[meteorite-list] Al Lang's auction

[AL Mitterling]

Greetings to list members,

Here are my comments on AL's auction. I realize that some questions need 
to be answered but agree with Geoff Notkin that we need to wait and hear 
from AL, AFTER he gets back. I appreciate Michael Blood's and Darryl 
Pitt's comments as well on auctions.

First I was an attendee at AL's auction and won four items. No problems 
with these. At the beginning it was stated that the items sold would go 
toward a museum display that AL is setting up. So AL is donating the 
proceeds for this and isn't profiting by the sale of the auctions other 
than providing a display for educational purposes. In all emails I 
didn't see this pointed out at all.

AL had some very respectable, honest people help out with the auction. I 
would like to verify that the absentee bids were handled by one of the 
most honest individuals I know of and he did a great job with these bids 
overall. If you were not present at the auction and the high bid was 
just below the absentee bid and didn't go high enough above the need 
increment then the live bidder won the auction. So you could have been 
$5 higher but needed to go $10 above the live bid to have won. In one 
case there was a tie bid from a live bidder and an absentee bidder. In 
this case the auction goes to the live bidder by the auction rules. 
Above $1,000 the increments were higher. To speed the auction up live 
bids were allowed to bid in higher increments. Most of the time this was 
done in $100 higher bids and the consensus of the live bidees, felt this 
was fair.

I think the nature of this auction was intended to be fun, laid back, 
and informal. There were some mix ups, and confusions but over all the 
auction was fun to be at and I believe done as honestly as could be 
done. I am sure that items in question will be made right and that 
everyone will be treated fairly in the end. Winning bidders were 
removing items and taking them to AL and Iris and so it is possible that 
with all the pieces floating around pieces could have been misplaced.

Many posts were made to the list on this auction that could have been 
made in private (at first) then brought up to the list if it was needed. 
There are still some good questions to be answered but I have learned 
the hard way you need to give people the benefit of a doubt. All my best 
to all and wish I was still in Tucson as the temperature is about 80 
degrees colder here in northern Indiana!

--AL Mitterling