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Generally with local non online auctions, one might be the only person who knows what an item is really worth, two might be the only one one to take a chance and risk the dinero or the competitions pocket books are not deep enough. Thus an opportunity to steal. With the Big Venue Spoon actions that are well advertised good luck with any of the above..Online Bidders bring more eyeballs on the merchandise than if it were just sold locally. Therefore with th eonline auction not much will escape attention, which makes it harder to find a diamond in the rough and not have to pay the going frieght. Thus prices even out across the world really.

Then there is a fatigue factor to consider, at the end of February there were quite a few big spoon auctions going on. The Little John Gangle Auction in Orange CA ran 1700 hundred pieces in 4 sessions over 2 days. Add in the other 7 or 8 good sized spoon auctions running afew thousand more pieces in the same week and you have buyer fatigue...there were deals to be later in the auctions..

The word about the LJG auction in SO CAL was that there was nothing special in it, so apparently a number of the strong local buyers didn't show..they instead hit the Carol Wilkeson auction down in Irvine instead as prices ran higher down there.

I did pick up a coupla nice things outa the LJG auction and something out of a VA auction several days later..the piece in the VA auction had a lousy description, pictures and apparently no bidders locally that either knew value of what they were looking at or didn't care. We will see when it arrives.

Also with the advent of various Price Guides (The Blue Book & Standard Cataloge of Firearms) with descriptions every idiot in the world can find a relative value on Spoons. If one were to look under Rigby Rifles in the Std Catalog of Firearms..one would see a picture of a BA Rigby spoon ...the spoon came with a luggage case, factory scope wt leather case and factory letter stating it was made in 1915. The buyer paid 3K at a Jeff Faintich Auction in 1999, which was well under estimate. Also it was pictured on the cover of the 2000 edition of the Std Catalog.