2 antique duck decoys

The Duck Dynasty folks have put their one millionth duck call up for auction for the second time after the highest bidder at their first online auction couldn’t come up with the cash. The bidder bid 80,100 dollars for the collectible duck call, but that doesn’t mean anything because he couldn’t come up with the money when the time came to pay the bill. I provide online auction tips that they should have reviewed first.

Don’t fall victim to these three traps that industry insiders know about auction bidding:

1. Bids vs. Payments

Ever been to an auction and can’t believe somebody just paid that much for an item? There is a good chance they didn’t.  It is a payment not a bid that matters. It is rarely reported when the high bidder does not come up with the money. People will think that the duck call is worth 80,000 dollars because of its bid, but in actuality, it’s not. It’s only worth what somebody is willing to pay not bid for it.

2. Second chance

The hype about a high bid helps drive the auction excitement for future auctions when they try again to sell it. It makes people think they have a second chance on a missed opportunity. It’s still not worth 80,000 dollars.

3. Deadbeats

Most auction houses do not pre-check their bidders and don’t know if they have the money to stand behind their bid. Auction houses spend a lot of their time chasing down deadbeats.

So, what is significant about the one-millionth duck call anyway? Not much. When it comes to collectability, the one millionth duck call isn’t any better than any other duck call … it just happens to be the one millionth one. There is no history there. Personally, I’d rather have the first one that was made which might tell us something about how the Duck Dynasty folks got started making duck calls.

Some valuable duck decoys have brought high values at auction but not duck calls dating as recently as 2011. No way is that duck call worth a bid of 80,000 dollars. Would you pay that much? Tell me what you would pay on my Facebook page.