Thoughts or impressions on the RIA auction? My impression of the company is that they specialize in American guns and tend to have a notch lower quality of offerings as compared to Morphy's, Holts, or Gardiner's. I was able to meet some of the auction guys at the Southern and handle a few offerings; although the actions were zip-tied shut we were allowed to shoulder them. I walked away with about 10lbs of auction catalogs after showing a modicum of interest. That led me to the King collection section from which several nice English shotguns were featured. For the first time, I actually bid for the in their auction on one of the Malcom King lots, the double percussion Boss pair. They were interesting guns, very late production percussion pigeon guns made to match a predecessor pair for what must have been a Sr. Citizen in 1868. The estimate was $14-19K and they sold for 16K.
I bid using an absentee pre-auction submission. The bid was "sealed" as in nobody saw the bid. However, as I checked the bid ahead of the auction, I was not able to see my competitor's bid, but I was informed that may bid status was "outbid", indicating that I needed to up my bid for a chance to win unless, presumably, the high bidder withdrew the bid ahead of the auction. I did not take the bait and stuck with my original bid and, predictably, was unsuccessful. I must say that the web interface was easy to navigate and the bidding process was very intuitive. It is probably my favorite bidding platform of all that I have experienced to date, but I am curious to know others' impressions of the auction, the offerings, and the bidding process...and whether anyone was "lucky"!
