Morphy's Auction: An incident you might wish to know about .

[Hurricane ( of Virginia)]

This  is a copy of my email from Morphy's Auction: The gun sold for $2750 and was given to someone else. My bid was placed and registered on their "internet" bidding process approximately 11 hours before bidding was closed at 8:00Am the following day. Their response: "Tough"..our mistake.
You should be here next time in person"
Hurricane

You have bid on the following lot:
-----------------------------------------
Lot# 1509
Kentucky Rifle.

Description Circa 1830 to 1840. OL: 50 - 1/4". BL: 34 - 1/4". TB: Octagon to round. LM: Percussion. PB: 4-piece. S: Curly Maple. Incise carving. Ten silver inlays. This handsome Kentucky rifle is a signed "J.B." swivel breech percussion rifle and smooth-bore combination. The "J.B." as well as the incised cheekpiece carving indicate one of the Baum Family as a maker in the Upper Susquehanna School. There are ten silver inlays, some of which may be replaced, on the the very fine curly maple stock. The brass patchbox and ramrod pipes are nicely engraved and the gun overall has very good condition with much brass and silver.
Condition (Very Good).
Your current maximum bid is 3,750.00 USD

To view the lot or increase your bid please click the following link:
http://www.auctionflex.com/showlot.ap?co=31120&weventitemid=3163342

[Dave K]

Pretty sad, but after the fact, what can be done. I know if I had been there as a buyer and the auctioneer said "sold" to me and I paid for it, plus had it in my possession, just try to get it away from me. But, what about the rights of the seller the auctioneer was hired to work for. They lost $1000! If I were a seller, they would be hearing from me!

[mr. no gold]

Yeah, hardly an auction goes by that someone doesn't feel slighted by the events that unfold in that sales setting. My philosophy pretty much is that no matter what is really going on, the auctioneer is the king, judge and lawman. Whatever he says within the auction is how things are. If you get passed over; your bid is not acknowledged, and the item goes elsewhere, that it is the end of the matter. You just have to respect and obey the auctioneer's decision. At least that is how I see it. I would rather be welcome at future auctions than make a ruckus and perhaps be barred from attending future events held by that auctioneer. Sometimes we just have to slink away and lick our hurts. The old adage: "If you don't get it, there is a reason for it" pretty much is true.
Dick

[JTR]

Sorry to hear that Fred, as I thought for sure you had it! And I too doubt there's anything that can be done after the fact unless the floor winning bidder is willing to return it. 
Sad but true that some auctioneers pay more attention to the in-house bidders, and absentee bids somehow seem to get overlooked. 
Watching the auction on the internet, the pace seemed to be brisk, but at 'last call' there seemed to be ample time for the guy in charge of absentee bids to sound off.
John

[Tanselman]

Fred,  Don't feel bad, I missed one as well. I signed up to phone bid on #1625, with primary and secondary phones, plus a "back up" bid incase they couldn't get the phones to work. I sat there for several hours waiting for the call, finally called them and the item had sold... at less than the back up bid I had left. Once it's sold, it's sold, so nothing you or I can do about it. I've never had this experience at any other gun auction, but then, this auction had so many guns, they were probably overloaded with absentee bids and phone bid requests, so a few got "lost." I'd like to know where gun #1625 ended up, if anyone knows out there. I talked to a couple of guys at the CLA Show on Saturday who bid on it at opening levels, but no one knew who finally got it.  Shelby Gallien

[Hurricane ( of Virginia)]

Interesting that there is now 2 of us. Makes one wonder about the quality and integrity of this auction house. Wonder if there are more. Anybody else??
Hurricane

[JTR]

Shelby,
The John Painter #1625 sold for $3250 + fees.

I also had an interesting experience in that I called on Monday asking about info on a gun with the intention of doing a absentee bid. But during the conversation the guy indicated that they already had absentee bids in excess of the amount I was planning on bidding, so I passed on the gun.
But in the end, the gun sold for less than I had been planning to bid. Perhaps the guy was confused??? Maybe who knows!
John 

[Majorjoel]

I placed bids over the internet on #1349 and #1555. I do not know if I won or not as they have not contacted me or can I find what these pieces went for??  I do not want to be nosey here but am curious if anyone who stricktly used the internet to bid at this auction actually was successful in acquiring a rifle here? It seems the auction house may have just used the net to give these guns a starting boost for their floor auction.

[msmith]

I found the results of auction on icollector.com.I think for the most  part prices were on the low side.

[alex e.]

Their response  sounded very professional. Enough to deter me from using them for buying or selling....

[msmith]

Captjoel ,on icollector.com it shows for 1349 2750 +550 = 3300. For 1555 2500 +500= 3000.I don't  know how accurate they are.

[Dphariss]

This  is a copy of my email from Morphy's Auction: The gun sold for $2750 and was given to someone else. My bid was placed and registered on their "internet" bidding process approximately 11 hours before bidding was closed at 8:00Am the following day. Their response: "Tough"..our mistake.
You should be here next time in person"
Hurricane

You have bid on the following lot:
-----------------------------------------
Lot# 1509
Kentucky Rifle.

Description Circa 1830 to 1840. OL: 50 - 1/4". BL: 34 - 1/4". TB: Octagon to round. LM: Percussion. PB: 4-piece. S: Curly Maple. Incise carving. Ten silver inlays. This handsome Kentucky rifle is a signed "J.B." swivel breech percussion rifle and smooth-bore combination. The "J.B." as well as the incised cheekpiece carving indicate one of the Baum Family as a maker in the Upper Susquehanna School. There are ten silver inlays, some of which may be replaced, on the the very fine curly maple stock. The brass patchbox and ramrod pipes are nicely engraved and the gun overall has very good condition with much brass and silver.
Condition (Very Good).
Your current maximum bid is 3,750.00 USD

To view the lot or increase your bid please click the following link:
http://www.auctionflex.com/showlot.ap?co=31120&weventitemid=3163342

Makes one wonder how the seller feels about this. Sounds like he got hosed as well.

Dan

[Majorjoel]

Thank you msmith, that means my max bid of 3000.00 should have tied the knot for #1555. I have contacted the auction house and they referred me to place my inquiry to their auctioneer. They then failed to give me the contact info.......that is the means to make contact with this person.  Dr. Fred, you are not alone in your frustration with this outfit!

[Hurricane ( of Virginia)]

For what it is worth....I received an anonymous email with this message.

"You may have lucked out, the thinking on this rifle was that the stock was probably new."

My attorney has opined: "that the only damages one can receive in court, if one would choose to go that route, is the difference between the "established value" and the bid itself.....thus your actual loss.

What does all this say about this auction???

Hurricane

[Ky-Flinter]

I was going to place a pre-auction bid on one of the sets of powder horn books, but got side tracked and it closed earlier than I thought.  Was at the CLA show on Saturday, so I didn't end up bidding.  Sounds like I'm glad I didn't get involved.

-Ron

[Hurricane ( of Virginia)]

Great news. To my great pleasure I received a call from Don Morphy who said he had noted the "error" and the gun was mine if I would pay the next level. As to the issue of restock, he told me who had assessed the gun and Don offered to have him reassess it. He is a well respected collector and dealer. I indeed apologize. There is integrity to the process!!!!!!!!!! Don offered to address any other complaints so please call him.
Fred

[Hurricane ( of Virginia)]

PLEASE READ:

I received a call from Don Morphy today who acknowledge the auction error and offered me the gun at the next bid level. I have accepted. He will verify that it is not a restock; that it was described correctly with the person who evaluated the gun. I know the individual  and trust his judgment. He is a well respected collector and dealer, a friend. Don also offered to correct any other errors; call him. I apologize.
THERE IS INTEGRITY IN THE PROCESS!!!!!!!!!
Fred

[mr. no gold]

It's beginning to sound like the house simply round filed the prebids and shut down the switchboards. All gaveled items seemed to go to the floor, so that suggests that no one excepting for those present, did any bidding. We all know that due to conflicting events, there had to have been a high number of prebids and phone apppointments for bidding.
Perhaps it was overwhelming, as has been suggested above, and that they accepted floor bids only, as a means of managing what might have otherwise been an unmanagable situation.
Logistics can be a nightmare in auctioneering and it might have happened here.
Dick

[Dave K]

Now I am curious. Does the high bidder at the auction have possession of the gun now? Does the bidder at the acution have a chance to raise his bid as a bidder would do in the normal auction process. I certainly wish you well, but the whole chain events leaves me wondering how this all works to satisfy the bidder who left a bid high enough to have won and the bidder at the auction who thought he actually won. I can see where someone may say I want that gun and raise their bid. I could even see as a bidder think, am I being scammed into raising my bid, because it was thought that my previous winning bid was not high enough?

[msmith]

Morphys just listed auction results on their site.

[Loudy]

A friend of mine attended the auction and came away with two great rifles.  He's thrilled about the guns and felt the prices were fair.  I'm kicking myself for not making the trek there myself.  Like others, I had tough luck trying to get bids through on the internet site.  A couple Snyder County guns sold that were of particular interest to me.  Oh well. 

Mark Loudenslager   

[jwh1947]

Just a note on my understanding of Pennsylvania law.  There are some things in the Commonwealth that are clearly illegal for an auctioneer to do.  They can't employ shills and they can be legally challenged for blatant, false misrepresentation.  However, PA law gives the auctioneer a lot of latitude beyond this.  I think the actual law reads somewhat as follows.  The auctioneer is in complete control of the auction, and he has absolute and final say on the deals that go on there. It's manifestly evident here that the laws were basically intended to protect the auctioneer more that the auctioneer's patrons.  If you make a cursory study of our banking laws, you may reach the same conclusion: the laws are there to protect the bankers, not you and me, the customers. 

So taking on an auctioneer in the Commonwealth is normally an exercise in futility.  Some even put it in your face...in public...ie:  "If you don't like the way we are doing business, don't let the door hit your rear on the way out."  You are at their mercy, and in some ways, they have the nearest thing to a license to steal that has ever been concocted.  You can give an auctioneer a bath and put a coat and tie on him, but if he has the ethics of pond scum, the coat and tie don't change that.  But then again, hey, some of my best friends are auctioneers.

 I will say that if I put all the local auctioneers together to rate and compare them, Morphys would be in the top quarter.  I am somewhat surprised that anyone was rudely or tersely treated by a staff member, and I'll bet that the boss down there would be distrubed, too, to hear that anyone was abrupt with a customer.

I would wager to say that the Internet has added a new complexity to this situation, and that most local judges would conclude that, barring clear-cut negligence, such mix-ups are out of the auctioneer's control and therefore he has no liaibility for screw-ups which are the result of communication problems or even omissions/oversights/errors.  I am not a lawyer, just an observant character with a decent memory.  Around these parts, negligence cases...misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance...are hard to win, and the onus of burden is, as usual, on the accuser.  That being said, it was somewhat like a Chinese fire drill down at that auction, and Morphys needs to learn from this and tighten up their record keeping and organizational act. JWH

[Fullstock longrifle]

I'm glad this is working out for Fred, but my question is this, how are they going to get the rifle back from the current owner?

If I lawfully purchased a rifle at the auction, paid for it and then took it home for several days, there is no way I'm giving it back.  Can you imagine the chaos that would occur if this happened to several other buyers?  Talk about opening a can of worms!

Frank

 

[JTR]

I wonder if that was Morphy auctions first forray into internet bidding? If so, they might have just been overwhelmed with on-line bidders, absentee bids, plus the floor bids.
Given the large number of kentucky's and the low estimates on most of them, I'm sure the auction attracted much more attention than their regular auctions. That's probably not a good excuse for the guys that lost out, but might simply be the fact of the matter.
John
 

[Curt J]

Reading all of this reminded me of the nightmare I had with a J C Devine auction several years ago. I had placed an absentee bid on a Henry Goedeke rifle, made in Olney, Illinois, and had to leave a credit card number to submit the bid.  The auction was over, and I had heard nothing from them, so assumed I did not get the rifle. I was curious (good thing I was!) about how much the rifle brought, so I called them to find out.  They cheerfully told me that I was indeed the high bidder, that the rifle had been shipped yesterday, and that I should have it by now. Since shipping from New Hampshire to Illinois normally takes several days, the "you should have it by now" part raised a red flag with me.  I asked where it had been shipped to, and he rattled off an address in Massachusetts.  I then told him that I live in Illinois.  There was a long moment of silence, after which he said "I think we have a problem".  It seems that they had someone else in their computer system whose name was the same as mine, and they had shipped it to him.  UPS had left it on what they thought was his front porch, not signed for.  He had not lived at that address for several years.  The folks at J C Devine called me and explained all of that, and I had serious doubts that I would ever see that rifle.  In the end though, UPS was able to track it down and get it back.  The new owners of the home had been trying to locate the previous owner, believing that it was his.  Fortunately, they were honest people. After J C Devine got the rifle back, they shipped it to me by UPS overnight delivery, so it did end well.  That is the only time I have had a problem with any of the specialty auction companies. I looked at the Morphy's catalog, but there were no guns that fit my collecting interests.  I have bought several from Old Barn Auctions in Findley, Ohio, and was quite pleased with the way they do business.