Leland's Questions...

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Posted By: Aaron

I understand these guys must be busy, but you would hope that the "high-end" auction houses would be a little less sloppy when dealing with consignments and bidders.

Anyway, nowhere on Lelands auction site does it list the rules for closing times or bidder eligibility. Does anyone know? Like Mastro, will they have "extended time" bidding, and do you have to have already bid on an item to be eligible during extended time?

Also, the cover of the sports catalog on the home page says the sports auction closes on December 10, but the countdowns on the individual auction pages all list closing as December 9. Does anyone know which is correct?

One last question, Leland still has the 17.5% buyer's premium up from their Internet-only auction last month. Do they still intend to charge 17.5% or are they going back to 15%?

Sorry to bother the board with theses questions, but I haven't received the catalog (has anyone?), the rules and answers to my questions are nowhere to be found on their website, and they do not respond to e-mail. (Seriously, not to take a shot at these guys, but how can consignors trust their stuff with them, when they are so sloppy and haphazard and non-responsive? Where's the organization ala Mastro?)

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Posted By: runscott

and they were very helpful - pulled the item and answered all my questions.

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Posted By: Sean Coe

They are still charging 17.5% according to the website. I think the Americana Auction ends Dec. 9 and the Sports on the 10th. In my experience they do not respond quickly to email.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Chris Porter (from Superior Cards) is with Leland's now, and he has always been very helpful and responsive with me.

I will forward this to him and try to get some answers... or maybe a link to page that HAS all these bidding rules and answers!

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Posted By: Chris Porter

Hal, thanks for pointing this out to me, and thanks to Aaron for raising these questions.

Our auction closes on Thursday Dec. 9th for Americana/Music and Friday Dec. 10th for Sports. The format is similar to that of MastroNet in that intital bids must be placed on any lot of interest by 9:00 PM EST, and bidding continues in normal fashion for all eligible bidders until 15 minutes pass without any bids made on any lot (usually into the wee hours, from what I understand).

You must be a registered bidder within the Lelands database in order to place bids, and if you know me from my days with Superior, please don't assume that you're "on the list" for a catalog, because catalogs have only been mailed to existing Lelands clients. The BP for all winning bids is 17.5%.

The auction consists of the normal variety of exciting memorabilia and quite a bit more of my specialty, cards, than bidders may be used to seeing in a Lelands catalog. If you collect either Americana/Music, sports memorabilia or sports cards, please check it out at www.lelands.com

Thanks, and please post any more questions/concerns or comments on this site or email me personally at chrisporter@lelands.com

CP

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Posted By: hankron

I've won a number of non-card lots from Lelands and have always been satisfied with my purchases.

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Posted By: Aaron

Chris: Thanks for the response--although I am disappointed to hear you are rasing buyer's premiums to 17.5%. That seems excessive.

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Posted By: Andrew

Not that you guys were lining up for this item, but lot #1778 is listed incorrectly. That's a 1967 Topps test disc all-star, not a 1967 Topps test Giants disc. There's often much confusion regarding the 1967 AS, 1967 Giants and 1968 AS Topps test discs.

“A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.” - English Proverb

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I wonder if the seller's vig is 17.5% too? Isn't the idea of a no-mailing internet auction to save costs on printing and distributing catalogues--and if so, why the rate increase for the 'net auction?

I certainly hope the rate increase is not a harbinger of things to come from other houses.

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Posted By: scgaynor

If you knew the overhead involved in running a catalog auction, you would understand the increase in buyers premiums. I have thought about doing a catalog auction several times, and each time I realize that it is just not worth it. There is alot of competition between the auction houses to get good consignments, so they cut the sellers premium low and have to make it up on the buyers end.

I am not saying that you have to like it, but if you want to keep getting high quality auction catalogs, and see high quality sports cards and memorabilia, you will have to get used to the high buyers premiums.

It is actually more expensive to do online auctions since you have to hire 2 or 3 full time IT guys to develop and maintain the website.

Scott