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Posted By: Jay

King is exactly right on this issue. The point isn't that Mastro chose to increase their buyer's premium. Buyers can factor that into their bidding and sellers can negotiate their seller's commissions accordingly. If this change was announced effective the next major auction then I would say it is a non issue. The fact that Mastro increased the buyer's premium without telling consignors to the December major auction and, on lower value material, to the February smaller auction was, in my opinion, just a slap in the face to consignors. This 2.5% increase spread over possible realizations of $16 million on these two auctions would generate another $400,000 for Mastro. My guess is that in the long run this move will cost them alot more than that. I would hope that they would reconsider and rescind this move.