BreyerFest 2023 has gotten a lot of great reviews - people have expressed satisfaction, even happiness, with the event. But like any large event that brings people together from all over, there have been a few examples of those who would be dishonest and steal, find loopholes to do what they want, or who would act in a way that is patently unfair to others who are following the rules.
Sadly, the Live Auction took a large hit this year with $42,500 that was to go to charities lost to bad bidding. Speculation on social media is that there may have been some shill bidding going on, and as I look at some of those bids, I can see why that accusation has been raised.
The bids I find most suspicious are those that wildly dropped, such as Lot 22, the Pegasus Newsworthy. It was at $23,000 online prior to the auction. There were no in-person bids and no more online bids when the bidding started. When the online bidder failed to pay, the next highest bidder was $6,000, a drop of $17,000. That smacks of shill bidding to a lot of people, including me.
Look at Lots 12 and 19 and you will see more huge drops between the highest bidder and the second highest bidder. Things that make you pause.
A really sad thing is that it is very possible that someone who ended up being the second highest bidder and won a model innocently placed a bid and did nothing wrong. Shill bidding shines an unfair spotlight on them and sours their experience of winning a one of a kind auction model.
No doubt next year Breyer will make some changes, both to the way bidding occurs at the auction to the closing of loopholes that were exploited to even adding safety awareness measures or reminders to help prevent theft.
(To be fair, the loophole that was used was legal from a certain point of view. From others, it was not.)
And I hope those who were affected by the actions of those folks join us again next year and have a much better experience than they did in 2023.
I am aware that there is speculation about who may have been involved in the dishonesty, shill bidding, loophole exploitation, or theft. Comments naming these people will be deleted. Please be kind.
