AH guys - ask me anything?
 

I know there are at least 5 or 6 board members who run an AH. Sure we all know who they are. I think it would be fun to have an auction house version of “ask me anything”. Many questions I have always wondered about the business of running an auction.

I also realize AHs are in competition with each other for consignors and customers, so there may be a lot of issues that people will not want to publicly address. And I’m talking about general issues of running an AH, not anything specific to a specific sale or card.

Here’s one I always wonder about.

I’ve never had a reason to call an AH on the night an auction is closing. But most (all?) have a number and say they are available for bids and questions. How many phone calls do you guys get on closing night? Is it non stop or just one or two?

I'll answer that one. We have 5 lines for auction night calls and we always have 2-3 going from 6 PM to Midnight and often have all 5 lines operating, especially when initial bids have to be in by 10....pretty non-stop. Most of the callers tend to be older.

Great idea for a thread. I have a question:

Do you have have specific theme for an auction and actively seek consignments for that theme or does a theme evolve from the consignments that you receive.

On a related note, do you take requests from buyers (e.g. when you have loads of buyers asking for an item, you tried to find consignments to meet the demand)?

Not really a question, but more of a comment. I appreciate AH's telling you beforehand that they already have your consignment in the grade so it'd make sense to save it for another auction. There's nothing worse than seeing your card along with 5 identical cards in the same auction. Brian Dwyer comes to mind when he's honest about already having a certain card.

I have not had a call in years. Last one I recall was the bidder was attending a game somewhere and had to place bids over the phone rather than online.

I also bid in about 100 auctions a year, and have not called one of them in over a decade, but certainly remember talking to Lew, Barry, Rob, Bill and everyone else in the wee hours of the morning. I don't believe it is really a factor in this era where nearly every bidder has a computer/phone/tablet of some type.

Scott

For the auction house owners what's the "one that got away?". Have you been offered a T206 Wagner or something 100k+, but at the last minute they changed their minds.

How often do you get a call or email after an auction closes of someone insisting he will pay more than the winning bid and begging you to take it?

The last time I consigned to AH was years ago. Thought I did well with zero selling fees - got 100% the hammer price (before buyers premium).

Nowadays, with nice stuff can you negotiate/ask for, say, 110 % of the final bid before buyers 20% premium ?

I doubt any AH person will comment on that, but the answer is yes depending on what the item is. If it's real premium, I suspect you'd find someone willing to give you 110% of hammer or something close to it fairly easily.

We get at least 1-2 offers per auction for an item that sold.

We had a couple of nice George Brett game used items that we didn't get once but nothing that I would call a White Whale item

Yes, Auction houses will make exceptions for premier items. I actually had it happen once as a consignor on a premier item that estimated over 100K when that was still a huge number:):)

I’d be curious to know what threshold you need to cross in terms of quality/scarcity/value in order to get your own auction with a printed catalog. I imagine it’s different for each AH, but I always thought that that would be a cool way to exit the hobby when the time comes.

I was wondering how are 100K+ cards send to the winning bidder. How are they insured etc. A Wagner delivered by the PO,UPS etc ???

Good question, but if I bought a Wagner I’d sure as hell buy a plane ticket to go pick it up myself! :)

What card/memorabilia item would make you really drool ? :D

If the card is valuable enough, it will be hand delivered by brinks truck or similarly secured in-person method, including the AH owner or key employee may hand deliver in person. I don’t know what the threshold for hand-delivery is, but I do not think it’s $100k; maybe $250k+

A $100k card comes via FedEx overnight usually. A Wagner will arrive in a Brinks armored truck or hand delivered by the AH owner catching a flight.

How negotiable are consignor fees? I have heard some consignors getting 0 or negative fees?

Sterling Sports Auctions
 

I rarely get calls on closing night. I do have one customer that likes to talk with me and always places his bids by phone.

I don't think I have ever had anyone make an offer on a sold card after the auction.

I have never done a theme auction, partly because I believe you are missing out on potential bidders that the theme is not there major focus. Doesn't mean I may run one in the future.

Always open to any questions, feel free to call or email.

Lee Behrens
320-219-1372

I am sure AH's know what they are doing, but I have asked a few over the years to contact the underbidder on another of the same item that I own to see if the underbidder would buy mine for their top bid.

I offer the AH the normal consignment fee, and they would get the normal Buyers premium. No adverting, photography, etc. A quick easy sale in my eyes.

But every time I have been told that that never works. They have tried it in the past and the underbidder never accepts. They say we collectors get involved with the auction and when the adrenaline wears off they won't pay the same price they offered during the auction.

I can't believe that is always true. I know if I was bidding on something and I lost it I would in most cases be willing to purchase it. I may have some reservation if I could see the bidding history and if I see only myself and one other guy going at it at the end, I may not want to pay my last bid as the next next (third high bid) is much lower, but who knows, I may if it is a card or item I really want.

Wish they would at least pick up the phone and try....

Fred:
This was my exact question as well. I bet there have to be a few Auction Houses that would at least give it a try.

Hi Mark

Yeah, and those that have the option of making an offer to past winners, I don't get the feeling the few times I have asked them to try that they put too much effort into that either. I never get a reply unless I press them then I get a generic reply saying just that it didn't work out etc. Like they never REALLY checked with the winner.

I would imagine a generic blank fillable box of text with a send button that is linked to an auction winners email isn't too difficult to implement. Obviously the member would have the option to enable or disable the feature. And their email would be private unless they decide to reply.
I am not sure but I believe HA has this feature but I assume it only goes through the website? Could be dead wrong, I'm not certain.
But who's checking the website on their 5 year old auction winnings for offers? Not many people I would bet. And if it's heritage staff relaying messages themselves then that's even worse. But nearly everyone is checking their emails.
As somebody who is a single player collector I have scowered easily 100 auction houses for rare, unique and one of a kind items. Many I have found I would love to reach out and make an offer. But none give the option.

If you read this and own an auction house, please add this feature.

auction
 

interesting topic, but sadly the " juicy " questions or crazy stuff that has happened...might not be in " best interest" of AH guys

Why do auction houses so readily accept my registration?

Don't they realize that it will cost me money? :confused:

I would like to see an easier way to opt out of receiving auction catalogs, maybe a prominent button on my account page. Those things are expensive to produce and I'd rather save the paper, shipping, printing cost for the AH if possible.

+1000000000000000000

Lucas,

Are you thinking of the Heritage feature that allows registered members to go on their site and view past auctions, and then make offers to past auction winners? I know that during the height of the pandemic's card price surge I got a few offers at close to double what I had paid for items I had won in prior Heritage auctions. The email offers came through Heritage and allowed you to accept or decline each specific offer, or opt out of ever receiving any such offers at all. There was no cost to the auction winner receiving the offer, if I remember correctly, but I assume they weren't doing it for free and were charging people making the offers some type of buyer's premium if an offer was accepted.

Depends entirely on the value of the consignment and how bad competing auction houses want the item. A few years ago I had a sealed case of 1979 Topps Cello baseball that I offered to several auction houses to see how low of a consignment fee I could get. We're not talking an extremely valuable item but the last couple that had sold prior to this auction brought about $24K at the hammer price. I actually got a 2.5% fee in my favor from one auction house. I was extremely happy but the night of the auction the site went down during extended bidding and they did not carry over to the next day. They claimed they got the system up around 10 PM although I could never get in and ended it at midnight. Needless to say, the case went out at $15K which was a grand less than I had in it. So, the great consignment rate in my favor was worthless. Of course, the auction house still made $2625 on the item collecting a net 17.5% fee. I know why so many auction houses keep popping up.

Huggins & Scott has been doing that for many years. If you would like help (and save $10 per auction on your invoice) just let me know. While catalogs are still important, they are a strain on paper, shipping and environment.

Yes, I don't receive yours, I must have opted out when I registered. But yours is a good example. I did go to my H&S account and while there is a substantial amount of info provided there isn't a place to opt-out of catalogs or maybe I'm missing it. Not sure how easy it is to add another box but if I was receiving your catalog, it would be a simple thing to just change in my settings from opt-in to opt-out. And great idea to give a little discount to those that choose not to receive a catalog, thank you.

Good luck on Thursday, great stuff in the auction!

On the left side of your screen directly under "Auction Home" there is a "Request Catalog" tab. Click on that and where it says "go green" on the bottom you can click again to opt out. Not as visible as I thought so I will check to see if we can get that to be more visible.

An easy way to NOT receive any more catalogs is to (you can bid, but) just not win any more auctions. :D

Thank you for the heads up.

Bob,
That’s exactly what I was thinking of. And as I hoped wasn’t the case is of course the case. They want yet another cut.
But at least they have the option...

I don't know for sure if they were charging the potential buyers a fee or not. I'm just assuming so. Otherwise, why would an AH offer to help sell things that otherwise might have been consigned back through?

Interesting thread with some good input, but I have to admit that because of its title:

AH guys - ask me anything?

I assumed Steve was wanting Auction House folks to ask him questions. Which made me think...at some point in our lives I guess we all want to be interrogated.

Brian

Here is my question. If I have an item that I am thinking of consigning, is there a service where an AH will give me a round number of what they think it will fetch? Not looking for an appraisal per se, but a simple "I think you may be able to get X dollars when all said and done".

Of course.... and you will get a variety of opinions, just as if you asked the same question here. Some AH's might promise you more than they can deliver in an attempt to get the item.. Seller beware.

Heritage charges the seller a 10% fee, and there is no fee to the buyer.

As an example, if Buyer and Seller agree on a $5,000 sales price, the Buyer pays $5,000 and the Seller receives $4,500 ($5,000, less HA's $500 cut).

This is a significantly lower commission than Heritage receives in a traditional Auction. In certain circumstances, it can be a "win-win-win" for buyer, seller, and auction house.

Just wishful thinking on simple customer convenience. Not everything needs monetized. I would certainly be more inclined to consign with an AH who offers free email contact. And I think many other people would be too.

Yeah this has happened to me...NEVER.

Opting out of the annoying calls with the click of a button would be even better.

Back in the early days of eBay I made WAY more sales offering bidders a chance to buy the item(extra) they didn't win at their high bid. Now I still sometimes make that offer but it is rarely taken by the bidders.

Thanks, my bad and I had it backwards. Shows you how little I paid attention to the offers I got through Heritage, and how quickly I said no thanks.

Al from Love of the Game, emailed me that they already had a card that I had consigned and was it okay to hold it for their next auction. I thought it was a standup thing to do.

People just assume they got bid up. No one wants to buy at their high bid when they were competing against a deadbeat bidder. It sucks, but it's just a fact of life.

deleted

My question for AH would be: When you're offering a GU item used by a guy like Ted Williams or Willie Mays, why do you spend paragraph after paragraph telling us how great they were?

We know that.

What I want is a detailed description of the item and in particular, is it all original and if not, in what ways?

I love that about Al and Love of the Game. Great folks over there.

Another question is how the hell do you stop an AH from bugging you to consign an item. I made the mistake once of asking an AH what the value of something was and now they keep bothering me every 6 months or so....

Do you think catalogues will gradually become a thing of the past? They are a big expense for the AHs but great for both consignors and buyers who now have a tangible reminder of auctions past. REA just messaged me if I wanted to continue receiving their catalogues. Emphatic yes on that one.

I think everyone should adopt the $10 off like Huggins does for not taking a catalog.

Honestly don't know what people do with old catalogs. Same stuff with very rare exception is sold over and over at this point. What could you possibly learn from an old catalog, even a good one (and most are garbage) that you couldn't learn in other places. That Babe Ruth played first for the Red Sox? That Gehrig made a great speech and died a few years later? That someone may or may not have thrown 1952 Mantles in the East River? I mean these are sales pitches, not SABR footnoted treatises.

The part in bold may be true for cards, but certainly not memorabilia. I still love the Catalogs, and the ones I've saved that are now over 20 years old contain great/rare items that have not resurfaced since then.

This includes early equipment, jerseys, caps, bats, lemon peels, trophies, pennants, statues, photos, broadsides, ad signs, clocks, and the list goes on and on. They are also a great source for game-used uniforms, with regard to proper tagging, etc. I still refer back to them quite often.

Fair enough Mark. See your point on memorabilia.

Most auction houses refuse to do Mimimum bids or Reserve auctions. Boo Hoo if the item doesn't sell. Most major auctions have a million in sales per auction. So what if one item doesn't sell. They make money either way whether your item sells for $10 or $10,000. Their interest is in protecting their butt and not the consignor's. They also claim they have to pay a writer to write a description, and the costs of printing the catalogs. That's part of the job. They wouldn't be printing catalogs if it affected their bottom dollar. Everyone needs to understand that the Auction houses make big bucks every auction.

I may be wrong, but 20% gross margin before expenses doesn't strike me as a tremendous money making opportunity. Maybe the big boys turn a decent coin but the mid level guys, and their families in some cases, work their tails off year round to make a living.

+1

Phil, you fully speak for me on this thread!

I think that's why Al called his AH "Love of the Game" instead of "Love the Profit Margin".

Despite what some may believe but running an auction house isn't easy money. It is quite the grind and there are numerous expenses that aren't commonly taken into account. Regarding reserves, we tried expanding that option a few years ago but it didn't take off at all. In listening to our bidders, frankly, they hate bidding on any item with a reserve. It discourages bidding and end of auction competition. We have since phased out reserves and have at most 2-3 per auction.

I don't refuse to do them. I strongly advise against them. I've got ten years of empirical proof that shows that items with reserves do worse than items without, and items with higher opening bids get less action than items with lower ones.

I did a customer survey a few years ago, and one of the questions dealt with reserves. 50% of the people surveyed WILL NOT BID if there's a reserve. Doesn't matter what it is, doesn't matter how the reserve works, doesn't matter how transparent it is. They won't bid. The people I surveyed were my actual auction bidders.

To see if it was true, I put a card of my own in one of my auctions. It was a $12,000 card. I put an $8,000 reserve. I opened the card at $2,000. Bidding stopped at $5,000, and it did not meet the reserve.

Two auctions later, I listed the exact same card, with the exact description, the exact layout in the catalog, and the exact same opening bid. No reserve. Card sold for $15,000.

My job isn't to protect my butt. My job is to work as hard as I can to get the highest price possible for my consignors, to advise them and counsel them as to the best way to sell their material, and to earn their trust through the quality of my company's performance. My job is to make sure that my consignors never question the amount of effort I put in to selling their items, and to present an auction that can get bidders excited. Every time something sells for less than expected, it reflects on my company. Every time something sells for more, it does as well. In no other industry I can think of are companies so intensely scrutinized and judged with each and every transaction. In that environment, protecting my butt is the least of my concerns.

Most of the time, when I run an item with a reserve, it doesn't meet the reserve. That doesn't help my consignors, and it doesn't get bidders excited.

This is a good thread. There are a lot of good questions in it. A lot of them are hard to answer in writing, I think, but I'd certainly be happy to sit and do an in-person Q&A with a group - maybe at the national?

-Al

Truer words Al...It simply doesn't matter what the item is...reserves create the opposite of buzz. The same can be said with opening bids as well. When a potential consignor pushes for a high opening bid, despite showing them evidence that higher opening bids lead to lower prices, I often question if they will be happy with any result. Congrats on a good auction Al and we're hoping to have a good one tomorrow night as well. I think a Q&A would be fantastic.

Thanks, James, always nice to see you. Hope all is well.

-Al

+1000 except I do refuse to do them.

At Sterling I do the same as Al, if I am willing I discourage them. I do do them on rare occasions but am not a big fan of them and agree with Al's assessment. The people that tend to ask for high minimums or reserves want you to be a retail store for them.

Even if I have a lot that does not sell there is always time spent to scan and list, an then either spend the time sending it back or relisting.

If I list a lot with a higher minimum it tends to be for items that are scarcer and I feel that they will get a minimum two bids. As Al said, it is better to have as many people involved in the bidding because you never know when you have multiple bidders that got to have that lot.

Feel free to call me if you have any questions that can be better discussed in person.

Lee Behrens

I’ve had the same experience on eBay many times. List an item with an opening bid of $99 and nothing happens. List same item with opening bid of 99 cents and it gets 27 bids and sells for $179.

I've always found your opening bids to be very reasonable, Lee... regardless of whether or not it was on a consigned item.

I have had a very good hobby friend win something of mine in auction that I had forgotten to take off my for sale site. It was offered for less on my site. He asked, after the auction, if he could buy it for that price. I laughed....the answer was no.
.

#1: Odd lotting choices. My main interests are cards at the margins (oddball issues, regionals, boxing cards) and memorabilia and I cannot for the life of me understand why some AHs lot this stuff so horrifically for the consignors, with little effort made to sort the rarities from the junk or to properly describe them. Also, choosing to put one very popular or rare card in with a big lot of other stuff. A recent auction had a dozen cards, including duplicates, in a lot. I needed two and stopped bidding because I did not want to turn out the rest of the cards in the lot. I would have gone $150 a card for the two I needed. The lot ended up selling for half of that per card to a dealer. Piling multiple copies of $50-$100 cards into a single lot just doesn't make sense to me as a consignor. Bust them up and let the retail collectors have a shot. Of course, the evil Captain Kirk says "no, leave it that way so I can win the lot and bust it up on eBay at a big profit."

#2: Ignoring Experts. Why don't more AHs consult with experts in oddball or esoteric items, or follow their recommendations? The amount of misinformation and ignorance on more obscure stuff is startling.

#3: (already Mentioned) Career Recaps: Auctioneers tell me that they have to lump lots of stuff into large lots because of the cost of catalogs, yet they waste page after page with meaningless blather over the player's career. There is no reason to make an entire page out of a 1921 Exhibit Babe Ruth, filled with career data. Anyone bidding five figures on a Babe Ruth card already knows who Babe Ruth is. Just provide good images (front AND back) of the card and list any hard to see flaws you spot. The AH can reduce the number of pages wasted and actually put in better lotted cards.

Your #3 point is especially on the money. Unless as I've sometimes heard, the catalog listing is oftentimes more so for the consignor than it is for the bidders.

Taking a break from packing people's winnings and revisiting this thread (I swear, I'll get right back to it):

Tough to speak for other Ahs on this, but we lot things together in ways I feel are logical and sensible, but I'm sure there are times that someone who wants one item in a lot may feel differently. Tough to be all things to all people in this regard.

I'm not sure they don't. I certainly do. I've got a handful of people I text regularly with photos of things in areas where I'm not certain. I would think that they all do. If I'm looking for info on a certain type of item, and I call Expert B, it's possible Expert A might think I ignore experts.
A couple of points on this:

1) It's really difficult to write descriptions of a thousand cards without feeling like you're writing the same thing over and over. There are only so many ways to describe the attributes of a card, and every consignor rightfully wants some verbiage explaining why someone should be interested in placing a bid. I know when I'm writing I get very self-conscious about doing it. At some point, invariably I'll use a lot description to point out a stat, or tell a story about a player.

2) I'm not sure why this rankles a lot of folks here so much, but I think it's important to consider that the audience is sometimes wider than just the experts. If you're already familiar with that player (as so many folks here are), it might seem redundant to have to read about the accomplishments of Frank Robinson, or Rube Waddell, or whomever - but with thousands of potential bidders, it's safe to say that not everyone is as familiar as you might be. Especially now, with so many new folks entering the hobby. It's certainly easy enough to skip over them. I do agree that some of the descriptions get a bit verbose and dwell on the obvious, and I personally try not to do it, but once in a while even I will go back and read one of my own descriptions and feel, like...wow.

-Al

Personal experience, I sent Al a group of 20-25 cards for his recent auction, low grade E98's mostly. I was really impressed with his groupings, I'm a big sales guy and I love watching other people work in their field of expertise, so my reply was always "sounds good to me". I trust Al implicitly and enjoy watching he and his family work their craft. This business is too emotional for me and I tend to give cards away so thank you Al for taking care the card decisions and getting me top dollar for my consignments.

Definitely NOT Al I am referencing. My consignment in LOTG's most recent auction did even better than I thought it would in part because Al listens to the advice of experts before he makes decisions on how to lot. What stuns me is how many AHs you look at their large lots and spot single items that are worth more than the lot is likely to sell for, sometimes not even mentioned in the descriptions.

Andy Sandler www.AllSportsAuctions.com
 

I have found this to be a very interesting thread and want to address several of the topics presented.
I started attending sports memorabilia shows as a collector in 1973 at Walton Junior High School in Garden Grove, California with the Southern California Sports Collectors Club. I always bought and sold but was a collector as I only would sell or trade duplicates. Later, I ran Teletrade Sports Auctions until we sold the company. We were the largest in the hobby.
Since 2013 I have run www.AllSportsAuctions.com
where I am a one person shop.
For one thing, I have never had a reserve on a lot as it turns people off---both buyers and sellers. It turns me off when I bid in others auctions.
As a one person shop, I have learned to be open to any and all suggestions. I can't blame anything on anyone else. I have to make the situation right.
I treat any consignment as if it were my own. I make it so there are not five or ten of the same things in the auction. I will advise the consignor of this.
As a smaller sports auction company I often don't know what I will get for each auction as I mostly rely on consignments (95% of my collection I don't want to part with) so I get a little bit of everything sports---for the beginning and advanced collector, oddball item collector, deep-pocket or budget collector. I auction items for $300,000 and $3 and everything in between.
Over the years I have collected all the hobby has to offer and have contacts in each sports memorabilia genre so you never know what I will have.
I offer participants things that I would like myself as buyer or seller. For example, after each auction, I take offers on unsold lots.
In summary, I love what I do and collect more than ever! I want all my buyers and sellers to have a similar experience!
Sincerely, Andy Sandler andy@allsportsauctions.com
(914) 388-2940