Snake Essay 001: Theory of variable auction pricing and how to bid on LiveAuctioneers
Snake Essay 001: Theory of variable auction pricing and how to bid on LiveAuctioneers
advice. plus: quick hits
Howdy new readers — generally this email includes a number of auction listings, with writeups. That will come later this week or early next, though I do have some listings at the bottom.
Housekeeping:
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I did a Perfectly Imperfect newsletter last week or so, before Thanksgiving. Nice! Tyler is cool and lives in Carroll Gardens. Here I am pictured with Will Taylor’s dog (on the right):
How to bid on LiveAuctioneers:
Sign up for Liveauctioneers with a credit card ahead of the auction, register for that auction on the item page — button/prompt on every auction pg — a couple days in advance.
Bid live in the pop-up window. Prices can jump during auctions. Both app and website have good UX. Sometimes items go for a lot, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes lots of watchers means something; sometimes not. Note buyers’ premiums (~25%) and freight, so expect to pay over listed prices. When you win you have ~a week to get the item. Houses may recommend third party shippers; some ship themselves. If so, In-House Shipping is noted on the page. Pickup is cheapest and some shippers (esp. if in-house) can be very cheap.
Steals are rare, deals are occasional, and fair prices are frequent. But overall, more steals and deals on LA than anywhere else. Respond if more questions.
PRICING:
I wanted this week to answer a question I get a lot from readers: what’s a fair price for an auction? What should you pay? How much is too much? How can we even tell what an item is worth?
I have a theory about it, a sense of pricing that anyone who bids on eBay or Depop probably shares.
I’ll case study this with this Joe Colombo Coupe Light, which was featured as a quick hit in Snake Auction Observer 018, mid October, and which a very smart and cool reader who lives in [REDACTED] asked me about when the letter was published. What follows is my explanation to them that I wrote around then, and which I am expanding now and making more step by step. Auction sale price and conclusions follow at the end:
AUCTION PRICING:
The way I calculate what I would pay for an item that is very great but isn’t dirt cheap/and which has some attention—over a couple dozen watchers on LA—is by triangulating the retail cost of the equivalent new item, the auction history pricing and the immediate cost of the vintage item and comparing those numbers against a very real objective price for the piece of furniture in general that will allow me to stop looking for future pieces.
The triangulated pricing data points I define as new licensed items with the same designs (i.e. a new coupe), the identical items that sold on auction (old coupes), and pretty close old items that are for sale now i.e. on platforms like 1stdibs or Pamono or Instagram. I compare that rough price (actually a few numbers) to what I'm willing to pay for a very good lamp that to me solves a problem. This price is based on what furniture is actually worth to me (i.e., the social price of a lamp, and the price of my ultimate lamp) and how much I have to spend. Both numbers vary. The first three numbers roughly make up the floor, or what I think the minimum price will probably be, and shake out the very max. The last number is my ceiling, which is the maximum I myself am willing to pay—what I think it’s worth. The bid range (and real price) sits somewhere in the middle. Let’s get to it.
New Retail: New production, fresh out of the showroom sconces generally sell for about $3,000 (vary between 2300 and 3700) which is before tax:
They are all black and white. Because they are new they look different. Some have different shapes.
Immediate Vintage: Digging around on 1stDibs, several items—eight for sale—run about 2/3 that price—about $1,500. A few on Pamono, an overseas marketplace, are more, with shipping costing a shit ton on Pamono. No Instagram re-sellers were selling this thing in October, so there’s no price for an immediate vintage one there. Basically, only 1stDibs—and FWIW, the 1stDibs items look more recently produced than the auction (which is bad).
Auction history: The third triangulated floor price is only on LA in this case, since none have been sold on eBay. History is around $2,000, which is before fees. But it’s not since not many have sold, and the oldest one sold in 2019. Small sample size. This means the item might go randomly high (because it’s a wild card) or could go for very little (because it’ll fly under the radar).
Floor and Ceiling: Calculating these prices are complicated. If you just want the lamp now, you can get it as cheap as $1300. Not bad. But…. gumming up the issue here is that none of the items on 1stDibs are very old. Auction item is like 70s or 80s. Also, no wall coupes on LA are orange, though there’s an orange floor lamp and a red sconce. Everything in stock on 1stdibs (and new retail) is a way more boring than this auction. Which means this auction is a premium. So expect to pay more. The new production price can be thought of as a very very high ceiling: as long as you pay not that much over 2300, it’s not an out of this world ripoff (but it’s still a little too much).
Comps: the best comp for the live auction is a red coupe from Billings which sold for $750, but that was from 2019, which is the dark ages, and doesn’t really apply. I would say right away add a few hundred bucks to that price.
Reasonable bid floor: All this to say the item’s a wild card. If I was bidding, I'd be pleased if my bid was around $1,000, which would come out, after fees, to 1300, plus shipping. That’s not too much more than the 2019 red price, which, to me, was a deal.
I’d be psyched—more than pleased—if the total came out to less than that, which matches up to the cheapest and most boring equivalent of these lamps being offered for sale, right now, online ($1300 on 1D). Expect, reasonably, to pay at leaaaaast 13-400 for this thing. If it’s any less, then that’s great and you got a deal. If that price makes you wince, well, move on. Many, many lamps get listed every week.
The question, then, ahead of the auction, when determining the price is how much of a premium orange is worth. This is where it gets subjective. The very real and objective personal price for whatever a piece of furniture is—let’s say, for me, a good lamp, one that is beautiful and which I will enjoy looking at forever, like an orange Colombo coupe… is about $2,000… more if I need it right away, less if I don’t. This is the price ceiling, or the price delta range. Something like that. And in the middle, between the triangulated prices based on other items, and your actual budget, is what the bid price roughly is and what you should expect your bid to be.
Let me back up a little. A lot of this explanation is about price, and old newsletters I write mention price and items being deals and steals, and so on. But price, honestly, doesn’t matter. It’s very low calorie to just care about what you’re paying—I don’t mean that in some sort of poor-shaming way, I just mean money is, even when it’s tight, only one part of the decision making process. If you’re already going ahead and looking at an auction on LA with the intention of buying, then you’re visualizing it in your crib and it’s different. And you already know it takes work. Doing that work is already a bit of an emotional decision, since you’re thinking this is the one couch or the lamp that I need, want, in my home for a while, over anything else, enough that 2. I’m willing to overpay and hustle a little to get it. At this point, it’s helpful to think about what the extra work actually means.
In life as with furniture, if you like something, chances are someone else already does. And so you have to pay more. If you’re very good, things can fall into your lap here and there. But everyone has to pay for everything most of the time. Consider this payment—paying a bit more—the emotional tax: a little extra for the rare something you actually want and which will enrich your life. (Hard to explain except that some auctions are better than others.)
My rough gut estimate on this exact auction—from experience, from bidding, and winning and losing lots of auctions—is that the emotional tax pushes the price to $1,500, give or take $100. Frankly, not bad.
(Just pausing here to note that I am sure anyone who’s bid on anything on eBay and won it is deeply familiar with just about everything I’ve said: like, an old T-shirt we know has sold for a few hundred and which is on eBay for a BIN of $800, and in a reality where you would never pay more than $400 for a tee… prob. worth $550… exact same thing.)
Caveats:
If you look very hard, in some senses, there is no real price. Auctions sometimes end much higher than the price they are worth. But what’s worth mean if you like something? It’s worth looking at what overpaying actually means. Stretching a $1,500 hammer, if you have the money, to $1,800 is not that different a reality, since, honestly, what does $200 over the +/- $100 buy you? Maybe a night at the movies with a meal and an Uber; a new pair of Air Max 97s; a Genocidio record… real things, but not a lot.
All this means is that emotional tax is fat, and thing get crazy while bidding. Better to expect a $1500 hammer is actually around $1800 before bidding so you don’t get shocked if the prices jump. All that said—if the numbers here make you wince, then your price is already set. If they don’t, you’re either doing well or really want it. Congrats either way. Personally I think it’s worth it to overpay occasionally on the rare items that you really really like. This is why people have jobs.
Logistics: Physically smaller items reward higher bids. Best to email the auction house ahead of the auction and get their recommended shippers, and then call or email those shippers for price quotes. More options are better. Sometimes auction houses ship things themselves for pretty cheap—you’d be surprised—and sometimes lamps like this are collapsible and fit in small containers; sometimes (ideally) there’s a friend in town who can pick it up (harder to do this with sofas or credenzas). Another option, if you’re local is to drive, or rent a Hertz by the hour, or hire guys with a van off Craigslist to help convey it. (I’ve done both.) Most shippers for bigger furniture are regional—so if the item’s in Philly or Chicago and you’re in New York then you’re probably good; if it’s in Seattle and you live in New Haven Connecticut (where Jasta 14 played once) it’s a more difficult.
Saving money: Doing all that is an opportunity to save money, which allows for a couple of things. One, obviously, is to keep the cash. Always good. Another is to use the savings to bid even more and lock down the item for yourself. How much you want the item determines that. If you really like something, a higher hammer and premium can make bidding easier. This isn’t ideal if you’re trying to set up a house and don’t have anything you like, but if you’re a couple of pieces away it’s helpful. (There’s a baseball wins theory here that’s equivalent.)
Of course, prices are never created by one person. It takes at least two people to bid, which creates a price point—and the seller’s involved, too. But, and this is where it gets a little bit hazy… the bidder’s war is never against other bidders. It is always against themselves and their own budget. So don’t worry about other bidders, just your budget. I don’t want to get weird here but this is also the way life more or less works.
How to bid: I’ve both won and lost LiveAuctioneers auctions on both desktop and mobile app. The mobile app is pretty good, I prefer desktop since it’s easier and bigger. If I have time I follow the live auction and see how active it is—sometimes an auction with lots of watchers won’t have bids, and vice versa—if I don’t have time I show up a few minutes early and let it fly.
How to win: Spend more. There’s no secret. The highest price wins, and the price you have in your head will regulate how you bid, and will determine whether you win or lose. That’s literally it. Doesn’t mean you have to spend more—you just have to be prepared to spend enough. The nice thing about most if not all of the items I write about in my newsletter—lamps especially—is that they’re liquid and usable. Buy a lamp and sell it for the same money or more later. Compare this to retail.
What to do if the price is too high: Don’t bid. These are just things. There are lots more where they came from. It’s worth overbidding a little, but unless it’s a gift for someone you care about/who runs an illegal neighborhood protection racket it’s not worth overextending yourself.
The end. So—how’d it go down?
AUCTION PRICE: The coupe sold for this much:
Which is exactly what I predicted. Not bad. About 2 large after fees, more for shipping.
A few notes: Billings is in LA; the reader found an arrangement. Shipping the lamp to LA was actually pretty cheap since it was collapsible.
There are two ways to assess this. One is “hey that’s a lot of money,” but is it? I don’t know, not if you work for a living, and if you’re smart about money in other arenas. It’s also really only a little bit more than a very much non equivalent lamp that’s on 1stDibs. Second way is “damn, not bad.” It’s a great lamp, and is roughly the market price. We don’t live in 2019 anymore; secrets are halfway out. But it’s also like, edifying to take something you want with some work. Auctions aren’t always about deals, sometimes they’re about just really good merchandise that isn’t available anywhere else.
Caveats:
Pricing varies for everyone. Some months you have less money, some, more. It depends on the company you keep, too. If you have cheap or broke or reseller friends, you will be thrifty. If you hang out with people who do well and don’t work very hard, they might be more free with their cash. I’ve also found bartenders love to spend money.
Every new auction is different. The next one might go for a bit less, but likely a hair more. So, don’t get too attached to prices. This doesn’t mean coupes are worth $1600. It just means they’re kind of worth closer to $1600 then they were in September. Prices are ambient.
Point form/TLDR:
Look up the retail price, the boutique vintage price and the LA auction history to determine the floor. Set it against your ceiling, which is what you’re emotionally willing to pay for a piece of furniture. Hit up the house and shippers way ahead of time, and try and arrange a practical shipping situation, or find time to pick it up. Then take some steroids and bid on the item.
Quick hits:
Furniture ending within the next 48 hours:
Magistretti Artemide “Dalu” lamp, $150, PA (perfect table lamp)
Parigi Orix desk/bar, $250, PA (a little rockabilly but one of my favorites ever)
Michael Graves Swid Powell teapot NYC $20 flat shipping, $220 (I love MG)
Bonnetto white magazine racks (classic), FS NYC $300 (classic dude)
TWO white Soriana loveseats NYC $1500 (possible steal)
That’s it. Thanks for reading. If this helps, sound off in the comments. Sharing is also appreciated.
Snake