Auction Houses vs. Ebay

[bobfreedman]

Auction houses do a lot more than you think, they authenticate the material, they market and advertise the memorabilia and you can also trust whom you are buying from. With eBay you roll the dice wth some of the sellers (not all obviously).

Auction houses also build relationships with consignor who have vast collections and can pick up large collections if necessary. They in turn create printed catalogs to market, describe and photograph material. When items are sold you know you are going to receive the item well packaged.

So there is a lot that they do do and even more than I have described here

[btcarfagno]

Also some auction houses go out of their way to research items to give them an extra boost.

Al over at Love Of The Game auctions researched that Gehrig bat and likely turned a $20,000 item into one that went for $400,000. I have to think that consignor was pretty happy. He also took my Scrapps pieces and, through research, broke the mystery surrounding the issue, likely getting me more money in my pocket in the process.

Tom C