An Open Invitation from Goldin Auctions

[kengoldin]

We apologize for the formatting of the email that was sent from net54baseball today. Apparently our word is not synched up with Leon's system. We know it was difficult to read. I am also sorry that I will not be able to make the National and meet so many of you at the dinner we are co-sponsoring, but family comes first in this case.
So , here is the email in hopefully an easier to read format.


Hello and thank you for opening this email. We at Goldin Auctions would like to invite you to consign your trading cards to our next auction, which closes in October 2013.

I will start off by saying if you are one of those individuals who only says ‘what is my commission rate’ and goes for the ‘deal of the week’ offered by some auction houses at 0%, then I would say this letter is not for you, and “you get what you paid for”. If, however, you are interested in getting the maximum exposure possible for your item(s), having the largest number of collectors and sports fans see them, not having them lost in a sea of 1000 similar items in a catalog, and GETTING THE HIGHEST PRICE POSSIBLE for your item(s), then please, read on.

At Goldin Auctions, we have undoubtedly taken a different approach to auctions then every other auction house. We view each auction as ‘AN EVENT’ and each auction as a “UNIQUE MARKETING CAMPAIGN.” We believe we spend more money promoting each auction outside the hobby than all other sports auction houses combined. For our most recent auction that ended July 19th, there were 9 television appearances made by the company including 7 by Ken Goldin (2 CNBC, Bloomberg, ESPN, Fox Philadelphia, ABC Philadelphia, NBC Philadelphia) and 2 by Chris Cavalier (ABC and CBS LA). This does not include the hundreds of television broadcasts (or thousands) that discussed the auction without an interview. Ken also appeared on National Public Radio (NPR) and in thousands of newspapers worldwide. There were millions of emails sent out to our mailing list of over 100,000 people, and many other forms of promotion for the auction that will not be detailed here.

We believe our results have shown this:

-T206 Honus Wagner PSA 5 (MC) $2.1 million. Many on the Net 54Baseball forums predicted it wouldn’t break $1.5 million.
-1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 4 $13,000
-T206 Cobb with Cobb Back PSA 1 $120,000
-1933 Goudey Lajoie SGC 7.5 $42,304
-R303 Goudey complete set $13,453
-1971 Topps set (ungraded) (ungraded) $5,517
-1855 Constitution and By Laws Excelsior of Brooklyn $52,773

A good example of our strategy compared to other auction houses were the well publicized (on Net54Baseball) recent sales of 2 very popular cards from the T206 set, the Eddie Plank and Ty Cobb with the Cobb back.
The Cobb card previously sold for $80,663 in 2012 at one well-known auction house. At Goldin Auctions, we just concluded a sale for THE SAME T206 COBB for $120,000 in our July auction and the consignor was, of course, thrilled. On the other hand, a T206 Eddie Plank PSA 5 also sold in 2012 for $87,000 at a different well-known auction house. THAT SAME T206 PLANK card was resold recently for $75,600 in another company’s auction. Needless to say, the most recent consignor of the Plank card, regardless of his consignment fee, must have been extremely disappointed. Does the auction house make a difference? YOU BET IT DOES!

We charge a 12.5% buyer’s premium, almost one-half the buyer’s premium most other large catalog-based auction houses charge. We believe this helps us get the higher prices, because our buyers are well aware of this fact. We also believe the size of our registered bidder list (we believe among the 3 largest in the industry, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, all active within the past 10 months), the high percentage of bidders who ONLY use our auction given they are not ‘hobby based,’ and our unique marketing approach consistently allows us to get higher realized prices, and in many cases significantly higher realized prices, then if the same item were in any other auction. This, in turn, puts more money into our consignors’ pockets. Ask yourself if any other auction house, for example, would get $176,000 for a ring Kobe Bryant gave to his father? Or $108,000 for a ring he gave to his mother (although not trading cards, a good example of the reach Goldin Auctions has into the general population).

How can you help yourself? If you own a key item that is EITHER of extreme value ($50,000 - $5 million+) or an item that may not be quite as high value but is highly newsworthy and would be right for some ‘Goldin Magic Marketing,’ you are shooting yourself in the foot by not consigning it to Goldin Auctions. If you have a single card, set or collection that would benefit from being shown in the brightest spotlight to ever shine on our hobby or if you are considering consigning anything that can awaken a bit of the collecting bug in even the newest of Goldin Auctions clients, please do not hesitate to contact our office. We believe cards that are of the highest profile/price range, as well as cards of well known nationally recognized players (Mantle, Ruth, Gehrig, etc), and complete sets of cards, any year pre-1980 mid grade or better, will do better in our auction than any other. This is what you should capitalize on. Obviously we would like to get more of a selection than just the short list above, and we welcome all of those cards. In general, we do not list 500-2000 trading card lots in our auctions, so any trading cards in our auction are going to stand out. In addition, we will not allow items in the auction that cannibalize any others. So we will not run three 1956 Topps sets in the same auction just to show off how much great product we can stuff into one catalog while hurting the consignor price at the same time. We will (and often have) told potential consignors their item cannot go into a certain auction and they will need to wait for the next one due to a similar item in an auction that, in our opinion, would negatively impact the realized price for both. Please keep in mind all of our consignors and consignments are kept in the strictest confidence, and we will never reveal who our consignors are.

If you have something you would like to consign, please email us at info@goldinauctions.com or call 856-767-8550 during business hours. Ken Goldin will not be at the National due to family reasons, however Louis Bollman and Chris Cavalier both will be, and both will be attending the Net54 dinner as well. Our consignment deadline for this auction, for items that do not need grading or authenticating, is August 9th. We look forward to at least getting the chance to discuss a consignment with many of you.

Ken Goldin and the staff at Goldin Auctions
ken@goldinauctions.com

[buckyball1]

ah.... but perhaps better not to e-mail this stuff to us?? feels very close to being spammed

sorry
jim

[queencitysportscards]

Thanks for contributing to the Net54 Dinner...I look forward to meeting everyone!

Hank

[Ease]

Originally Posted by queencitysportscards

Thanks for contributing to the Net54 Dinner...I look forward to meeting everyone!

Hank

Big +1. I don't mind the emails, folks gotta pay the bills, ya know?

[Theo_450]

Originally Posted by Ease

Big +1. I don't mind the emails, folks gotta pay the bills, ya know?

I agree. I signed up for it. Email away!

[BruceWayne]

Hank, Eric and Ted,

Thanks for the posts. I look forward to meeting you guys in person.

Jim,

We apologize if the email felt like spam to you. That was certainly not the intent. We sincerely want to make sure the members of this forum are aware of our services which we believe can be very beneficial to the people here. In any event, I also look forward to meeting you as well.

Sincerely,
Chris

[drcy]

I get the Goldin Auction emails, and it doesn't seem like too many to me. Though you do send more than other auction houses. Just for the record.

[sports-rings]

I think some, not all of the auction houses have gotten fat and lazy. They continually showcase advertisements that now say "Now Accepting Consignments" as if we are supposed to drop what we are doing, tell the wife the XYZ auction house is finally accepting consignments again, and get the items to them before they no longer are accepting merchandise.

I'm glad that Ken and his company are out there, bustin' it and using a lot of PR to let collectors know that these items are available. Consigners love the stories Goldin has been getting in the media and how that grows auction participation. And a lower buyer's premium can only help put more money in your pocket and less in the auction house's pocket.

[BruceWayne]

Originally Posted by sports-rings

I'm glad that Ken and his company are out there, bustin' it and using a lot of PR to let collectors know that these items are available.

Thanks Michael. While I will not say "We work harder than everyone," I do feel very comfortable saying "No one works harder than we do." As I have mentioned before, I have met very few people in any industry that work as hard as Ken and we all try to follow his lead.

-Chris

[Rich Klein]

there is no doubt that Kenny knows both from his SB days and also from the SAH days that keeping your name out there is very important.

EMail is the cheapest and most effective way of doing so. If you have any objection there is a delete button. And as an valued Netr54 advertiser and sponsor of Friday Nights dinner, Kenny is entitled to make these posts.

Rich