Watching Christies

[ajjohnsonsoxfan]

holy crap! that's insane

[BeanTown]

I'm still waiting on my quote. I called to ask them and they said someone would contact me back about it. They did tell me that it would be at their cost which they have contracted with Fed Ex and everything goes out next day delivery for the safest way to deliver it. I told them I would rather have USPS as Fed Ex has already messed up 2 shipments over the years. So, we shall see.

Christies is like a dinosaur I hate to say where the head doesn't know what the tail is doing!

Jeff, congrats on the Cobb pickup and yes I heard that Pac 12 team of Washinton called out a couple of times during the auction along with Arizona and California. Lol

[ajjohnsonsoxfan]

just got my quote: $373 for two photos totaling $2000

yikes

[h2oya311]

oh boy, I'm in trouble w/ shipping! My quote is due in the next few days. I picked up 7 items at the auction.

Is the high cost due to insurance or something else? At this rate I may have to fly out to NY (from AZ) to pick up my winnings in person!

If my quote is horrible, anyone in NY want to get paid well to pick up my items, ship securely to me and I'll give you a chunk of whatever Christie's is hoping to extract from me?

[bcbgcbrcb]

Derek:

The pick-up in New York will cost you 9% state sales tax, I believe, unless you would be paying similar anyway to ship to you in AZ.

[khkco4bls]

It's called Ripping you off..

[h2oya311]

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

Derek:

The pick-up in New York will cost you 9% state sales tax, I believe, unless you would be paying similar anyway to ship to you in AZ.

Okay, good to know. Looks like I'm gonna be f'ed regardless.

[irv]

You guys state side likely don't see the same shipping fees as I do, in fact, I can almost guarantee you don't.

This Mays, not that I'm in the market, is currently at $1,186.00 and already shipping is almost $200.00 dollars!!

And some wonder why I won't purchase from those who use Global shipping.

That aside, which is hard to believe, Christie's is still cheaper than E-Bay's Global shipping.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/142163180343...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

[midmo]

Originally Posted by ajjohnsonsoxfan

just got my quote: $373 for two photos totaling $2000

yikes

Wow, that's nuts. I won a couple large lots from Lelands last night for roughly 350 photos and it was $75 for shipping, handling and insurance.

[ajjohnsonsoxfan]

Just in case anyone is still figuring out how it all works. If you decide to have someone pick up the items and ship them to you (got my niece to do it!) instead of paying the insane shipping fees they charge you NY sales tax instead of your own states tax (if applicable). In my case since I had already paid 9% CA taxes I actually got a $2 refund from the difference. lol.

If you live in a state where Christie's doesn't have an office and would therefore pay no tax you're screwed and would have to pay their shipping/handling fees.

[bcbgcbrcb]

Well, once the value of your winnings reaches five figures, paying the 9% sales tax will end up outweighing the shipping costs in almost every case. Bottom line is that you will still be better off paying the shipping costs than picking up in NY. Unless you live locally, you would still have to pay some sort of shipping and insurance costs in addition, anyway.

The major reason for the shipping cost being so high as compared to the sports memorabilia AH's is the fact that Christie's makes it mandatory that shipping is done overnight (mainly via FedEx), as far as I know. Their thinking is that it gives the shipping service much less time for something to go wrong than standard ground which could take several days, maybe up to a week in the U.S. Again, as others have mentioned, their primary lines of business focus on much more high-dollar items than we see in the sports memorabilia business so this shipping process must work well for them in the majority of their endeavors, otherwise they wouldn't do it.

[bcbgcbrcb]

Surprisingly, with all of the talk on the board about high shipping costs, very little has been mentioned about the 25% BP, which, as far as I know, is the highest ever charged for a sports memorabilia auction. Their catalogue indicates that the 25% BP is their new policy going forward for all of their auctions. I'm not sure how that compares to their other auction line markets such as artwork, real estate, etc. so I can't speak to that.

My take on that aspect is that the high BP really doesn't effect the bidders/buyers in the auction, but instead, the consignor(s). In order to compensate for the extra 5% or so BP, the bidder just goes 5% lower on their bid, same bottom line, bid amount + BP. Thus, the consignor(s) lose that 5% from their net payout as the amount is moved from final bid amount to BP (i.e.-the auction house).

In this case, the way I understand it, the Baseball Museum was the only consignor of all items in the auction so none of us on the board (or anyone else) lost that extra 5% above the more traditional 20% BP range. Furthermore, it is my guess that the Baseball Museum shopped their consignment around to various sale avenues and certainly would be offered not only 0% consignment fee, but a portion of the BP as well. Maybe the agreement was somewhere between 5% back and 10% back so, in order to achieve a similar bottom-line as other sports AH's, Christie's then had to charge the 25% BP.

For this reason, I don't see this one case as an opportunity for other sports AH's to start pushing up their BP's towards that 25% level, at least not any time in the foreseeable future, in my opinion.