... of this exercise follows below. Before I get to it, though, some introduction. This entire discussion, though not intended to be about eBay, was motivated by the response to the Mackeral-Cablemansam business that was on the BB last week. Several posters savaged club member David Whalen for his admitted use of what he called "protection" bids by a third party.

I have already expressed my opinion on the use of shill bidders, so won't belabor that point. Regardless of my personal feeling on the subject, the hostility to shill bidding which was expressed by some posters (and CC>CC members) caused me to wonder about something which was later raised by Jack Weingarten in a post responsive to my original inquiry. That is, what exactly is the club's ethical or other standard regarding the use of shill bidding in auctions.

So, I reread the club Code of Ethics. Some of you may feel that Item #3, would apply: "To base all of my dealings on the highest plane of justice, fairness and morality."

However, there is nothing in the Code of Ethics which specifically addresses shill bidding in auctions. Therefore, I dragged out my copy of last year's auction catalog to see what the club's auction rules are. And that review motivated my original post on this subject.

------------------------- THE POINT -------------------------

The CC>CC rules PERMIT THE USE OF SHILL BIDDING at the club's annual convention auction. This point was actually mentioned by several of the more experienced members of the club in the thread which followed my initial post (thought they were going to pre-empt my POINT before I had a chance to get to it, but their observations drew virtually no response at all).

In fact, the rules described in my fictional auction in Question #2 of my survey are EXACTLY THE RULES UNDER WHICH THE CLUB AUCTION IS CONDUCTED. Hence, the special mention I gave in "Survey says ..." to the four respondents who said either "no" or "hell no" to participation in the auction I described BUT said "yes" or "don't know" to participation in the club auction. Obviously, they had no idea that they were making inherently contradictory responses, but they were.

Not only is seller or shill bidding permitted, as noted in JB's post on the subject, when he asked about protecting expensive pieces in a no reserve, no minimum auction, John was told, "bid on your own lot"!! I have confirmed with auction coordinator Bruce Landau that in this year's auction, "protection" bids by sellers or third parties on behalf of sellers WILL BE PERMITTED. [Although I told him that I wanted the information for use on the ChipBoard, Bruce answered my questions about this forthrightly; albeit with the hope that no one would make a major issue out of it. I will email him separately my apology for the dashing of that hope. And, I should also say that the decision to change the auction rules which resulted in the permissible use of such bidding was NOT made by Bruce; presumably, it was made by the club board, though I don't know that for a fact.]

An admission: I used sneaky lawyer tactics (including "begging the question" and Devil's advocacy), in the formulation of my questions and the wording of my comments, to "encourage" posters to take a firm, "no wiggle room" stand on the issue of shill bidding. I also made a point of saying that I was not addressing eBay to make it clear that I was looking for a broader perspective. And, my sneaky lawyer tactics worked -- several posters (I won't mention any names here, but they're easy enough to remember <g> or find again) took vehement stands against shill bidding.

So, now, how does it look for a significant number of our club members to excoriate others for using shill bidders, or to vehemently denigrate the use of seller or shill bidding (or even to characterize the use of such bidding as "unethical", "deceptive", "fraudulent", "theft" or "stealing") when our own club permits it at the biggest single chip auction of the year, an event which some consider the highlight of the convention?

And how does it look that we know so little about our club's own rules that such a large percentage of us apparently don't realize that the club permits the very conduct which we are publicly (and in some cases vehemently) criticizing?

Please read this carefully: I am NOT criticizing Bruce Landau or the club auction rules (I have stated already, and clearly enough, I hope) that I see nothing wrong with the use of seller protection or shill bids if they are permitted by the auction venue. The club has chosen to permit them & I have no problem with that.

Furthermore, as the few comments already made on this subject show, in a no reserve, no minimum auction, a seller of prime material runs a substantial risk that his item will sell at a price far below its actual value (and perhaps even below his own cost of acquisition). In essence, a club auction seller can protect himself against this eventuality ONLY by use of a "protection" bid to prevent the underpriced sale (a privilege which costs the seller 20% of the "protection" bid).

So, those of you to whom I said, let's revisit your response later, please do so and tell me what you think now. And, anyone else who cares to comment, please do. ----- jim o\-S