ITPC's AUCTION ENDS TOMORROW- FRIDAY 10/21/22

[BobC]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

No buyers premium just means the seller is paying a sellers premium (the auction house makes money someplace). Either way it doesn't sound good to me. Maybe the auction house is selling items they own--could that be the case?

Hey Jay! I don't think the AH mentioning "there are bargains to be had" is necessarily a bad thing for consignors. What I do see it as is a marketing technique to hopefully draw more people (who will then hopefully become bidders as well) to go look at their auction. And the more eyes (and bidders) the auction attracts, one would think would be more, not less, beneficial to the consignor's interests. Right?

Also, the AH is primarily selling memorabilia, not cards. Cards are more commoditized in today's market, with potential bidders able to easily access and use pricing and other apps to quickly look up and see if auction prices are potentially bargains or not. To my knowledge, the ability to do the same with memorabilia is not as easy, or prevalent.

And besides, don't most all AHs start off listing all items they are auctioning at a fraction of their perceived value anyway? In that case, literally every lot, at least initially, could be advertised as a bargain for dealers and collectors. Not sure how that can be perceived as bad for consignors then. I do see and understand though how some consignors my interpret an AH advertising having bargains in their auction as somehow maybe inferring that their particular consignment might be undervalued and selling cheaply. But these auctions usually have at least hundreds of items in them, and in this case no specific item(s) or lot(s) are being named and pointed out as going for cheap.

I do wholeheartedly agree with your point that if there is no BP, that just means the consignor is getting hit with a seller's fee/commission. Or as you also mentioned, maybe some/all of the auction items are possibly owned by the AH, and their fee/commission is whatever profit they end up with selling those.

[UKCardGuy]

I look forward to the ITPC auctions. They have a great selection of memorabilia.

This time though, the minimum bid for many of items was set too high IMO. Many of the starting prices were higher than current market values (e.g. recent ebay sales).

Looking at the auction results, 192 of the 453 lots had no bids and more than 150 lots had only 1 bid. That's more than 75% of the auction with no competitive bidding.

Maybe it was due to consignors insisting on a price. Maybe it's a sign of the softening market. But it's a little disappointing because there were a number of items I would have bid on if the starting prices were competitive.

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