"First 15 minutes after midnite",Remember phone in auctions?

[SainthoodDenied]

My earlier post got me to thinking about buying alot of the vintage Star Wars back then by phone in auctions advertised in the Toy Shop newspaper type magazine. Those were great back before Ebay.
The big picture adds with lot numbers and opening bids. At the start time that evening the line would be busy with people putting in opening bids and you'd call every so often to check and see if you still had high bid. They always ended the same way. "Auction ends the first 15 minutes after midnight without a bid". Then if you won you'd send the store or person a money order or check and wait for your stuff.
Those were alot of fun and to many could tell on your long distance bill.

[toys2cool]

I never got to bid on anything by phone...my first time bidding was a live auction for sports memorabilia and then ebay

[Mikey]

Reminds me of the old days bidding on HAKES auctions on the phone.

Man, don't even ask what my long distance calls used to add up to BACK IN THE DAY

Good times

[misterdroid]

I remember the old toy shop phone auctions... somehow I always ended up winning with my maximum bid... I found a cache of mint in package vintage gi joe stuff and had a toy shop phone auction, thinking "this stuff will sell HUGE!" Almost no bidders. Total disaster and was lucky to make my money back. Later a friend told me that often when you bid in the old phone auctions, you were bidding against imaginary opponents... Ooh look, the water heater just bid 200, oh wait, now the lamp is bidding 250... One of the few things that make me thankful for ebay.

[Adam West]

I had an experience a few years ago of calling into a live auction to purchase some duck decoys from a very reputable auction house (the Sotheby's of duck decoys if you will).

It was a wild experience to sit on the phone with a person on the auction floor who was placing bids for me and I could hear the chatter of the auction going on in the background. My heart was pounding out of my chest because it was the first time where I wasn't physically present, bidding on items of high dollar value. The person on the phone would come back on the phone and say the bid is back to you at $x...and I'd have to say Yes or No pretty quickly. Luckily, I had a catalog, knew exactly what I was after and what my limit was....I got away real cheap on most of the ones I wanted and the ones I did want that were borderline in my price range ended up selling for way more than the pre-auction estimate so I didn't leave feeling that I just been barely outbid.

[palitoy]

I hated phone auctions with a passion.

I've related this story before but in '95 "Two Guys Toys" had a big phone auction in Toyshop, MOC Superjoes, Mego and lots of Big Jim PACK stuff. In big letters "NO MINIMUM BIDS!" This is my conversation with them:

Me: "What's the Superjoe Commander MOC at?"

Them: "Um no bids, I'd accept a bid of $100 on that"

Me:"How about the boxed Torpedo Fist"

Them: "um, no bids, I'd accept a bid of $150 on that"

Me: CLICK

I never doubted Hakes though.

[SainthoodDenied]

There were only a couple of the bigger ones in there I'd deal with also. They usually had auctions in about every issue but it's been so long the names got lost in a haze of smoke