getting a deal.
IDK, maybe their rules should be more clear on that then? The auctioneer immediatly jumps on the “read the rules” backtrack; but when you do, the rules clearly favor the $31k bidder. Sounds like Meccum should have to eat crow here. I get it, their party, their rules, so if their rules stated otherwise, I’d agree with the backtrack; but they seem to be actively going against them. You can’t both have rules heavily tilted in your favor and then not even follow them in the off chance they don’t land in your favor.
It doesn’t matter. There has to be a demarcation and the declaration and hammer strike are it. If the auctioneer messed that up, that’s the auction houses’ problem, not the bidder’s. You could just as easily blame the late bidder by torturing logic to the near breaking point.
By that rule, the guy who had just outbid him would have won at 32k. Instead, he got an opportunity to raise his bid but chose not to.
No, because the hammer still struck on the $31k bid, not the later bid. The auctioneer clearly was bringing down the hammer on the lesser, on time bid. It was his job to stop it from hitting if he wanted to accept another bid. He plainly failed to do that. I don’t care in the least about his last millisecond change of mind. It’s about what actually happened and that is, the hammer struck and he announced sold. End of story for me.
You know, the auctioneer’s job is to get the most amount of money possible, not to ensure people get a deal.
Really?! I have heard that, but I heard it was until the hammer strikes. Have you heard elsewise? 😉
I’ve seen evidence on multiple occasions that the hammer strike isn’t necessarily final. Once in this story, and a couple of times at a local auctions where the person thought they were bidding on a different car.
I’ve never been to a car auction, nor any live auction. I am not an expert and I am kind of stupid. However, in this case I know what I saw and it was wrong. No matter what anyone say, the were four lights, not five! 🙂
Very possible, but the auctioneer would need to call that out AND not immediately drop the gavel again without giving all the other bidder a chance to regroup and process WTF just happened.
That’s exactly what happened. The 32k bid came in as the hammer started to drop, but before the auctioneer’s body could stop it (reaction time.) He acknowledged the 32 bid with the first word out of his mouth after the gavel hit. He then continued the auction, including talking to the pissed bidder and announcing the price until it reached 33k, said 34 and then closed and actually sold it at 33k. This went on for 30 seconds after the gavel hit the first time. In auction time, that was your time to regroup, they don’t have all day.
Even had the auction ended on the first hammer strike, the 32k bidder should have won because the bid was raised before both the hammer strike and the words sold were said. You could hear the bid just as the hammer reached it’s apex, and numerous people there acknowledged it.
Still the auctioneer’s error. He made the decision probably too quickly, but that’s what happened. If his reaction time is too slow, find another job. Seriously.
Outside of the auction drama, I’m surprised to see how cheap Continental Mark IIs (not a Lincoln!) are going for considering they were handbuilt halo cars that Ford lost money on.
I was just getting ready to type “I’m just surprised this car went so low”.
I’m not. There is a noticeable progression of nostalgia dying off in tandem with the people who were there when the cars were new. I’m reasonably sure fancy covered wagon auctions prices fell in the 1900s as the pioneers succumbed to time and horseless carriages took over.
Not only that, but MkIIs aren’t all that well known, not super desirable, parts are kinda hard to get, and parts are expensive. Also, I’ve heard the aren’t all that good to drive and kinda cramped, but idk about that. Looks? Great. Ownership? Mixed bag and expensive.
Yes on both reasons.
They are also really, really expensive to restore properly, because of the high standard of materials used originally. Similar to trying to fix up a completely roached Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, you’ll never come out ahead once they get to a certain point. And there are also a lot of Mark IIs out there that had lower quality restoration work done on them in the ’70s and ’80s that wouldn’t pass now
My neighbor growing up had prewar v12 packards and a v16 Cadillac and a final year packard. I remember him yelling and ranting while trying to sell them before heading to the assisted living facility about how they were worth 10 times the offers he was getting. No doubt they were amazing pieces of machinery with concours wins at pebble beach. But his kids took a couple grand for each of them when they sold the house.
I think we are in a lull for 50s cars. I haven’t thought about tri5 chevys for years. But those were still pretty sought after when I was a kid.
I totally get that for pre-war cars but I thought Mark IIs were still held in high regard.
Apparently not. I don’t have a Hagerty account to see pricing trends beyond one year, but they lost $10K in value just this year alone.
https://www.hagerty.com/valuation-tools/continental/mark_ii/1957/1957-continental-mark_ii?id=aCn1I000000DInHSAW&vbeSqlId=36900&catalog=yes
Lincoln hasn’t had a spot in the public memory for a long while now. The Continental, which was arguably a sub-marque of Lincoln though was incorporated and marketed as a standalone company from it, even less so. Most people under forty five only know the name Continental from either the “fancy” car their hotel used to chauffeur them in, or from Pawn Stars where Richard Harrison owned one. Then there’s the JFK conspiracy nuts who have scale models of the 1963 Mark III that the assassination took place in.
Packard, DeSoto, Studebaker, Reliant, Prince, Panhard, and others were all giant pieces of 1950s and 1960s culture, but these days unless you’re really deep into the weeds you won’t know them. Even Oldsmobile seems to be going that way now, as their final cars are dying off and the nameplate has no exposure. Oldsmobiles in classic car sales as a result are a good fourth fifths of the price of their Chevrolet, Pontiac, and Buick counterparts. A ’70 4-4-2 with the 455 sells for less than an equivalent Chevelle SS with a 455 almost every time nowadays.
“…scale models of the 1963 Mark III that the assassination took place in.”
There was the 1958 Lincoln Continental Mark III
Then there was the 1969-1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III
JFK was killed in a Lincoln Continental – Not a Mark.
Right. Sorry. That period for Lincoln and Continental’s kind of confusing.
Reliant didn’t really blow up until the Regal 3/25 in 1962, and didn’t really hit the mainstream until the Robin in 1973 (the MkVII Regal sold more copies over its 11 year production run, but the Robin became the fastest selling Reliant in history, and the only one to cross over out of the traditional 3 wheeler buyer base, with dealers taking lots of 4 wheeled cars in on trade during the oil embargo)
He distinctly said, ‘To blave.’ And as we all know, ‘to blave’ means ‘to bluff.’ So, you’re probably playing cards and he cheated…”
Inconceivable!
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I know the middle aged car men love nothing more than complaining about stuff so I’m sure this will be a whole thing for a while, but it seems more like a miscommunication than Mecum being intentionally shady.
It wasn’t shady until they decided not to correct their obvious error. But then it was full on Vantablack shady.
BaT and C&B are just as bad, for other reasons. Shill bidding, sellers who refuse to sell if they think the price is too low, and curbstoners selling as private parties are a daily occurrence. It almost makes you think that a deluge of “Is this available?” and “lowest u’ll go?” from Marketplace buyers would be preferable.
Yeah, the biggest problem I have with them is that BaT & C&B clearly cater to the sellers, not the buyers. Like, I get it, that is the platforms true client and that is who you have to cater to; but holy smokes don’t ever be a buyer on there because you get reamed while the seller gets comparatively wined and dined. If you’re a buyer and back out, you forfeit the ability to ever use the platform again as well as the buyer fee. If you’re a seller and back out of the deal… nothing. Not only that, both platforms intentionally obfuscate how frequently sellers back out.
Not true. BaT screwed up my auction as seller, it was miscategorized and didn’t show up in the search results or to anyone with a saved search who would have got an email notification. So it sold too low. They acknowledged their error, but insisted I still sell at the low price. I refused, they banned me. I had another ID for buying. When I commented on this site about what happened, they then banned that ID as well.
Yeah, I’ll disagree too, a fake internet friend tried to list his Alpine B7 on BaT and it didn’t meet their “curation process”, meanwhile there was (and it’s worse now) loads of absolute crap listed on the regular. It was better as a blog site.
I think they care about the final price (their profit) and how much bandwidth is needed (their cost).
Everything going on in that topshot makes the car look like a plastic 1:24 scale model.
A model I wish I could buy.
I’d be happy to sell it to you for the low, low, price of
$31,000$33,000 dollars…Agreed. What is all that stuff obscuring the rear wheel?
That’s the aerial camera rig – see the crane arm it’s hanging from?
Ah, now I see it – thanks!