Car selling in silent auction puzzle

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You are hosting a silent auction to sell your antique car.
The rules are:
(1) prospective buyers bid for your car by placing their bids in sealed envelopes,
(2) then after collecting all bids, you sell the car to the highest bidder for the price that he bid.

This may seem like a reasonable way to conduct a silent auction, but there is a risk involved for you, the seller. If your car is highly valuable, but all buyers think they are the only ones who recognize that it is, they may actually make bids that are LESS than they think the car is actually worth. As a result, your bids will be lower, and you suffer.

Now, You are given an opportunity to make change in rule for the silent auction that will induce people to bid what they think an object is truly worth? What rule will you be applying in conducting the bid, so that you’ll not suffer loss and buyer will bid as per the true worth?car-selling-silent-auction-puzzle

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    Rule is “The person who make the Second highest bid will get the car”

    dyj Expert Answered on 2nd October 2016.

    could you please explain?

    on 9th April 2018.
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    The rule will be:  “the person who makes the 2nd highest bid will get the car”.  Its like a riddle of 2 persons riding horses and the rule is that the horse that will be 2nd will win the race but you want them to ride as fast as possible so since it is the person’s horse that wins and not the person each of  them will ride on his friend horse hoping he gets 1st to his horse that his friend rides will get 2nd so he’ll get the price.

    The same logic is here too. If you give a too much lower bid you  will lose’ so you choose a bid close enough to the real and maybe a little more hoping someone will give a higher bid that you…

    Moshe Expert Answered on 24th October 2022.
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