[Exhibitman]

Here's what I don't get about AH price increase rationales: If inflation is up, presumably prices go up on cards. Cards are sold on consignment. If the AH takes 20% of the revenue, and prices are up, the AH's revenues go up too. The 3% seems to me to be just taking a larger piece of the overall pie.

It also seems to me that the auctioneers are matching eBay's price increases to keep about an 8% gap between them rather than reacting to overall costs. It is a little hard to isolate because eBay charges a final value fee and a transaction processing fee on all money including sales tax and shipping fees, but as best as I can figure it, eBay takes around 15% of each sale I make under $7500. That has gone up from 12% or so over the last few years as eBay has raised rates and minimum payment processing fees (which disproportionately impact smaller value lots like mine).

Now, that is not to say that eBay and auctioneers are the same. A lot of items that I sell on eBay would be put into bulk lots in an auction, purchased by eBay sellers at wholesale prices, and broken up to be sold at retail for a profit. I try to keep that value by selling on eBay. Some items are better consigned to a specialty auction. Love Of The Game has sold some very esoteric baseball items for me at far more than I would ever have gotten from eBay. Anything I stumble across that I think is really special I will offer to Al before I try to sell it myself.