Auction Rules, Regs & Proxy Bid Instructions

FIRST AND FOREMOST, YOUR BID IS A CONTRACT, JUST LIKE ON EBAY. PLEASE DO READ THE RULES AND REGS CAREFULLY BEFORE BIDDING, AND CONTACT ME IF ANY QUESTIONS

CHANGES IN THE CURRENT VERSION OF OUR AUCTION SOFTWARE:

1) LIVE AUCTION ENDINGS NOW EXTEND BY ONLY 5 MINUTES, NOT 10 MINUTES (SEE BELOW)

2) BID INCREMENTS ARE NOW GRADUATED INCREMENTS BASED ON THE BID AMOUNT: to $50, $100, $500, or $1000 and over.

3) PLEASE NOTICE THE POWERFUL FLEXIBILITY AND USEFULNESS OF YOUR"VIRTUAL WATCHLIST," ACCESSIBLE THROUGH "MY ACCOUNT"

4) WHOLE DOLLAR BIDS ONLY are allowed. No cents, commas, or decimals, accepted.

LOGGING IN and REGISTRATION:
You must log in to bid. You cannot bid without a registered username; nor can you bid until the auction actually starts, at which time the BID box will appear on the details page of each auction item. To get a login name, simply register some basic information, including your full name and email address (required), by clicking on the link that says "REGISTER". You can choose your own login name (please choose something other than your real name OR email address).  Your password and login will ensure that you have a unique auction user profile. NO MINORS (under 18), please...for liability reasons.

BIDDING and CLOSING PROCEDURES (PLEASE READ):

ABOUT LIVE-ENDING AUCTIONS:
We offer live auctions with extended bidding. If no bid is made within 5 minutes of teh posted auction CLOSE TIME, the auction will close at that time. IF A BID IS PLACED DURING THE FINAL 5 MINUTES, the auction is automatically extended 5 more minutes. This extension of live bidding continues until no bids have been made for a period of 5 minutes. This ensures that sniping (bidding at the last second of an auction), cannot occur; and levels the playing field for all participants.

MINIMUM BIDS AND INCREMENT BIDS:
The minimum bid for the first bidder is the starting bid of $10 (unless indicated otherwise in special higher-reserve auctions), and from there you can bid incrementally by one or more "bid increments" as you desire. The bid increments will be:

$5 for bids of $10 ---> $50

$10 for bids of $51---> $500

$25 for bids of $501---> $1000

$50 for bids over $1000

CLOSING:
The items will close at their appointed times, UNLESS a bid is placed within 5 minutes of the closing. In that case, the auction will extend (jump forward) by 5 minutes and live bidding will continue until a 5 minute time gap occurs between bids. In other words, DO NOT LOG OUT ASSUMING YOU HAVE WON AT CLOSING TIME LISTED, if you bid within 5 minutes of that closing time!

NOTE:
EACH ITEM closes individually and each item will feature its own independent countdown clock. Please be sure to look at the time on the website clock , which may differ from your own time zone!

In the event of auction failure, the following may occur: If the problem affects closing in a serious manner, the auction will be shut down and bidding will resume once the problem has been fixed (most likely to resume at the same time the following day, or the following week. I hope these guidelines do not have to come into play, but if an error occurs , at least we will set a clear precedent for a "fix".

Proxy Bidding - SEE EXAMPLE BELOW

Proxy bidding is a way to bid on an item without actually being present, or at least without paying constant attention. Simply enter the highest price you are willing to bid for a particular specimen, and the auction software will automatically bid incrementally on your behalf against other bidders up to that maximum price. The computer will outbid other auction participants so long as they bid under your proxy amount. I DO NOT HAVE ACCESS to the tables listing proxy bids, by design, and so I cannot view or modify proxy bids.

 Some advantages of proxy bidding:

• You need not be present to bid!

• If the auction closes at an inconvenient time, the computer can bid on your behalf!

• If you want to bid on multiple items, this reduces the need to watch all of them constantly, so you can concentrate on the priorities.

• For international customers, this eliminates the need to personally battle $ incrementally with somebody who is getting up in the morning halfway across the world, while you are tired at the end of a long day!

Example:
A) Auction current bid is $20

B) User 1 comes along and doesn't want to play the bid-war game, or cannot attend the end of the auction, and so he/she PROXY-BIDS for $100. The current bid is updated to $25 (i.e. raised by one increment) and User 1 will win the specimen for $25-100 depending on competing bids, so long as nobody else bids higher than $100.

C) User 2 comes and bids for $30. Because $30 is less than $100 , there is a bid added for User 2 for $30 and a PROXY-BID added for user 1 for $35, and therefore the auction current bid is updated to $35 for User 1.

D) User 3 comes and bids for $105, user 3 is now the high bidder. User 3 possibly tested the limits of the existing proxy by getting up to $100 in increments , and then further guessed all he had to bid to win was $105, but nevertheless finally found the number to win! Any number between $101-104 would have won him the bid and shown as $101 , or he could win with $105.

NOTE THAT IN THE EVENT OF A TIE, THE PRIOR PROXY BID OF SAME VALUE WINS.

NOTE: IF TWO PROXY BIDS COMPETE, THE HIGHER ONE WINS EVEN IF BY A NON-INCREMENTAL AMOUNT. In other words, if you are bidding and enter a proxy bid which is COINCIDENTALLY within a $-increment increase of the previous bidder's highest proxy bid allowed, you can win by less than $5 (even by only $1). This rarely occurs, by coincidence. If your bid is the one overturned in a battle of two proxy bids, you will get an overbid notice as normal, and have a chance to bid again.