Auctions

BUY or BID SALE, ENDING WITH LIVE AUCTION (#8)
Thursday 14 May 2020 at 20:00 Israel Time (13:00 EST)

The sale features all aspects of philately and postal history: perforations, papers, printings, settings & overprints; postal rates, routes, handling, markings, censorship, civilian & military mail, taxed mail, and more

The auction is composed of 2 parts: prior to May 14th at 20:00, lots can either be bid-on or bought out. The bidding takes place like a regular mailbid style auction, and maximum/proxy bids can be placed. The buy-out price is dynamic: if the bidding activity on a lot exceeds the midway point between the opening bid price and the initial buy-out price, the buy-out price will begin to rise by 5-10% for every additional bid placed on the lot. This is intentional in order to not discourage ongoing bidding for the lot. At 20:00 Israel-time (13:00 EST) on Thursday 14 May, the sale will conclude with a live auction of the unpurchased lots. The auction end-date will not be changed, regardless of the participation rate in the sale.

The opening bid price is flexible and bids of at least 80% of the opening price will be accepted. The buyer's commission is 18% on the hammer price; layaways and installment payments can be arranged.

Visitors and bidders can "watch" lots and receive updates on the bidding status of those lots, only a simple registration is needed; once an update message has been sent, the receiver needs to log-in in order to continue receiving these updates. This is intentional in order to limit 'spamming'.

Bidders can also track their bids by selecting the option to "see lots I bid on", near the search field at the top part of the screen.

As philately is complex and multi-faceted, we gave much thought to the issue of classifications and categorizations - and search and display functions to aid visitors in navigating the sale.

• The sale as a display "from start to finish" can be viewed by clicking the "current auction" menu link on the top menu bar.

• The sale as a display split by its categories and sub-categories (in order of the lot numbers) can be viewed using the "Sale Categories" menu link on the top menu bar. Here, users can either select a 'parent' category and be shown all the lots assigned to it (with the sub-category labels displayed).

• Here we should point out that in our sales we are able to assign a lot to up to 2 categories, and this is in order to help address bidder interests in varying fields. These category assignments sometimes turn on a razor's edge regarding their relevance and priority, and are based on the priority of relevance of the classification to the particulars of the lot. For example, for a cover where "1948-49 Rates & Routes" and "1948 Post Siege Interim Jerusalem" categories could be relevant, such a cover would only be assigned to the latter category if it bore an "interim Jerusalem" characteristic. Likewise, certain subjects may be mutually exclusive: covers assigned to the "taxed mail" categories will rarely be additionally assigned to a "postal history" category unless there is a special circumstance for it (eg. a special postage rate used). Similarly, special military postmarks or issues pertaining to them are relegated to "military mail" as a single subject and not placed additionally in the "postmarks & postal markings" categories (eg. of Israel, by the locale). Here also, special markings related to service suspensions in Arab-Israeli conflict are covered exclusively in that section. On desktop and laptop computers the "Sales Categories" menu will display the range of the lot numbers assigned to the categories: here, please note that the lot number appears only next to the primary category a lot has been assigned. That same lot may also appear in another category - but its lot number will not appear as part of the range. One clue that additionally-categories lots appear in a menu selection is the discrepancy in the menu's summary of the number of lots included there: it may show lots #1-3 but the summary will show (10) items to be displayed.

• There is a search field near the top of each page, where a free-word search can be conducted - however this is limited to whatever words were used in the lot's title or description.

• To augment the search or menu-display results, another way of viewing the sale (or delving deeper in the display results) is to use our subject filters - these appear in the left-side column on desktop/laptop computers, and appear just below our logo on cell phones. The purpose of these filters is to display lots based on conceptual assignments we have associated with them. An easy example of this is "censored mail": there is no sale category for censored mail because it cross-cuts many other times and subjects, but the filter menus will enable users to pin point lots based on such conceptual/characteristic assignments we have made to them.

• Finally, using the "Sale Subject Index" menu link from the top menu bar, visitors can peruse the sale using any of a number of different indexing methods for the display - by country, city, special characteristic, object type and more. With the move of the mouse cursor over the image icon next to the lot, users can quickly see the title and image of the lot - and click to access it directly.

Please note, the site also features a regularly updated store with a fixed-price/make-offer display. In order to specifically view this or the auction display, please select the menu option from the top menu bar, and the menus and filters will then display only those items relevant to those displays - otherwise all the items appear.

If there are any announcements or updates to be made, we will make them here in this area