Having gone and participated in many auctions, I began to notice that the bidders in most local live auctions, all know each other. They are sort of a club, of re-sellers and don't want any interlopers. Being an interloper, I could quickly, see I was being singled out. So the strategy became, I would just very early on, up the bid to my considered limit and bid no more. Which would cause some grumbling to The Club, and the auctioneer. And nearly always, someone in the club would enter a slightly higher bid. Okay.. by me. I addressed the crowd on our auction crowd that I was an administrator of the estate. And would be bidding, which I told earlier, to both the Auctioneer and the Window's Lawyer, who was also at the auction as a bidder. Both said this was okay to do.
The Strangest Auction was in Pennsylvania. We rented and filled a rather large U-Haul. I don't remember the town or the auctioneer company. We organized everything in to 5 lots, of related items. We must not have read the fine print of how this auction worked. In my mind, if you bid on a lot, the buyer then own's the lot. No matter how high or low the winning bid is. At this auction the bids were all very low. Okay, thats just what happens, but at least it is off our hands. No. Surprise! The winners just picked out what they wanted and left anything they didn't. Which according to the Auction Company was still our responsibility to remove off the auction site. I argued that the buyer bought the entire lot, and couldn't sign off what they didn't want. Its their property, now, for the entire lot, and I would be stealing to retake it. We spend alot of time testing and cleaning and packing. This fell on deaf ears. So read the auction rules and contract very closely. It might say something like, the seller is still responible for left over lots.