This site is called Tolkien Guide and it encompasses many aspects of collecting. I don't think this site should avoid posting auction listings, regardless of the impact it may have on sales prices. That would feel underhand to me and verges on being elitist. Jeremy could of course make such posts for members only but again it would feel elitist and counter to what many of us feel this site is about.

What next? Discuss privately to not up the price for each other? Not compete for items?

Nah, I wouldn't frequent a site that acted this way, and while I wouldn't speak for others here, I would hope the serious collectors and buyers would agree.

galbus wrote:

Mr. Underhill wrote:

Have to agree with Trotter on this one as I think highlighting Tolkien auctions on this site is a good thing for collectors to be able to easily keep track of what certain items are selling for. I don't think that us simply putting the listing here is affecting the price very much. People who make it their business to buy and sell books are going to know about auctions like this regardless of whether they are posted here or not. The market for Tolkien is what it is right now for a variety of reasons.

I agree that the market is strong for many reasons but I am pretty sure that highlighting here the auctions is increasing the prices even more, this is a public forum more and more followed and read by different types of actors.
If the aim is to keep track of what certain items are selling for (which is indeed useful for collectors) why not posting and commenting auctions when they are closed?
I have noticed that many interesting eBay auctions here are posted only when already expired (and of course I can understand why..) so why not try to do the same with normal auctions?

If you indeed believe that it's dealers driving up the price and or speculators who are driving up the price, then I still feel that someone who makes a living doing this are going to be monitoring auction houses anyway regardless of what comes up on the site.

As to your claim that this site is driving up prices, I don't agree and haven't seen any evidence of a direct correlation. There plenty of listings that are posted here that don't sell or only get a small number of bids. There have also been some recent auctions posted here that came in under what some of us thought would be the case. I just don't buy that this site is inflating the market.

Entshelm wrote:

I was hoping this auction might go 'under the radar' to give me a better chance to purchase, so was disappointed to find it highlighted here.

No chance of this not being heavily advertised, and frankly it's a bit elitist to not want others to know about something so that you can have it to yourself IMO.

My comment was only an expression of disappointment, not intended to disparage anyone.

The book had only been listed on the internet a few days prior to the auction, from a lesser known auction house.

Was my sentiment different from any other collector? I don't know...

PS: I do find it 'arrogant' for someone to refer to me as 'elitist'.

Entshelm wrote:

My comment was only an expression of disappointment, not intended to disparage anyone.

The book had only been listed on the internet a few days prior to the auction, from a lesser known auction house.

Was my sentiment different from any other collector? I don't know...

PS: I do find it 'arrogant' for someone to refer to me as 'elitist'.

My comment was not meant to disparage either. I totally get where you're coming from at the disappointment of the auction getting so much attention. I'm not calling you an elitist...I don't know you, but merely commenting on the sentiment that excluding people from auctions is in fact elitist.

All of us collectors have FOMO to a certain degree that is hard to avoid.

I welcome notice of upcoming auctions on this site.
(though as it happens, I'd already heard about this auction. as I'm on an email list)

Entshelm wrote:

My comment was only an expression of disappointment, not intended to disparage anyone.

The book had only been listed on the internet a few days prior to the auction, from a lesser known auction house.

Was my sentiment different from any other collector? I don't know...

PS: I do find it 'arrogant' for someone to refer to me as 'elitist'.

I had exactly your same sentiment: the auction has been listed on the internet with the catalogue only some days before the selling. I was also hoping to have a chance in the bidding war due to the short advice and the summer holiday period but when I saw it promptly advertised here I knew that there would have been no chance left.

Do you need another example?
The Bruun Rasmussen auction was definitely another minor auction that was going "under the radar" because out of the major auction portals. I was monitoring the CoH book because interested in trying to bid on it. The bids on it were quite low and at a very reasonable level until when the auction has been posted here: from that very day the bids started to increase until ending the auction day at a level higher than previous eBay records if we consider the buyer's fees.
And this is just one of many example that I could make, in this case more evident because I was monitoring the lot from before and the bids were constantly updated on the auction site.

onthetrail wrote:

Nah, I wouldn't frequent a site that acted this way, and while I wouldn't speak for others here, I would hope the serious collectors and buyers would agree.

A good number of the eBay listings are already posted here after conclusion, and the users here comments on results, prices reached and who has bought what. So which is the difference?

galbus wrote:

onthetrail wrote:

Nah, I wouldn't frequent a site that acted this way, and while I wouldn't speak for others here, I would hope the serious collectors and buyers would agree.

Most of the eBay listings are already posted here after conclusion, and the users here comments on results, prices reached and who has bought what. So which is the difference?

This topic is going nowhere. This site has posted links to auctions for many years, it is a site for collectors to find out about collecting and that includes auction house listings. What eBay results has to do with that baffles me somewhat.

To exclude auction listings to keep the traffic down on them is not what this site is about. When I enter a competition for a book from a favourite author on Twitter, don't think to myself "I won't Retweet this to keep my chances greater", I share to give everybody who wishes to enter, the fairest chance because I am not about increasing my chances by excluding others.

galbus Are you suggesting that we don't publicly discuss auctions?

We could have some sort of 'private' group, an elite, were we do discuss them before the auction ends.

Like onthetrail I am not happy about this scenario and think it is unfair and wrong to exclude people.