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....