After looking at the closing bid prices it would seem most bidders were hoping to pick up a rare or tuff strike so they could resell it or us it as a trader later, the bids were no where close to the value of most of the strikes and I bet some of the bids were close to the reserve. The bids on the Delta train error and the Sundowner strikes wasn't even close to what they have sold for not so long ago, if I had had the funds there would have been some of the $40 strikes I would have bid higher in hopes of getting them.
I have delt with Connie in the past, both buying and trading and she has always had fair prices but it seems if a person lists strikes with a reserve alot of people think they don't really want to sell them and are just checking to see where the market is, I am sure Connies reserves were under book values but she wasn't going to give them away so another person could buy cheap and resell for a nice profit.
Another thing I have noticed as of late is the new collectors seem to think a srike is only worth $10 to $14 and sometimes I have seen strikes listed below face and the new collectors won't bid, I guess they are hoping sellers will bring the prices down even lower but with most strikes they can be taken back to the club for face and the ones that can't because the casino is closed are not going to come cheap no matter what anybody thinks, try to get the last set of Sundowners for less than $200 each.
Just my thoughts and I am sure alot of people will say I don't know what I am talking about but myself I would take strikes back to a open casino before selling for face or less, heck with auction fees you have to get $12 to break even.
Walt