[jayshum]

Originally Posted by Huysmans

With all due respect, unless I'm missing something, your comparison doesn't make sense.

With an auction house, the buyer's premium has to be factored in after the hammer price.
A card that sells for $5,000.00 will net the consignor $5,000.00 if there is no consignment fee as you stated. The buyer pays the $5,000.00 plus 23% for a total cost of $6,150.00 to the buyer.

If the card sells for $4,000.00 before the buyer's fee, like in your auction house example, it's not a $5,000.00 card - it's a $4,000.00 card, in which the consignor with no fee gets $4,000.00.

The problem is that you compared a $4,000.00 winning bid (auction house) to a $4,920 winning bid (on eBay through Probstein, 4 Corners, etc).

The assumption in the example you are questioning is that the bidder is taking the BP into consideration when placing a bid so that the selling price with the BP equals the selling price on eBay. Of course, not all bidders do this, but many on this board claim they do (or at least try to).