THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW…
1. Weekly auctions ALWAYS close starting at 8pm EST on Sundays and new auctions start on Sunday at Midnight. You can watch the auction close on our LIVE CLOSE page, it’s a fun thing to do on Sunday nights for many people.
2. Pick ups are not flexible we are only available Tuesday Thursday Friday 10-2 Wednesday 5-7 If you can’t pick up during the posted times you do have the option to pay for you items by INTERAC EMAIL MONEY TRANSFER or PAYPAL (for credit card payments a link on your invoice page makes paypal or credit card payments easy as well) and we will store your SMALL items (Large items MUST be picked up unless of extreme emergencies and you must contact us to make arrangements). You will be billed storage and handling fees on any SMALL shelf sized items or lot of items of 2.00 per week per lot. Large items that do not fit on shelves are a MINIMUM of 25.00 per lot to store per week. All items must be paid for within 5 days of the auction close.
3. Late payments (Lots not paid for within 5 days) will be charged 10.00 per lot LATE FEES. Why? Our consignors do not get paid till you pay for your items so it is unfair to them if you do not pay for your items on time. If you are late paying your account will be suspended from bidding. Also on at 9 Days past the auction close if the items have not been paid the consignors can take back the items, offer them to the runner up bidder or re-list the item if they wish so you would lose your item and still be required to pay lost commissions of 30% or 4.00 per lot (whatever is higher) plus a 10.00 per lot late fees and any storage and handling fees to reactivate your account. As long as you are never late paying you never have to worry about this.
4. Often bidding happens in the closing minutes so if you can, try to be on and watch the auction close. No streaming technology is perfect so it is always a good practice to refresh your screen once and a while during the closing minutes. If you are in the live close area you see the seconds counting down and this page should refresh for you automatically if you are watching the auction from the main screen or the bids and status/watchlist page you MUST refresh your screen or you will not have up to date information.
5. In the event of a tie bid (2 bidders enter the same amount, it is always awarded to the first person who entered it.) So you enter a bid of $100 and the current high bid is now $100 but it says you are Outbid. That means someone else entered a $100 bid before you and the system recognizes them as the high bidder since they entered the bid first.
6. Our online auctions use a soft close that prevents auction sniping as it more accurately reflects the true auction process. In a real auction the bidding is over when the bidding stops and that is what the soft close does. If an item is scheduled to end at 8:30, if a bid comes in in the last 5 minutes, that item will be extended by 2 minutes to 8:32 this gives others time to react and enter another bid if they so desire. This continues until there are no bids in the last 2 minutes which signifies that all the bidders are done and the auction ends.
7. We send out email notifications after the lot closes to notify you that you have won however some email programs BLOCK automated emails so it is best to check your INVOICE page the next day and see if you have won. We DO NOT email a final invoice. Invoices do not show up immediately after the auction closes, it takes the system some time to prepare the invoices. You will however see in your BIDS AND STATUS page that you have the winning bid and once the system creates your invoice it will remove it from your BIDS AND STATUS page. Email is incredibly unreliable and emails get blocked, flagged, directed to junk folders and many other things all the time. It is your responsibility to check your INVOICE PAGE to see if you won. We have no way of knowing whether you received our emails! Hotmail, Live, and Sympatico are notoriously bad for blocking emails. Stating you did not receive an email will NOT exempt you from late fees so please check your account.
8. When you are logged in to the LIVE CLOSE page you will see colored lots with bid amounts and notifications. This is a snap shot of your bidding. Green is how many auctions you are winning, Red is how many you have been outbid on an Orange are the items closing shortly. By clicking on any of those images you can make additional bids. This is called streaming technology and it is not always 100% reliable.
9. At times when the website is busy it may slow down the update on this page so it is always a good idea to put in a ADVANCED PROXY bid (Your max bid) and the system will continue to bid for you and your behalf. Computers & the internet in general are prone to lost connections and down time, Murphy’s Law says if it happens it will happen at the worst time possible. If the server shuts down or your internet stops working or some other unanticipated failure happens we may not be able to recover in time so you may loose your items, a proxy (advanced bid) is your best security for this. When you make your bid it tells you the MINIMUM bid amount you can make however you can enter ANY larger amount and the system will bid for you in 2.00 increments. For example if you bid 50.00 on a 15.00 item that currently has no proxy bid already your bid will show as 17.00 (Not 50.00) if someone comes along and bids 20.00 it will instantly bid for you 22.00 and notify the person that they are already outbid. Until someone bids 50.01 or more your will continue to be the winning bid on that item (Even if the internet fails us). Proxy bidding is like leaving a absentee bid at a live auction and leaving the auction early. You can always come back and raise your bid but you can often win your items and not worry about sitting and waiting for you item to come up on the block.
10. Certificates with jewelry and claims of MSRP and VALUE are for information purposes only and are an opinion. This does not mean you can not find that item anywhere else for less. Please DO YOUR HOMEWORK before bidding as we do NOT retract bids if you feel you may have bid too much. Regarding the details of the items such as gold content, type of gemstone, size etc. Values shown are either MSRPs or insurance values which are considerably higher than market values. Buyers should shop around and do their due diligence regarding current market value of any item. We will not return an item because another appraiser gives you a different appraisal. These certificates are NOT appraisals and regardless of the amount on the certificate, we will not return the item. Be sure to inspect the jewelry and bid according to your own judgement.
11. As of AUG 2020 we will be implementing a 10% buyers premium on all purchases (No additional costs for credit card or paypal this will not be worked into that price).
