Do auction houses buy cards outright?
 

I know you can consign with auction houses. But do they also buy cards outright? Anyone done this? And if so, what percentage of the value did they give you?

I'm not aware of that with the major AHs. Maybe PWCC?

How about an advance?

Most all of them advertise the possibility of getting generous advances against your auction proceeds.

HA also has some terms in their auction rules that suggest that their employees and I think even the house can bid on items. Not quite the same as you had in mind, but maybe not all that different either.

Certainly ones that are dealers and have a regular catalogue and sale business buy cards outright, like Clean Sweep Auctions.

If the price is right!

I would think this would be a poor way of maximizing your value. Wouldn't you rather put it in an auction and hopefully let a bunch of collectors fight over it?

If an AH was going to buy it, I assume their calculus would be what's a purchase price I can easily exceed by putting it in my next auction and turning a quick profit.

I'm just taking a stab at it but would imagine you'd get .60 -.70 on the 1.00, and if that's the case plenty of guys here would pay that.

We get asked that a lot by people who want to sell. We don't do it because we feel it presents a conflict of interest. If my brother or I or the company is buying cards to put in the auction, the temptation to give them the best placement, the most advertising etc. could be seen as a detriment to my consignors.

The first year or two I kept the company afloat by selling off the vast majority of my inventory, now-a-days it's pretty rare for me to have something in my own auction, and I'm certainly not out looking for collections to buy and auction off.

On Clean Sweep Auctions web site it states "We are aggressively buying outright and accepting consignments for all future auctions."

They appear to have a "store" on the site, in addition to the auctions, so maybe that's where purchased items go.

(I'm in no way affiliated with CS, just remembered seeing it on their site when researching last night)

how big a collection? why type of cards? perhaps that can help but I agree with others selling to an auction house is not the best return on investment

I agree that a seller would probably get more by putting cards in an auction, but if they need money faster then selling is probably the way to go.

Or a cash advance if really nice stuff.

I had an auction house buy a lot of my stuff at the National last year and I was very happy with the prices paid.

Auctions can be a gamble, selling certain items outright makes some sense. It certainly might be better selling a Cobb or a set with a fairly known value to a dealer or auction house than being one of 8 cobbs in an auction and perhaps yours doesn’t sell well that night. I mean, lots of people sell in the BST area, why would that necessarily be better than what someone like clean sweep (just for example) might pay, or you might get in an auction? And I cant see any evidence of any items being favored in auctions or being able to tell that one item might be more important than another. (I do some poorly-written and ridiculously grandiose descriptions in some of the major auction houses though!). Auctions are actually better for rarer items where value is more unknown, the more generic graded stuff could just as easily be sold than auctioned. Good items also attract buyers to auctions, so an auction house that is a buyer might just want to buy (or basically guarantee you a price) something at a very strong price to have the item in their auctions.