PeterDavid.net

It was working this morning. Looks like some of these books may slip through my fingers with the full day extension... grrrr. :)

Well, that would explain why I couldn't log on to see I won or I lost on my 219 bids. I wonder if it was people trying to get in last minute bids who crashed it, or if it was something else. Still, now I gotta wait and check for another day to see if i'm out money or not.

Josh

That's too bad, and I'm sure it's frustrating for some folks. Unfortunately, that 24 hour delay probably means that some people will lose out on their bids, due to having to work tomorrow, etc. Here's to bidding by proxy!

Hmmm, based on bids against one of the auctions, looks like the earliest it went down was an hour and a half before the end.

I am really not impressed with Lot Auctions so far. Maybe it's because I'm more familiar with ebay, but Lot Auctions hasn't been very user-friendly as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to be able to see at a glance the status of all of the current auctions I'm bidding on, and whether or not I'm the high bidder, and what the current high bid is. Unless I'm missing something, with Lot Auctions I have to click on each individual auction to see the real status.

For Troy Bruce,

When you go to the "My Lot Auctions" link, select Bidding History. It should give you a single glance of everything you are bidding on and it's status.

The only thing you can's see easily is what you specified as your max bid. I keep a word doc with the info, or you can go back to the original e-mail confirmation you received.

Glen -- I really like the way you can bid in sets or individual issues, but it is difficult to manage multiple bids. Plus the e-mail notifications for whe you are outbid or your bid is successful seem to lage behind the system. My other complaint is it seems that if you increase your bid, you end up outbidding yourself.

But the set of comics you're offering has been a lot of fun to see.

Sorry, correction to my last comment about "outbidding yourself" -- i was having a brain fart and compared the wrong numbers. Ignore me.

I agree. I have not been overly impressed with Lot Auctions so far. While I can check the auctions I have bid on, there is no way to tell what my status is on the auctions (i.e. winner, outbid, etc.) without checking on each auction individually.

But, my biggest complaint is that I keep getting outbid! Really! What kind of an auction site is this???

Glenn - Thanks for the quick response! The personal bidding page now shows the current bid, my personal max bid, and whether I'm winning. Just what we wanted.

Lou: you're welcome. To everybody else, thanks for the feedback. We're still knocking out some of the bugs in the system-- witness the server crash yesterday.

What we're building is far more complicated than what other online auctions are doing, so it uses up more computer resources, etc. But it's making most people happy: it's making the seller happy because he's moving more of his stuff than other companies would, it's making the bidders happy as they're getting to pick and choose.

About the only folks who aren't happy are the ones getting outbid. And, well, sorry, not much we can do about that-- except the auction time does automatically extend, so at least you don't get sniped out by a bidder at the last minute. So that's something.

Glenn, my main concern isn't necessarily as simple as being outbid. I knew that this was a possibility from the outset. My main concern is the fact that an auction extended 24 hours due to the last hour or so of it being inaccessable seems more than fair to the seller *Who, I'd think would be thrilled at the thought that an additional day has been added*, more than fair to others who may or may not have been interested or aware of the auction at the time, but leaves me hanging with an additional day of waiting and the very real possibility that the final selling price will be significantly higher than it would have been 24 hours ago. An additional day brings more opportunity for reconsideration of previous viewers and of new people becoming aware of it being up through word of mouth or happenstance. Is there a better solution? I'm not creative enbough to think one up at the moment, but those are my thoughts.

Fred

Ok, the change to the bidding history page was phenomenal. Now I don't have to guess where I'm winning and losing based on number of bids. That's an excellent update.

josh

Woo hoo! Much beter personal page. Now if it would just show me wheter or not I am the winner (because some of the comics I am the "winner" on, Ther eis someone who actually will win because they have the high bid on the lot). Oh well. That is my only gripe. THe improvements already made have been phenomenal! Now, if you could wor on people not outbidding me!

Fred writes: My main concern is the fact that an auction extended 24 hours due to the last hour or so of it being inaccessable seems more than fair to the seller *Who, I'd think would be thrilled at the thought that an additional day has been added*, more than fair to others who may or may not have been interested or aware of the auction at the time, but leaves me hanging with an additional day of waiting and the very real possibility that the final selling price will be significantly higher than it would have been 24 hours ago. An additional day brings more opportunity for reconsideration of previous viewers and of new people becoming aware of it being up through word of mouth or happenstance. Is there a better solution?

I'm not sure that there is one. If you have a proxy bid in place, you've already established how high you're willing to go; if you didn't, then you're at max already. I'm not sure how having more time hurts.

In addition, Lot Auctions already has an overtime feature which prevents sniping, so there was no guarantee the auction would end exactly at 4 PM. (Think of it as "going, going, gone" in a traditional auction.)

I did indeed put up the maximum that I was willing to pay, but simply because I am willing to pay $30,000 for a car, doesn't mean that I wouldn't prefer to get it for $15,000. As I stated earlier, by extending an auction by 24 hours to cover the hour lost, you create a win-win-lose situation.

In addition, I made plans to be home yesterday afternoon, in part to be available in the event I would need to consider the possibility of shelling out more if the fever hit me. ;)

Fred

Just as information - the site was mostly inaccessible for the last 20 - 30 minutes of the auctions, and they ended well before 4:00 (I'd say about 3:45). I had been trying to get a few more bids in, and would have been happy to spend more money, but couldn't do it. You may want to conduct some performance / scalability tests before trying something of this scale again.

All my auctions were extended to 4:30, even the ones that didn't have any new bidders.

Strange.

Heck, it's been over for half an hour now, and I still can't get in to see what's happened. According to the countdown, the auction has always looked like it's internal time clock was off by about 15 minutes, so it'd end at 3:45 instead of 4:00.

Also, the bidding history pages with it's Win versus Lost doesn't take into account if the lot the individual issue or set is in is the winner instead of the issues.

Actually, I'm finally bakc in at 4:25, and it looks like the auction is still going on? I got the Auction Completed statement once, and now I'm seeing 15 more minutes?

josh

Josh, you didn't happen to get to that auction via DeLorean, did you? It is 4:18pm here.

Fred

And now all the auctions are bumped to end at 4:54. It's almost as if a bid on any auction anywhere towards the end of the bidding period causes all the auctions to be incremented.

Nope, math adds up. I posted at 4:17, the auctions ends about 3:45 by pretty much every clock I can find. That's 30 minutes.

The auctions keep getting extended every time someone bids on anything. They've been crawling forward from 4:54 upwards and they are now currently ending at 5:05.

Man, that's a big bug. For instance, every auction that didn't receive any bids at all should have concluded at the specified ending time. Only the ones that have bids near the ending time (and all their "parent" lot auctions as well) should be extended.

I may be stating incorrect information. But from what I have read about Lot Auctions and their anti-sniping policy, anyone that bids within the last few minutes of bidding the auction gets extended 20 more minutes each time. Now does this rule apply to the individual issues or just the "parent" listing? If this is the individual issues. With 30K books someone will always bid on something at the last minute, and it will never end. Let's hope it is the "parent" listing.
Tyson

It almost seems like the system would require that a bid on any auction in the lot extend every auction in the lot. Because the individual bids can potentially beat a lot bid, then every individual bid relates every to every auction. I'm not sure how it could work correctly if individual auctions didn't bump the everything else.

That said, with the 64,000+ separate auctions going on, I can see these auctions stretching out for quite a while.

How widespread is individual issue bidding? I think most of the auctions I bid on had most bidders bidding on the "set" and not the issues themselves.

But I could definitely see some of the bigger sets with primo Silver Age stuff going on for a lot longer.

From my perspective, I'm sitting here winning all the auctions I want to win, none of them have been bid on in the last hour or so, but I'm still not the winner because someone is bidding on some completely unrelated auction.

Tyson said:
With 30K books someone will always bid on something at the last minute, and it will never end. Let's hope it is the "parent" listing.

It's not just 30K books, though, it's 30K books plus a huge number of sets. A bid on any individual book or any set or the whole collection will potentially extend the entire auction, and really have to for the "lot auction" concept and the anti-sniping policy to be compatible.

Frustrating. I am bidding on some individual issues (I can't afford the whole Avengers lot). I just wish I could figure out if all the individual comics i am winning are actually being won, or if they are bing won, but I will end up losing because of the lot being won. Almost seems like there should be another column of info on the bidding history page.

I agree, some of the info seems to contradict itself. I was listed as not being the winner of an auction, even though I have the current high bid and there are no bids on the parent lot. Curious.

Styer, why couldn't only the auctions with current bidders and their parent auctions be extended? That way related auctions would be extended and unrelated ones could end with the no-sniping rules having been in effect for each one the entire time.

For instance, if I bid on Spider-Man #1, that should theoretically extend the time on the Spider-Man #1 auction, the Spider-Man set auction, and the entire collection auction but not Spider-Man #2 and definitely not Damage Control #3.

so, what you guys are saying is you would be really pissed if at the last moment I bid on one issue of the 1963 set? Aw, c'mon it will be fun!

Besides, I am pretty sure that all the activity will eventualy die down and this whole thing will end some time in the middle of the night.

garbonzo

Ralf Haring said:
How widespread is individual issue bidding?

I haven't seen much of it in the small sets like 4 or 5 issue limited series, but in the larger sets like a couple hundred issues of a given book, I've seen a fair amount of it and have done some.

I mean if I'm a John Doe fan and I only want his 10 issue run in the middle of a 250 issue run of a book I've not bid $100+ on the whole set but have bid $0.25 each for his 10 issues.

The "Personal Page" is telling me that I'm winning the individual Byrne/Stern issues I bid on in the Captain America set, but there's a several hundred dollar bid on the whole set, so I'm not getting those issues, and I'm not even going to come close.

With another series I've bid on, though, I have a bid in for the set and there are a number of individual bids on issues, and it's pretty close between the individual bids and my set bid. If my numbers are right, if even one of those bids goes up by 3 cents I lose the set.

From my perspective, I'm sitting here winning all the auctions I want to win, none of them have been bid on in the last hour or so, but I'm still not the winner because someone is bidding on some completely unrelated auction.

I'm in the same boat, but the auctions aren't really unrelated because the effect the minimum bid necessary to win the entire lot, which has to be within 90% of all the bids on any individual comic or set. Though as of right now no one has even bid on the entire lot. Because of the lot system no bid on anything within the lot is strictly "unrelated" to any auction within the lot. Combine that with the anti-sniping policy and undisputed sub-auctions are extended despite the lack of activity.

Ralf Haring said:
Styer, why couldn't only the auctions with current bidders and their parent auctions be extended? That way related auctions would be extended and unrelated ones could end with the no-sniping rules having been in effect for each one the entire time.

Strictly speaking, though, they are all related. I'd be satisfied with what you're proposing, and frankly that was my understanding when I started bidding. But I'm not sure that having the system work that way would truly carry out the "lot auction" and "no sniping" policies.

Styer, if auctions were allowed to end piecemeal, I could see some kind of system where I am the "temporary winner". I've reserved my place at the top of the line for the issue or set that I've bid on, with the knowledg that at some later point when everything dies down and the tip-top parent auction ends one of the bidders on the parent auctions might be the final owner of the books.

That might work.

Woo hoo, finally over.

Final price of all sets was $13,172...not bad, although well short of the $25k. Although there are a number of very valuable sets that didn't get bought (some had minimums of over $1k).

Hi. This comics auction was my first time on lot auctions. Now that it's over, what do you do? Can you combine all of your wins into one payment and what will happen with shipping (price and type, DHL I hope)? I received an e-mail on one of the items so far but there will be a few of them.
I'm probably just being anxious but any advice would be great.
Thanks !!!
gtc

Final price of all winning items was $15,803.21, which is pretty good. We haven't gone through to see exactly what's left, but we were happy that we optimized the sales of various items-- there were title sets that were beat by individual bids, and vice versa. And in general, the numbers look much larger than the bidding that other online auction services would have done. Which proves our point.

Now we just have to go through them and tally them all... wheee...

I'm glad it cumulatively worked out for the seller, but one particular set I bid on (and won) was under eBay's standard price. The Flex Mentallo mini usually goes for $45-50 and I got it for $35. Woo hoo!

Looks like the server crashed again though, perhaps from people visiting the site after getting their "winning bid" e-mails?

Some instruction as far as shipping and such as others have mentioned would be good. I've held off e-mailing because I assume the seller doesn't want a couple hundred/thousand individual e-mails asking the same thing, and also because I've only received a few of the confirmation e-mails of the lots that I won.

Glen, okay, so the lot auctions experience was interesting. Good news I got hold of some series I definitely wouldn't have otherwise. Bad news...I was also outbid on an item I did want (but apparently not bad enough). Sigh.

I guess if we're talking some additional enhancements to the sites (and kudos for the quick updates yesterday...I actually thought I was losing my mind and had complained about features that were there.) Here are a few more updates to consider when time permits.

1) A single global login. I had to keep authenticating each time to bid, to check the personal bidding page, and each time I essentially changed pages.

And the others have completely slipped my mind...e-mails later, I'm sure.

((This was originally an e-mail sent to Mr. Hauman. But Verizon rejected the e-mail, saying the accound was over it's quota. I guess he's getting a lot of e-mails right about now. Hope everything is working out allright.))

Just some feedback on your website, don't consider them complaints, think of it as constructive criticism.

1. The auction has been over for over twelve hours, but I'm still getting e-mails.
2. I did bid on 220 lots, I know I lost about 50 of them, and I've gotten e-mails saying I won 32 of them. From browsing the website, it appears I won about 150 of them, which means there are over a hundred auctions that I won that I have not been informed I won.
3. For those which I did win and receive e-mails about, I'm getting four to six e-mails for each successful bid.
4. In at least one case, the successful bid on the web page and the one listed in the e-mail, the values vary.
5. I believe the Avengers set now has someone listed as bidding for the entire set for $0. I don't know how that affects those of us who bid on individual issues.
6. The website is unavailable, alot, including right now. I don't use Ebay, so I don't know how common that is for auction sites, but it's not much fun to bid when you can't even check the website and have no idea what the current status is.
7. From what I've seen of people talking at Peter David's website and the other people I know who bid, we have no idea what happens now in regards to successful bids, other than we're all supposed to e-mail to seller, which I believe is you.

Please don't take these as attacks, it just seems to me your system needs some work.

Josh Wilhoyte

And what does it mean when these e-mails say I'm a "qualified bidder" ??? I assumed it meant I won, but now I'm getting it for the issues of Impulse I bid on, when I know someone bid on the whole set for alot more money. THis website is kinda confusing.

Josh

I agree...the website has more than its fair share of problems. i wish that these bugs had been worked out on smaller auctions before something this massive. I worry (for the seller) that the numbers he is relying on for the sales includes all these multiple win notices I am receiving for auctions which were trumped by the parent auction. That would suck.

Hi Glenn,

I have to say I'm having pretty much the same problems as Josh (two or three posts above this.) I've tried e-mailing you serveral times, but it gets returned. I won the 12 auctions I bid on, but only got messages for three. I would have bid on more, but I'd only registered a few hours before and the site slowed to a crawl the last hour. I feel bad about using PAD's site to contact you, but it's the only way I know how. Please let me/us know how you want to proceed. Thanks.

Shane

I also won a few auctions, and I'm wondering what happens next. I think the suggestion above about some general instructions for how to proceed would be helpful. I'm also experiencing multiple e-mails regarding items for which I'm a qualified bidder as well as qualified bidder e-mails for items that I know I didn't win because the lot bid was higher than the individual issue bids.

Is anyone else having problems seeing more than 2 pages of bidding? I only get the first 2 pages, and it shows me as the winner for stuff that someone bid on the sets for.

I know that when I was trying to view the active bids I only got to see 7 pages. It didn't show me the rest of my bids.

Well, you can access more bidding pages by putting in the next page number in the address bar

ie PgNum=5

I'm not sure I liked people being able to bid on the sets, or at least would have liked some indication that they had so I could decide to go that route or not. I bid on so many things that it was hard to keep checking.

Overall it looks like I won some good stuff. Probably a good thing I didn't win everything I was bidding on, especially some of the more expensive items.

I'm having the same problems as you guys. I'm happy with the stuff I won (or at least I think I won), but I'm pretty confused as to how I should proceed. I'm sure it will get sorted out properly, but the whole thing seems really disorganized. I feel for ya Glen, this must be a total pain...

Anyone who wants to send specific suggestions over to me can reach me at my mdinowitz address on houseoffusion.com. As you saw with the bidding history page, I can alter the site to fit whateve will make it better for people. Some of the ideas I've read look good and will probably be added in the next week or so.

Just a quick note: if you think your email was a problem, you should have had mine over the last 48 hours-- my system collapsed after 40,000+ emails, both from a bug in our mail software and a spammer forging a domain I control to send out spam, which resulted in a few thousand bounce messages.

I'm going through them as fast as I can, so that I can send out proper billing ASAP for the winning auctions. With luck, you'll have all your invoices by Monday.

Thanks for the updates, Glenn. I am looking forward to reading some of the comics I won. Boy, I bet you must be swamped.

Well, I guess we can assume he didn't get all of the invoices out by Monday. Has anyone gotten theirs yet?

Josh

I haven't. One thing to keep in mind if they're being sent out over the course of this week is that people will likely be away for Thanksgiving. I know I'm leaving tomorrow and wouldn't be able to respond and pay for my items before Sunday.

Got my notice this morning. All the issues were sorted out (no more notices of having won individual books eventhough the parent lot was won by someone else) and everything looks great. Now i just have to figure out a way to explain to my wife why the bank account is empty and there is a new pile of books in the mail.

Yeah, I'm going to have fun explaining that one myself.

I wonder if I can use the "Peter David said I should," excuse. Might work. Then again, I might be sleeping on the couch.

Hell, after the amount that I put down, I may volunteer myself to the couch...... amd I live alone!!

* Actually, I am very happy with what I ended up shelling out for the Amazing Spidey run. Barring the comics getting here mangled with covers detatched, I am a very fortunate guy.*

Hi. I did receive the notice last week with the list of everything on it. At the moment I am just waiting for the notice with the weight amount so I can figure out shipping, then pay, etc... Since it didn't come last week I assumed that the holiday slowed things up. Now that it is monday and it is over I'm hoping things will pick back up and get moving again. I'm just anxious to get the process moving and to get the books that will be coming.

Anybody have any updates (glen on how things are going or anyone on their place in the process so far)?

Thanks!!!
gtc

Gtc, I'm the same as you. I got a notification of all my items with a request for my address to calculate the final amount with shipping. I sent that along with a note that I would be away for Thanksgiving as well as a question about what forms of payment are supported - paypal, money order, etc. That's the last I heard.

Hi. I was just wondering if anyone has heard anything or has any updates on how the comics thing is going?

I don't mean to be impatient. I'll wait as long as needed. I'd just like to be kept updated so I don't wonder what's happening. As soon as everything works out on that end I'm ready to pay for the comics (felt I needed to mention that as I don't want to be forgotten).

Thanks!!!
gtc
wall@adelphia.net

I don't think that expecting a quote within 3 weeks is impatient or unreasonable. I understand that life happens and it appears that this was a huge undertaking, but I'm scratching my head after 2 different timelines have come and gone with no forward movement. I'm beginning to get nervous about a few of the books, since they were purchased with the intention of being given out as holiday gifts.

Seems like I'm in the same boat as y'all. Initial contact, then nothing more. Hopefully we'll hear something soon . . . .

derek

sounds like we're all in it together! hopefully glenn will get back to us soon!

I emailed today. Don't know if you all did./ Just asked what was up and made sure he had my address to calculate shipping costs. Guess it could be worse. This way my wife won't find out about it until after the holidays!

Still nada. I haven't heard anything since the going out of town e-mail.

The last revised timeline had all books being weighed and mailed this week "in time for Christmas". Not sure if payment method, shipping time, etc was figured in.

Fred

I hadn't heard that or anything else for that matter.

Apparently they were up to comics beginning with "S's" by this morning. Just another indicator of how wrong it was for me to buy the "Welcome Back, Kotter" run. ;)

Fred

I was just wondering if anyone has heard anything at all lately?

This week is quickly coming to an end and I have not heard back or seen a new update here in what feels like a long time. I wrote glenn awhile back and he wrote back saying that it was a lot to get through and would take time. I don't mind waiting for things to get done. What I am finding MOST FRUSTRATING is the lack of any updates, if not in e-mail then right here on this thread. It's been so long that when I come here to check (EVERY day), I have to scroll way down through the NOVEMBER stuff just to find this thread.

Like I said, it's not the waiting that's bothering me, it's the total LACK OF COMMUNICATION.

Sorry to rant, I'm just getting VERY frustrated about not hearing anything about what's going on.

Thanks !!!
gtc

OK, it's been a month since the auctions ended and I still haven't heard how much I owe. Is anyone else in the same boat? This is my first experience with Lot Auctions, and I must say that I've found the whole process quite frustrating.

Anybody heard anything at all?

I just got back from a 2 hour drive to Union City, NJ to pick up my auction wins. Overall, I am very happy with the lots and am thrilled to have filled in a substantial portion of the holes in my Silver and bronze age Amazing Spidey run.

Had a nice drive out with a friend and met the enigmatic Glenn face-to-face. He exists and was very pleasant to speak with. I'm glad to have helped the namaeless comic professional in educating his daughter with a college education and getting some great reads to boot.

Fred

GLENN -
Hi. Thanks for writing the other day. I sent a couple of replies back with my address and prefered shipping. I haven't heard back after that and was wondering if you received them? Let me know what to do next?

Thanks !!!
troy (gtc07)

Wading through my Amazing books and was a little appalled at the lengths Marvel went to keep their staff from selling off the comp books. For a twp year period in the 1980's they stamped the front covers with "complimentary copy" or "Not for resale" in large print. It made me flinch and I can only imagine what this did for moral of the staff. *Amazing Spidey issues included in the dozens that were stamped were key books 238 and 252.*

On an unrelated note, Amazing Spidey issues 121, 122, 129 and 119-120 -the Hulk fight that I've always anted copies of- are in incredibly high grade condition.

Fred

Fred Chamberlain --

I know you mentioned above that you went and got your stuff already but I need to ask you something and you're the only one who seems to still respond here. Have you talked to glenn or heard from him at all? I got an e-mail on december 27 or so asking for my address and preferred shipping. The comics were weighed and sorted already. After that I have HEARD NOTHING. I asked here above and it got no response. I've sent another e-mail to glenn but he never seems to answer back. I tried to send a message to lot auctions support but the e-mail address was rejected so it didn't go through. There is almost NO communication and it is VERY frustrating. I really was looking forward to receiving the comics but this whole process feels EXTREMELY difficult.

I don't mean to rant on you, I just don't know what to do ???
Please give me some advice if possible ???

Thanks !!!
troy

GLENN --

If you see this I wanted to mention that I've been trying to reach you by e-mail. I sent another message today.

Thanks!
troy