Charles Sheffield

Important Notice About the Auction

Our new bidding system in now fully in place. The page you are currently viewing enables you to see the status of the various auctions we are running. If you would like to place a bid on an item you need to use our all new live auction screen.

The way our auction has changed. Instead of bidding a new price for a record, you now enter the maximum price you want to pay. The website will then automatically bid on your behalf up to your maximum price. Once your maximum has been out bid, we will notify you via email.

It is our policy that ALL items over the winning value of £40 won on the SOUL auction or ROCK‘n’POP Auction, will be shipped registered mail due to rarity and because the items are irreplaceable.

If you don’t wish to pay for registered “fully insured to sign” mailing, please do not bid.

Automatic Auction End Time Extension

To avoid any last minute bid sniping, and allow other bidders to respond, the system will automatically extent the auction end time on any last second bids by 2 minutes. Any additional bids will extend the auction by a further 2 minutes until no further bids are placed. At this point the system will close the auction automatically.

The auction service at raresoulman.co.uk enables you to bid for rare records on offer. The service enables you to view the highest bid so far and compete for items in real-time. Advanced features, such as automatic email notification when you have been outbid, are included for your convenience.

To begin with, you must register with us. If you have placed an order in the past you will already be registered with us.

Before you can bid for items, you must login. Use your email address and the password you entered when you registered to gain access to the auction service.

Placing A Bid

When you place a bid on an auction, a message will be displayed on screen to confirm if your bid was successful. Also, if you are logged in you can view the items you are bidding on by clicking "My Watch List" at the top of the website (desktop), or within the website navigation dropdown (mobile). We will highlight the items that you currently have the highest bid for. Please note, it is not possible to view the identity of the current bidder, only their auction username.

Outbid

If another bidder exceeds your bid, you will be notified by email. You are welcome to return to the site and enter a higher bid if you wish.

Winning an Auction

If you are the highest bidder when the auction closes, we will contact you personally to discuss payment and delivery details.

Live Auction Service

The new live auction service adds new features to auction bidding. You can see bids from other auction bidders as they are placed enabling you to compete for the items you want. Please note that you must stay connected to the internet for the Live Auction Service to work.

Auction Extensions

Whichever method you use to place your bids, our auctions will now be extended by 2 minutes if a bid is placed within the last 2 minutes of the auction closing time. The time by which the auction is extended accumulates until no more bids are received during the final 5 minute period.

Proxy Bidding

Once you have found a record you want to buy and decided you are willing to pay, for example, £75 for it but the current price is £22, what should you do?

Well, you could bid just the minimum, eg, £25, and probably be the highest bidder, But what happens when you leave your computer and someone else comes in and bids £28? Do you have to sit in front of your computer day and night until the auction ends to make sure you win? Thanks to our automatic proxy bidding tool, the answer is no.

How does Proxy bidding work?

Here’s a step by step guide:

1. An Auction is listed that starts at £20 with an increment price of £5.
2. I come along and submit a maximum bid of £100. The proxy server executes this bid, and as there are no other bids yet (mine is the first), the bid is on me for £20.
3. Now you come along and see that the current minimum bid is £25 and you decide to bid £30. You enter the bid and then you get an immediate outbid notice. Why? Because the proxy system has my £100 maximum bid to execute while keeping the bid at the lowest possible amount.
4. So you see an outbid notice, and the bid goes up to £30, with me as the high bidder.
5. You rebid £40 and the same thing happens. I am still the high bidder at £100 and will remain so until you or someone else surpasses my initial maximum bid.
6. Now, say you bid £150. The highest bid then falls to you at £105, as you have passed my maximum bid (I’m now out of the running until I place a new maximum bid).
7. If someone should come by and decide to bid £120, then they would get an immediate outbid notice because the proxy system automatically outbid the new bidder.and so on until the new bidder gives up or places a maximum bid which outstrips your £150.
8. Once your maximum bid is reached, you receive an outbid notification by email. You can decide then whether or not you want to increase your maximum bid.

That’s how our proxy bidders work. Because they’re unique to every user, proxy bidders will never reveal your maximum bid to anybody else.