What Auction Houses Bring The Best Prices For.....
 

So I think this thread could actually serve as a good point of reference for future potential consigners.

The question I would like to ask is as follows...

What auction houses bring the most consistent prices for each of the following categories?

1. Pre WWII Baseball Cards
2. Post WWII Baseball Cards
3. Photographs
4. Autographs
5. Game Used Items
6. Ticket Stubs/Programs
7. Odd Ball Items i.e) Old Magazines, Old Books, Coin Banks, Advertising signs


If I missed a category please feel free to add it as a number after 7.

I hope this thread can help people get their items to the right auction houses which in turn will generate them and the auction house the most bang for their buck.

This has been discussed ad nauseum. At least on cards, there is no clear cut answer, there are many top tier auction houses to choose from and none is necessarily more likely to get a better price on any given card than any other.

I was wondering if certain houses have certain types of clientele. This can hopefully be seen over a period of time, as people in general like to shop where they are comfortable and have shopped before. That is why I ask for each category.

For big ticket items I think REA is the place to go. I eagerly anticipate their auction 2x a year and always know I will see items that never come up. If I were to sell some of my rare items there is no doubt I would go straight to REA.

Everything is online. Everyone knows about every auction. In my opinion a big ticket item is just as likely to do the same at any number of the top auction houses. The same bidders are going to chase it wherever it is. The days where an AH had its own client base are long since over, if they ever existed.

How about a sports related graded comic book?? Would you go with Heritage or REA?

While I tend to agree that a rare item will do just about the same anywhere, because they all have basically the same mailing list at this point, I do think that the hype machine at some of the bigger places permeates the main stream media more effectively and probably grabs some well-heeled rich guy eyeballs that don't follow every little auction house like many of us do. Say what you want about Ken Goldin but he gets a lot of press.

Well Peter, I ask, because I see a lot of the same items selling in a year period for significantly less in one than the other (ungraded items mostly) where the item is a stub from a big game or a program from a game or a advertising piece or oddball item. The prices in some of these cases are 100% higher/lower from one auction to another.

Also, I am not talking about just rare items... What about a lot of 4 Babe Ruth 1920's magazines. There has to be one auction company that definitely has a bigger client base than other when it comes to periodicals.

Some auction houses don't even do much outside of cards from what I see.

Stephen I really don't know the market outside of cards. I would suggest posting on the memorabilia page if you want opinions about that side of things.