[raulus]

Vaults are all the rage these days. Anybody who’s anybody has a vault. All the cool kids are getting one. Off the top of my head, I can think of 3, although there’s probably another dozen or so other vaults out there:

1) PWCC - pretty sure they started advertising about 2 years before they actually launched it. They might have been the first vault.

2) eBay

3) Goldin/Collector’s Universe

Not surprised that there aren’t many vault users around here, at least few who want to admit it.

I suspect that the charms of the vault are mostly lost on this crowd:

1) Avoid paying sales tax. I suspect that if someone around here is into the vault, this is probably a big factor. I understand that the vaults are all located in states with no sales tax, so if you ship your items there when you buy off eBay or another site that charges sales tax, you avoid it this way. Being in Oregon with zero sales tax, this isn’t a factor for me.

2) No shipping if you’re buying from the same platform. So if you’re buying from PWCC and sending to the PWCC vault then you pay no shipping. I think I’ve heard a similar pitch from the other vaults, so I’m pretty sure this is a thing.

3) Discounted fees if you sell your vault items through their channel. Discount varies depending on the venue, but could be attractive, particularly if you’re buying an item with the intent to flip it in the near future.

4) You don’t have to pay for storage and insurance, or at least maybe less. Each vault has somewhat different cost structure. My recollection is that early on, most of the vaults were advertising very low fees. And then because I think they weren’t getting many takers, to incentivize people to use it, they have switched to lower and/or no fees. They advertise that your items are safe in fancy bank-like vaults with lots of security. And they claim to be insured.

5) You can borrow cold hard cash against your items. Some/most/all of these vaults offer a lending program. My experience is that the loans are pretty short term. And they’re not cheap. You can usually only borrow a fraction of what your item is worth. But I guess if you want more debt in your life, this gives you a chance to go out and buy more items without having to sell the ones you just bought.

6) They take some nice fancy pictures of your items, and you can enjoy them that way. Who needs to see it in person when you have a nice picture instead!!???

Not surprisingly, I don’t use a vault. I could see the sales tax as a factor if I didn’t live in Oregon. Obviously I’m not a fan of not having, holding, and enjoying my items in person. Almost everything that I buy is something that I’m planning to hold for decades. Even if I do list it as available for sale, because I’m asking museum prices most of the time, I don’t actually expect anyone to actually buy it.

And fundamentally, I don’t trust any of these vaults to actually take care of my collection. I think there are a lot of unresolved issues around what happens if the company goes under or suffers from a big robbery, and whether I can really get my items back, or whether I would be a beneficiary under the insurance. For a big shop, maybe it doesn’t seem quite as scary, but even big shops have failed in the recent past, with insalubrious effects for anyone who entrusted their stuff to that shop.

So thanks but no thanks. For a flipper, the vault might seem more exciting. And maybe just maybe the sales tax exemption is enough where you might use it sometimes. Just until you can ship it to your cousin who lives in a state with no sales tax.