Alright - I've never consigned before... can anyone help with a snapshot of what you get based on the sale for Goldin, Heritage, REA etc? Do they take a percentage of the sale? First timer over here that is wondering what options look like beyond ebay and the 10% fee. Thanks!

This is not in stone but a general guideline from my experience with Auction Houses.

If you items will go in the 100's, you will give them 15-20% of the final bid (whatever their consignment fee states), plus they get the entire buyers premium.

If your items are in the low 1000's, you can negotiate a 5%-10% consignment fee, again they get the entire BP too.

If your item goes in the 5K-50K range you definitely can get a 0% consignment fee and they make their dough off the BP.

If you have 100K and up, it's a 0% consignment fee and you can even get a piece of the BP at that point, not sure if 1, 2, or 3% - bring your Scott Boras skills to the table.

If you can't get what you want you try the next auction house and then the next. There are at least 10 good ones out there if not more. Just like playing GM in baseball, eventually you will find a team that will make the trade you want.

Mine was 0,5 10 and 15%. 15 being anything under 500

Kevin, that's really good (and good info), did you have just a couple items or several?

Many, many of the smaller AH's charge 0% on nearly everything.

Also you can get paid as quick or quicker. I paid everyone on or before the 2nd Monday after the auction(2 weeks).

Scott

I had 59 lots total.

I just discovered which auction house pays out consigners 35 days post auction :eek:

Unfortunately, it's more than a few.

Couple of things to consider.

Very few large auction houses outside of sports cards(coins, stamps, antiques, etc) pay less than 45 days, it will be in nearly every consignor agreement.

AND, sadly not all bidders pay in a timely manner to facilitate lighting fast payouts. My last last auction ended thirty-one days ago and there are still unpaid invoices(99.9% of them normally get paid), some people are just habitually slow payers, which can jam up the works for everyone, unless the AH is well capitalized.

I've not consigned anything particularly big lately but have in the past. When I did then it was with REA or with Mastro and I generally paid about 5% commission. That was also during the period of about 12-15% buyer's premium, so the net effect I think is that now, with mostly 20%+ buyer's premium, they can offer more zero commission deals out there--especially on nice individual items or larger consignments of multiple items like Kevin's. I know I've seen Al from Love of the Game auctions (and others) offer above 100% of the price realized for items of particular nature that are consigned at a particular time. That's obviously to incent people to consign more and consign items of a highly competitive nature like Mantle rookies, Ruth auto balls, complete sets, etc. I think Paul's advice of negotiate the best deal you can is spot on. You can always come down on your demands but if you set a low floor on your expectations, it's tough to go up.

And always do what you think is best in dealing with your goods. While these people are mostly reputable, I do believe they not only work for YOU as the consignor but they are also working for and with the buyers and you may have different goals for your collection than a potential buyer. You want to maximize the value of your consignment and the buyer wants to minimize payout. The auctioneer is going to win either way but gets the best payout when they can maximize the results while being sure the lot gets sold.