Posted By:
Brian McQueen
I thought I'd share a couple observations I had concerning the auctions this weekend. I heard a lot of people say that they thought the e107s underperformed. With the exception of the biggest ones, Plank, Young and Wagner, I'd tend to agree with that. I thought I'd offer up a few reasons why that may have been.
1. There were a lot of e107s alone to pick from. The e107 collectors out there may have wanted to focus on those top 3 cards so some of the other cards slid a bit. Without the Plank, Wagner, etc...the other cards may have done a little better.
2. There was a lot of material in both auctions to begin with. With so much material to divide the interests of collectors, the e107s may have lost some bids. Many of the e107s in this Mastro auction were featured in the 2005 Sotheby's auction. However that auction had very little prewar material aside from the e107s to give collectors other things to look at. As a result, in 2005 some of these same e107s went for about twice the price they did on Thursday.
3. A couple of the big e107 collectors from the past couple years are no longer collecting this issue. You take a few of the big players away, and market prices will certainly take a hit.
4. All of the e107s were auctioned off on Thursday. I think that on the first day, people were a little more hesitant in their bidding so as to "hold something back" for Friday and Saturday. If some of these had been on Saturday, collectors that had been shut out the previous couple days may have been willing to go a little further on these.
#4 in my list above leads into my second observation. It seemed that I had an easier time winning lots for decent prices on Thursday where as competition on Friday and Saturday was much more intense. My success was very minimal those next two days however I won four lots on Thursday. On Friday and especially Saturday, it seems that you'd be competing with more aggressive bidders who may be willing to go a little further on their lots of interest so that they at least come away with something. I saw quite a few things go for lower than I thought they would on the first day.
I haven't acquired any new e107s in a while but I'm happy to say I have a couple new ones now. Less than five cards exist of both examples below. The Waddell, a type 2, was uncatalogued until recently. I was a bit surprised to win both as I really just wanted the Waddell. Not sure what I'll do with Lajoie just yet.
Any way, thanks for listening...those are just a couple things I noticed over this weekend.
Regards,
Brian
redmaccie@hotmail.com
