Mecum Sold?

[matthon]

 

[RR Fan Dan]

Dang. What are you gonna do.

 

[Hey-O]

It's always about the money!

 

[XS22J8R]

I was trying to figure out exactly what transpired here. Guys car sold, at least the auctioneer put the hammer down and appeared to say sold. Yet they took more bids afterwards?
If it was his car, then he got more or what, I’m missing some context here.
Mecum is in my area, and I’ve been to many of their auctions. I bought a car there around 15 years ago. Friends have bought cars there. A few have sold with them, but not been happy with the sales.
I have thought of trying them to sell, as I’ve found trying to sell a vintage car the “old fashioned way” with ads and such is now difficult to all but impossible.
But I am aware of games they play, and I am too wary to use them.
Among things I have heard they do, is shill bid cars to near reserve to try to get a “real bid” that hits reserve.
I’ve seen them short hammer cars when people are still trying to bid. No secret Mecum buys cars to flip at their own auctions. They seem not above taking advantage of sellers to get a car below what other bidders might pay, to sell later. In fact many cars at each auction are owned by Mecum.
My purchase went well but I sort of feel it was “beginners luck”, I might buy again at a future auction but not comfortable at all with them.
I remember when they just had one auction, around 65 miles NW of Chicago. Over the years they’ve grown to have monthly auctions all over the country. They’ve abandoned Illinois, where they started out, though I can’t fault that given the taxes and other roadblocks to running a business here. They don’t even have an auction around here now since about 3 years ago they moved the Chicago/Schaumburg one to Indy.
Dana Mecum has a big estate on Lake Geneva Wisconsin and at least one private jet if not more. When you see businesses make a lot of money but then still do things you consider unethical, you wonder “why, how much money do you need anyway”?

 

[autoxcuda]

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I have thought of trying them to sell, as I’ve found trying to sell a vintage car the “old fashioned way” with ads and such is now difficult to all but impossible.<clip>

It's sad the typical buyer of a done car can only handle auctions and classic car dealers.

I think that's because they aren't hands on knowledgeable and not as into and invested into the hobby. So they feel the perceived comfort and protection of non private sales. They don't go on specialty forum site like this to find cars and don't hang out in the classic car community to find private sales.

Bring a Trailer bridges some of this gap. It's filled a niche. But's it infiltrated with dealers too.

 

[68BabyBlue]

It's sad the typical buyer of a done car can only handle auctions and classic car dealers.

I think that's because they aren't hands on knowledgeable and not as into the hobby. So they feel the perceived comfort and protection of non private sales. They don't go on site like this to find cars and don't hang out in the classic car community to find private sales.

Bring a Trailer bridges some of this gap. It's filled a niche. But's it infiltrated with dealers too.

Well said, and sadly true. In the last decade, I had a fair amount of experience with private sales and purchases, buying four numbers matching GTXs, and selling three. My transactions went well, mainly because I stayed within a niche market. I knew what I was doing when I inspected the purchases, the sellers knew it, and the buyers I dealt with when I sold the cars were sophisticated and thorough. The fact I wasn't in a hurry to complete any of the transactions really tilted the scale toward a good outcome for both parties.

I nearly consigned one car to Mecum in 2020, before Covid cancelled the auction. My motivation was their contract regarding warranty of "numbers matching" status. Draconian penalties for a seller who misrepresented the status of the engine and transmission, providing bidders with assurance they were looking at the real thing. That assurance comes with high fees and commissions. When I tried to sell the car private party, all the offers I got were based on a non-numbers value. The car recently sold for nearly double my selling price, two auctions and a dealer touted the "matching numbers" status.

Never bought a GTX from a dealer, but they seem to have about 90% of the available cars for sale these days. It seems most of the buyers who can afford today's prices don't have the patience I did to search out nice ones that were fairly priced by private owners. On the other hand, aging baby boomers, reaching their expiration date, don't have unlimited time left.

 

[XS22J8R]

As I previously mentioned, I’ve been to a lot of Mecum auctions over the years. There’s a bit of a casino atmosphere at them with lots of bright flashing lights and the sounds etc. I’m sure there’s the some of the same psychology involved, to aid in separating people from their money!
Dealers and auctions can handle a lot of the pieces involved in doing a purchase that private sellers cannot. They can do financing and schedule transportation to get your new purchase to your neighborhood are two of the biggest ones.
And lots of cars on the docket, if one you had eyes on doesn’t look great when you see it in person, there will likely be others there you’re interested in, which you might bid on instead, saving a wasted trip if you’d just traveled to see one car that didn’t work out.
Vintage cars I’ve bought privately, it seemed almost a planets aligned or “meant to be” chain of events for them to happen. For 2 of them, me being a pilot factored largely, in that I was able to fly myself out to an airport near the seller to see the car.
The last one was 375 miles away, driving to see it would have ended up 2 days and a hotel stay. Flying commercial would have been a pain. O hare is always a pain even though I live close, then the busy airport closest to the car I’d have had to rent a car and drive close to 1-1/2 hours to see it, then back, and catch another flight.
It turned out to be about a 6 hour round trip there in a Piper, with a weather delay before we could depart due to thunderstorms, but I found another pilot friend to share the trip and it was a fun and exciting flight, to see my future car.
I don’t know if I’d have been able to get up the motivation to have done either of those other options
Fortunately I know a local who does car transports and as luck had it, he had a haul from here going east soon, and was happy to pick up my car for his return for a very reasonable rate.
Planets did indeed align for me on that purchase!
So despite the often sleazy behavior of Auctions and dealers I understand the attraction!

 

[matthon]

I was trying to figure out exactly what transpired here. Guys car sold, at least the auctioneer put the hammer down and appeared to say sold. Yet they took more bids afterwards?
If it was his car, then he got more or what, I’m missing some context here.

The guy who posted the video, bobbyadams, had the high bid, auctioneer said sold and slammed the hammer.

Another bid came in right as he hammered, or right after.

Need sold and hammer, so he picked one and said he never said sold.
Clearly he said sold, and clearly he slammed the hammer.

Auctioneer referred to the morning announcement, which he himself made, seen at the end when they're in the car, and said, the hammer, the auctioneer says sold, ownership transfers.