Ken Lay's Enron Desk Comes Up Short at Auction

Reserve squelches bidding for pricey desk

As long as we're kinda on this crime and punishment theme, we couldn't help noticing the follow-up to the auction of the Enron desks - the desks from which the late Ken Lay and the incarcerated Jeff Sklling ran the company and steered it into its doom and the ruin of many.

Designed by Gensler Architects and made by Brochstein's with a Makore Pommelle veneer, the desks were put up earlier this month as part of an auction to benefit Saving Animals Across Borders. The desks failed to garner the kind of bidding desired - with Lay's apparently coming up a dollar short.

Ironically for a story about anything related to Enron, a little hidden money was the deal breaker here - the reserve.

As The Houston Chronicle reported earlier this month, the desks were to start with a $25,000 minimum. On Sunday, the paper noted that Lay's desk did indeed start at that price, but it had a reserve price of $25,001.

Only one person came up with the minimum bid. When faced with the prompt that reads "reserve not met," they apparently opted out.

"I wish I could just e-mail this person and tell them 'just one more dollar,'" Sean Hawkins of Saving Animals Across Borders told the paper.

Let this be a lesson to you: reserves impede bidding. They are sometimes a necessary option, but use them wisely. One little dollar kept this major auction from a successful closing. Imagine what an inopportune reserve could cost you.