T.R.A.F.F.I.C East 2006/Moniker.com Live Domain Auction

Moniker also conducted a silent auction online throughout the conference that ran a couple of days beyond the show, closing Monday afternoon (Oct. 30). Professional auctioneer Joel Langbaum was brought in to handle the gavel, repeating a role he filled in the first ever live domain auction held at last year’s T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East conference in Delray Beach. Langbaum is quick with a quip and his entertainment skills kept the crowd engaged throughout the four hour event. 

When it was all over, more than $4.7 million worth of domains had been sold, more than doubling the previous live auction record set last May at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. West in Las Vegas. The silent auction added another $607,000, pushing the final total to $5.3 million. 

Cameras.com stole the show in the live auction, being taken for $1.5 million by Sig Solares of Parked.com. Flowers.mobi also made a huge splash after attracting a stunning high bid of $200,000 from T.R.A.F.F.I.C. co-founder Rick Schwartz. 

Another .mobi also cracked the 6-figure mark with Anything.com purchasing Fun.mobi for $100,000. A dozen domains attracted 6-figure or higher bids and a total of 115 names were sold, averaging $42,000 per sale. That is a 35% success rate for big ticket items that as we noted earlier aren’t normally as liquid as other assets.  You can see the complete list of live auction results here.

The highest price paid in the silent online auction was $60,000 for Castle.com, followed by the $30,000 each fetched by Cage.com and PAX.com. A total of 288 domains were sold in that event, an average of $2,100 per sale. The complete list of silent auction winning bids can be seen here. 

Conducting these auctions was a massive undertaking for Moniker. More than 50,000 domains were submitted for the event and that list took countless man hours to whittle down to a manageable size. They got it done and also made some dramatic improvements since the Las Vegas show.