You summed up the auction experience pretty well, especially the lot splitting/merging, price pacing and heavy hitters with their u-hauls and glazed, soulless eyes and dancing hulu girl tattoos.

I’ve frequented tons of auctions in my day, and used to make a living trading through them, and I’ve never encountered an auction that went from 9am until 2am. Sounds like a living hell.

WORD++

You are right, SuperAuctions is a slick outfit that is (for the most part) set up to deal to vendors, but makes enough concessions that the guy (like you or me) who is looking to buy a single lot can still do business with them.

I found a long time ago that there exists a window of games that are undesirable. My theory has always been that there are three (ever-changing) arcade categories: classics, newer money makers, and everything in the middle. If you’re looking for cheap, shop in the middle. The classic category is generally dominated by people looking to blow their cash on one single game. The problem becomes you will most likely be bidding against some middle age guy with a bankroll who came for one specific game. Let the bidding war begin! And the guys buying the money makers are exactly as you described — they’re the guys with the dollies, trailers, and crew. They know what the games are worth and they’re (usually) willing to spend more than you because they can make their money back on a game whereas you can’t if it’s sitting in your living room. Those “middle games” are the ones that time passed over. Golden Tee 2008 (or whatever) will cost you a mint but Golden Tee 1999 goes for a couple hundred bucks.

There are other factors, of course — as the day goes on the prices drop (people have already spent their limit, I suspect). And as for those middle of the road games, generally speaking, the heavier they are the cheaper they go for. Initial D is a great racing game but I wouldn’t want to move one.

The way you described the lots being sold … that happens a lot with non-arcade stuff. SuperAuctions obviously specializes in games so, yeah, when there are boxes of microphone stands and whatnot, I’m sure it’s a “get rid of this crap and move on” mentality. I guess the financial loss must be worth it vs. the time saved. You would think a person could make more selling some of that stuff on eBay but … maybe they were just done with it. You are right, there is a certain amount of guilt associated with picking over someone’s dead carcass and arguing over pennies at the same time.