Speaking from experience with many auction houses: most houses stay around the 20% range but the bigger ones charge photo fees of $100-$400 and a buy back fee. So are they a better value than eBay? With the major auction houses, I find that about 40-60% of items I consign will sell. Most will sell at my reserve, but 1 in 4 will go for a crazy high price because of bidding wars.
So I tend to use eBay for most of my low priced or specimens that are too specialized, while I consign more expensive or pretty items to auction houses. Pretty with a good story sells. - yinan Sent from my iPhone On Mar 23, 2012, at 8:13 PM, "Bob Falls" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Adam, > I was watching this show the other night (different episode) and did catch > them say at the > beginning that the auction house takes a 20% sellers premium. I have never > worked with an > auction house however this does not seem too bad based on the draw this > auction seems to have. > > Best Regards, > Bob Falls > Colorado Springs, CO > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Adam Hupe > Sent: Friday, March 23, 2012 9:31 AM > To: Adam > Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Auction Kings meteorite - $2000 Sikhote Alin > > A lot of buyers judge the price of collectable items from eBay. EBay is > not known for fetching top dollar, especially on collectables. A solid > auction house will almost always fetch more than what would be realized > on eBay. The problem with many auction houses is that their commissions are > out of line, some > charging in excess of 40%! Then some fleece the > buyers with expensive shipping and handling fees. > > Don't get me wrong, there are a few great auction companies out there, I have > used some of > them. One problem I encountered is that if the item > doesn't sell or the buyer can't pay for the item after bidding on it, > then the seller can be out of some serious money including catalog and > no-sell fees. They need to do a better job of vetting their bidders! > > A lot of dealers don't bother with middle men anymore since they can get > wholesale prices right off of eBay. Some specialty shops get most of > there product from eBay, mark it up considerably and put it on their > shelves. The problem is that a lot the collectable items offered on eBay have > no expertise > behind them and are accidentally or purposely > misrepresented. > > There are reputable independent companies that can authenticate and paper > items so COAs are important to me. I wouldn't purchase a valuable > coin, baseball card or any other collectable without first seeing that > it has been papered through an independent grading and certificate > service. A properly papered item will almost always bring in the big > bucks in an auction house whereas it may not do so well on eBay where > some dealers tend to print their own COAs and grade items themselves. > > Kind Regards and Happy Collecting, > > Adam > ______________________________________________ > > Visit the Archives at > http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html > Meteorite-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list > > ______________________________________________ > > Visit the Archives at > http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html > Meteorite-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
