1. Auctions of all types have been around forever. They serve two functions:
   
   
   • they help to dispose of estates (or otherwise unwanted collections) quickly
     
   • they help get the highest prices for top pieces
   glassCo, and I would presume all other bottle auction houses, is used for both. I would stress that option a) is used just as often as option b). Most pieces in any auction are not "the top" pieces, they are just regular, run-of-the-mill pieces.
   
   
2. Auctions level the playing field.
   In Auction No. 7, there were many pieces we could have sold with a phone call. The left-handed pint Beaver, the 1737 sealed mallet, the Pressburg Warners all could have sold by a phone call. But by that means of selling, most collectors would NEVER have the chance to purchase quality pieces. A good example was our previous auction, No. 6, where we sold a rare Canada West medicine at auction. It could have quickly slipped into the hands of one of Canada's premiere collectors. As it was, the top three bidders on the piece were newer collectors, without the "connections", who never would have had the chance to own these pieces without the open auction process.
   
   
3. Auctions and prices.
   Do auctions raise the prices of pieces? Probably yes, for the most part. Why? Because they stimulate DEMAND. In your newsletter No. 18, you mention one collector who was finally able to buy a Beaver jar, in Canada, from their computer in the states, via bottle auction. And yes, the price of Beavers is probably going up. If the Red Book on a quart Beaver is $50 (just guessing here), and they are now trading at $80, that rise is due to the fact that a larger American market finally has ACCESS to Canadian jars. The quantity has remained the same, just more collectors are interested in adding a certain piece to their collection. Competition has been stimulated across a wider marketplace. In the purest form, if you are against this competition and the subsequent rise in prices, look at your own collection. You would have to argue that Americans should not be able to buy Canadian fruit jars, and that in fact, they should be restricted to buying pieces from there own state or even their own hometown in order to force competition down. And that's not about to happen! And there are bargains every auction. If every auction house maintained current prices on there site like glassCo does, you could scan the auction every day as closing day comes, checking out the bargains and buying stock, traders or just plain bargains for your shelf!
   
   
4. Problems with auctions, and regulation.
   There are always problems with auctions. You must be able to trust your auctioneer, as integrity is the only thing an auction house has going for it. I have been in contact with Kevin Sives of the FOHBC about setting up some sort of an ethics committee for the bottle community, similar to the NIA (National Insulator Association) ethics community, to police auctioneering and general selling in the hobby. We would like to see this put in place, and accreditations given to certified auction houses. Anyone can open a mom and pop bottle auction house on the web (we did, although we won't be a mom and pop until about August 15th!). Certification would mean that the FOHBC ethics community could review your bid sheets any time a sale is questionable.
   
   
5. Things to be wary about:
   
   
   • The auctioneer owns the piece you are trying to buy.
     This is the single largest problem in the auction industry. The auctioneer is trying to sell you their own property. How do you get burned? Because you are bidding against a phantom. You bid 60, the auctioneer tells you they have a bid of 65...and so on as far up as they think they can take you. If they guess right, they get the maximum value for their piece. If they lose, hey, they just recycle it again two or three auctions from now. Since they own the piece, they are not responsible to a consignor to give the consignor money for the piece that didn't really sell. glassCo's policy is to neither sell nor buy bottles in its auctions (which really hurts sometimes when something I love goes thru our auction!). See, if you consign a left beaver to me, and I bid someone up, and they drop out...I have to pay you for the beaver jar. I now own it. So I'm not going to bid anyone up! But if I as the owner of the auction house buy the beaver from you before the auction, then I know what I paid for it, and I can sell
     
     
   • The auctioneer bumps your bid close to, or all the way to, your protected bid.
     In absentee auction houses, as at other auctions, you can leave an advance bid which is higher than the current level. There is always the danger that the auctioneeer will bid you up higher than the next highest bid, PARTICULARLY if the auctioneer owns the piece! They could always reason that you would be willing to go to the certain bid level anyhow, so what's the harm? The harm is that the auction process is corrupted by those actions. There is only one way to police this, which is by enforcing the above mentioned certification and bid sheet review by a central ethics committee. Before anyone who reads this has the warning bells ringing in their ears about previous bids they have left, remember...most auction items are highly contested, and it is pretty normal for your bid to get pushed to its limit, particularly on lower value (<$200) lots. Having sold a couple thousand pieces thru auctions, I know that most lots are won by one bid increment. In the last auction, someone left a bid of $210 on a piece, and ended up winning it for $210. Which can seem fishy. But I have the underbidder's email "$200...no more!", and I know this happens quite frequently. So all I can offer is that you have to be able to trust your auctioneer, and you have to be comfortable with your bid levels. Bidding only one increment above the previous bidder is the safest way of protecting yourself, but I guarantee you will lose lots this way, as you will be outbid by one bid by someone who waited until 5 minutes closer to closing time! In my view, if you feel good about the auctioneer, then leave a bid a couple jumps up, if that's within your comfort level for payment.
     
     
   • Another problem that doesn't affect buyers but affects sellers, is the auctioneer taking the sales money and using it for personal purposes. So long as you are constantly having auctions, and you can keep your consignors at bay, you can easily remove thousands of consignor dollars from the business and use it for business investments or personal purposes. Here's how you do it: George consigns 20,000 worth of bottles for auction 10, in January. You sell them, get the money in February, and use the 20K to buy stock for your store. George wants his money, but you put him off, telling him you are waiting for payment by buyers (or whatever). Fred consigns $20000 worth of bottles for the April auction. You sell them, get the money in May, and pay George. Now you go thru the same process with Fred, putting him off til the next auction. The cash flow crunch comes at some point, and everyone gets hurt. Jim Hagenbuch at Glass Works in Pennsylvania suggests a trust account, such that the auctioneer cannot take anything out until the consignor receives their percentage. Good idea, but such an animal as a trust account like this does not exist in Canada.

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Sell wherever you feel comfortable. Limit your exposure to fees, and make sure you use a reserve. In my opinion, it is always best to sell privately or direct through a seller/buyer interaction.