daf bit: Erchin 27

[cellio]

The mishna is talking about redeeming land back from the temple after it has been consecrated. If one said "I will acquire it for ten selas", and another bid twenty, and another thirty, and another forty, and another fifty, and then the one who bid fifty recanted, they take from him ten selas, that being the difference between his bid and the next-lower one. If the one who bid forty recants they do the same, and so on down to the first bidder. If that first bidder also recants they sell the field for what they can get, and the first bidder owes the difference between that and his bid. (27b)

The talmud here does not address timing. While the plain lesson is that once you bid you might be obligated until the sale is made, even if someone over-bids you, I don't know if this would apply to auctions where many items are auctioned off and payments are only resolved at the end. Do you have to keep your bids (or bid deltas) on hand when bidding on future items?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

This rule would make eBay much more exciting. ;-)

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

Hm, or you have to disallow/limit recanting in some way. Perhaps you have ten minutes after the auction ends to change your mind, at which point the sale is finalized (and perhaps you actually get possession of the item). Then if you fail to pay at the end, it's regarded instead as a breach-of-contract of some sort. You'd still have to keep trailing deltas in this case, but not for all the items, only the recent ones, which might make it more practical.


Hm, what happens if someone bids twice? Can you recant the higher bid and not the lower? If you're responsible per-bid for the delta rather than per-distinct-person's-highest-bid or the like, then you can limit your liability by always bidding only $1 above the previous person. (Making it easy to calculate too-- just mark a paper for every bid you make and that's the maximum you might owe if you don't want the item.)