There will be a parade of people posting on this thread puffing their chests and saying how they will NEVER pay a consignment fee and neither should you. Depending on the auction house, maybe you shouldn't. Then again, maybe you should. Think of picking an auction house as deciding where to go out to eat for a steak.
You could go to Ponderosa or Golden Corral and get a "steak" for less than $10. Maybe you want a slightly better steak than that. Applebee's could service your needs for maybe $15-$20. Or maybe you step up a bit more and go to Outback, figuring you'll pay $25 to $30 for that steak. You can keep going up the ladder and paying more money for a better steak, ending up at a place where you'll be forking out $80 or more for a hunk of beef.
My point isn't that you always have to pay more to get more (though many times you do). It's that not all steaks are the same, and neither are all auction houses. The owners of smaller auction houses don't want to admit it, but they often offer no consignment fees because that's what they have to do in order to get consignments. It doesn't take a research genius to see which auction houses sell the most items for the most money. Most often it's not the boutique auction houses.
So rather than placing all of your focus on consignment fees, focus on the auction houses.
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