major auction houses a lesson to be learned

[calvindog]

What we learned from last night is that flowery, grammatically incorrect language is the driving force behind high auction prices.

[barrysloate]

Jeff- wouldn't you think that a company that wants to put out a professional auction catalog could spend a little time proofreading it...or find a college English major to look it over for a few bucks?

[kylebicking]

All auction catalogs have these problems. I think they're quite amusing, especially when a player's name is spelled wrong.

Attention all auction houses - proof reader for hire right here...

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Jeff- wouldn't you think that a company that wants to put out a professional auction catalog could spend a little time proofreading it...or find a college English major to look it over for a few bucks?

No. Flowery language gets the competitive juices flowing which causes insane, 8x the value prices. I never said the language had to make sense.

[rman444]

Jeff - I hope you realize that I have the term "flowery language" copyrighted. You will have to pay me a nickel every time you use it. I should have enough for a full sized BG Cobb in no time.

[Orioles1954]

When I first started to work at H&S, I was told to have my work read like the New York Times, not the New Yorker. We try to be technical and to the point, adding only pertinent details. Sure we have one-liners here and there, but have attempted to keep that to a minimum.

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by Orioles1954

When I first started to work at H&S, I was told to have my work read like the New York Times....

Just what we need, auction descriptions with a liberal bias.

edited to add smiley

<-------------

[calvindog]

In NYC, obsession with real estate abounds. My favorite descriptive term is "sun drenched."

As for auction catalogs sounding like the NY Times, I suppose that's a decent idea; anything but a Harlequin Romance novel would suit me fine.

[Rich Klein]

I could write most of these descriptions in my sleep and with real knowledge of the hobby and sports

Similar to Kyle; I'm a writer/copy editor for hire for these people

Rich

[Orioles1954]

As a collector and a writer in the industry, I get ALL of the auction catalogs. I will keep personal opinions to myself on this one, but when I see a description longer than a couple of paragraphs I will automatically skip over it.

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by Orioles1954

As a collector and a writer in the industry, I get ALL of the auction catalogs. I will keep personal opinions to myself on this one, but when I see a description longer than a couple of paragraphs I will automatically skip over it.

I skip over all auction descriptions unless it is something I'm interested in or bidding on. I really don't mind the descriptions at all...I can get past the flowery BS to find the facts. Usually though I am only interested in memorabilia and often times there is a story behind it that needs to be told....when it comes to cards just describe the condition, the issue and move along...I really don't need a Honus Wagner biography with every card depicting him offered.

[Leon]

As an auctioneer I like the long drawn out descriptions- not. I mean does it really take 3 paragraphs to describe a T206 Red Cobby in vg condition?

The auctions I like most are the ones that give big, clear, front and back scans of cards. Most of us, especially on this board, have a darn good idea of what we are looking at most of the times. And every time I hear the term "pop report" I just cringe. But I am not a pop report kind of collector (not that there is anything wrong with that, all collectors are good in my book).....I would rather hear how many are truly known about in existence. That number, such as an example (this might not be accurate but is for example only) of a PSA 7 Red Cobb.....maybe it has a pop of 8, or something. That is wonderful. The known population is probably 350 but only 8 have been graded a 7. And some of these might not even be trimmed.....

Memorabilia is another story and a nice description is needed for provenance, dating etc.....

[murcerfan]

Larry..i do agree on the '67 standups, BUT if you wanted a '68 3-d Powell in psa8 you had to beat $8,500 .... 3-d Stottlemyer in psa6 set somebody back $3,800 (i picked one up that graded psa7 in 2003 for $800) ..conversely the Flood psa6 was cheap, as were the easy ones... I paid about what I expected to upgrade my Staub to psa6.

I also thought the D304 Kelly, and a few of the E90-3 cards got strong action.

There do seem to be good deals to be had lately...lots of material being auctioned and money tight for most of us.