Auction House Certs
 

Just wondering what the perception is of the practice of auction houses charging their consignors fees in order to obtain auction letters (pre-certified, not full letters) before placing items in an auction. Not naming any particular auction, but I am running into that now in looking to submit some consignments. Seemed that in the past this was done "in house," so to speak, with the TPA presumably rummaging through lots and pre-certifiying them prior to auction, but with no charge to the consignor...at least that had been my experience previously. Care to comment?

Is that for Auction LOA's/Pre-Certs or is that for the actually LOA/Cert itself? I've seen a charge to the consignor for the latter, not sure I've seen the former.

Happy to clarify.....well, actually it's for both. Like you, I have been aware of charges for basic certs or full letters being passed on to the consignor, and those charges are being levied here, but it's the charges for the auction LOAs (pre-certs) in particular that are giving me pause. Maybe there's a push by the TPAs to collect additional funds for their time? Otherwise, why charge the consignor for something the eventual winner can upgrade at his own choosing?

I'd find it strange that an auction house would want the consignor to pay fees for authentication. They are taking the item because they think it's authentic.

With Pre-certified lots, you pay for a physical LOA if you want it. You can instead use a copy of the auction listing as equivalent to show the autograph(s) were pre-certified. The auction catalog description can be used as documentation the autographs were pre-certified, and I know of eBay dealers who do just that.

I would imagine that the pre-certification method was the authenticators' idea not the auction houses'.

That's for the buyers. But the question is about asking the consignor to cough up authentication fees for their lot. Unless I'm reading it wrong.

I know many auction houses, including REA, have long charged consignors for LOA certification for game used. For what that piece of information is worth in this discussion.

I've consigned items before but nothing that ever required additional LOA, so don't know how it works first hand.

But many auction houses do charge the consignor for the LOA fee. Sometimes, you can negotiate that and they will pay, but many of the ones I've dealt with do want you to pay that fee...at least they try to get that out of you initially.

I could see both sides but that's kind of lame. Seems like a cost of doing business kind of thing for a high value item. As a buyer I don't mind auction house LOAs.

I have not thought about this before, but as a buyer I do have a perception of the auction LOA's themselves. To me personally, they're not worth the paper they are printed on, because now that it is printed on I can't use it.

I would be interested to learn to learn for certain that anyone from the TPA actually looks at a lot of the items for which these auction LOA's are printed.

Having said that, I guess I would be miffed if I was a consignor and an auction house wanted to charge me for that service.

It's pretty routine for houses to allow the buyer to pay for a full LOA rather than a pre-cert or an auction house LOA. That's totally fine with me. I do it when I buy from RR.

But I would be pretty annoyed if they asked me as a consignor to pay for the cert prior to auction. I still feel like if they have doubts they should not accept my item. And the same goes for having doubts about an item with a cert.

I was recently asked to pay for a COA on an item I wanted to consign. I told the AH to piss up a rope. If I am going to pay for a COA from a reputable authenticator I will just sell the authenticated item directly myself on eBay and control what I get for the item, at a net 13% cost. Why would I give an AH a 20%-ish BP and pay for the COA and lose control of the outcome?

I got burned on an auction house LOA many years after the auction. Bought a lot with an auction house LOA from PSA/DNA from Hunt that was several years old. I brought it to JSA, since James Spence had "signed" the LOA, and he said not authentic. So I complained to Hunt, they said bring it to PSA, which I did, and then PSA did give me vouchers in the amount of my loss in the purchase of the item. Still just would have rather had the real deal.
Oh well

When you consign something 'raw' to an AH, my thinking is that if they think slabbing or getting an LOA will increase the return, then they should eat that cost.

In any case, it's only ethical for them to let the consignor know in advance what they plan to do, and whether or not there will be an extra cost for the consignor. Slabbing (or incurring a TPA cost) should never have 'surprise' fees for the consignor.

PSA Vouchers? We don't need no stinking vouchers.