[Nedsel]

Dan, I think you are making this more complicated than it really is. At last year's Rupp/ Flynn Ft. Lauderdale auction in January, 3021 was said to have been sold at a hammer price of $3.5 million. If you add the buyer's premium, which is usually 8-10% of the bid, then the supposed buyer would have been paying a minimum of $3,780,000 for the car, unless some type of deal was arranged given it was the headliner car. That's a lot of dough, and more than twice what a nice S/C would have been expected to bring at auction a year ago. But let's suppose there were two (or more) serious bidders in the room who wanted the car, and the final price when the last under-bidder dropped out was $3.5 million. That's the number the auction company would have reported as the sales price. Now, let's move ahead several weeks or months. Suppose the winning bidder gets cold feet and/ or has difficulty coming up with the cash to close the deal. It's hard to imagine this scenario, as most auction companies require a bank letter guaranteeing they will honor a draft against the individual's account up to the requested credit limit, which in this case would have been at least $3.5 million. But let's say it happens, and the winning bidder fails to perform. He may lose whatever deposit he has put down and be forced to pay damages, legal fees, etc., but he can't be forced to buy the car. So, maybe with the cooperation of the seller and the auction company, a deal is struck whereby the car is offered up for sale on eBay, using a fictitious business name as the owner, in the hopes that someone, somewhere - having heard that an original 427 S/C sold for over $3.5 million - decides that he'll pay that, too, as, after all, that IS what they're bringing these days, right? I mean, that is what was reported, so it must be the value. Except that no one steps up to the plate and bids. So the car remains unsold. What's a seller to do but bring it back to another auction and give it another shot? So that's what happened at Gooding in January, and the buyer, from Houston, spent $1,028,500 (including the 10% buyer's premium) for the privilege. It seems pretty straightforward to me.