I am afraid that relying on auction-prices would confuse people even more... as prices on auctions are chaotic at best! It depends 100% what the current crowd is interested in and what the starting bid is. If only ONE person in the crowd wants a particular cat, it sells for opening bid - which is sometimes extremely low, and sometimes more realistic. If more people are interested, it can go many ways... and sometimes even sky-rocket a cat's price to a point where I have a hard time keeping a straight face (and voice)
My best example of this was at the auction I once had for my own cats. I had quite a few rather similar cats, whose main thing was that they showed odyssey 1 ears, which were fairly new at the time.
-The first of those cats sold for the very low starting bid - no one who went for ody.1 ears were present. -But then more people arrived while others left, and for each ody.1-eared cat, the prices just rose and rose - and the last one sold for TEN TIMES the amount that the first one did! -And it has one less trait and a less desirable fur, even :O
So... No, an auction is NOT a reflection of the current market, rather a reflection of the current crowd's desires - and that changes a LOT from auction to auction. Also, sometimes we have people bashing each other with 100-linden-dollar-bids for a looooong time on a given cat, while other times someone slams out a +1k bid or even several - and sometimes people give up fast in bid wars, and sometimes they grit their teeth and goes "for a kill" no matter the cost - and/or get caught up in the thrill, ending up paying more than they normally would have.
All these factors, and many more, make auctions interesting - but also very very hard to predict and hard to draw any real conclusions from unless you attend a lot of them.
Pricing Tips & Info for new breeders
