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Has anyone written a book about auction consigning?
Coinstartled
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Could be coins or any other collectable. I got medium toasted on a substantial consignment 15 years ago. Was happy to receive hammer, but now I realize the 105% would be more reasonable based on the value.
Negotiating is even more important now with so called buyer fees in the 17.5 to 20% range in coins and further into deep space on other collectables.
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An insider guide would be nice. I'd like to know too if one was already written. A chapter at least?
Reminds me of,,,,,,you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.
Maybe the undertakers could hand them out.
The tricky part, as a collector, is accurately evaluating the strength of your consignment. I’m sure plenty of estimation errors happen here in both directions, but all things being equal, the auction house seems to hold most of the cards.
To Have and Have Not.
"The day the fees stood still"
To do better consign through a friendly dealer who already has an established auction house arrangement. I was surprised by the difference.
Lance.
I am really surprised at the buyer's fee's now.... really getting high. One can only assume they will rise again in one or two years. Seems there should be an impact on auction business at some point. Cheers, RickO
It would be nice, but the process of auction consigning and buying changes all the time, so it would be difficult to write a guide that would last long enough to matter.
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Best advice would be that all aspects are negotiable. I recall Saintguru getting his $20's placed out of sequence in an auction so that they were not lost in the waning hours when the high denoms generally are sold.
Certainly that is an unusual case with a major consignment, but stuff like over hammer percentages and discounted or fee free reserves are on the table, no matter what the fee structure is.
Take a look at the Expert's Guide to Collecting and Investing in Rare Coins (Bowers) and Pleasure and Profit: 100 Lessons for Building and Selling a Collection of Rare Coins (Shippee).
Unless you are a MAJOR consignor of important material you are at the mercy of the auction house.
I believe that at least overcoming the sellers fee is readily negotiable with a less than major consignment.
Good advice.
Blatantly helpful post by Dentuck!
Have you actually done this?
LOL!!! Half informative, half carnival-barker.
This is good information to know. The current (high) level of buyer's fees probably make it much more possible.
Yes.
For a pile of 50-150 coins/stuff that might be a good rate. But for better material averaging $3K-$20K per lot, netting out at 85.8% (ie 103/120) doesn't seem good to me.....unless he's piece-mealing that consignment through numerous auctions. For a single auction consignment at $50-$100K I would hope one could still get 108+% of hammer which nets out at 90% to consignor.
I agree with those above who stated that consigning through a Dealer who has an established relationship with an auction house that provides him with (as an example 103% of hammer) is a great point. The trick there is to limit the Dealers cut so that he doesn't eat into your check so much that you sold the coin for fun.
I think there's something also to be said for research. There are any number of auction houses across America that can maximize your sales price on coins that are say $1,000 or less. Others excel at selling coins at $400 or less and still others who sell collector coins of $100 or less at 150% of bid all the time.
You need to shop around. If you're not in the 1% why would Heritage ever get your stuff with their steep fees?
Who are these ones? I've got a stack of sub $100 coins I'd be happy to get 150% of bid for.
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