Question: Best Consigment/Auction House? Recommendations?

GB5HOF · May 18, 2011 5:35AM

Hey Everyone...looking for some assistance in choosing an auction/consignment house to sell a 1975 Cincinnati Reds Team signed ball. All signatures in matching blue ink...with a personalized letter from the former owner of the Reds. The ball is in perfect condition...and is in the original box that it shipped in...with the personalized letter.

I'm a pretty small time eBay seller...and think this is something that maybe I should sell through a reputable house. Any suggestions? Recommendations?

Thanks in advance for your help!

NickM · May 18, 2011 6:46AM

It's definitely an auction house item. It gets far more more publicity that way, and there aren't so many buyers for them that you could expect it to receive full value in the short time period of an ebay auction.

Robert Edward Auctions is fantastic. They also just had their auction for the year.

I'd consider Huggins & Scott, Leland's, or SCP.

There are some auctions that are strong for cards, but I'm not sure how they do for memorabilia, so I can't give a recommendation on them.

Nick

CollectorAtWork · May 18, 2011 7:15AM

I think you might just do this through an ebay consignment like PWCC or Probstein. I guess I don't know how much this ball is worth. I don't think it makes sense to go to one of the bigger auction houses unless your item is rare or worth at least $500. Otherwise the fees will eat too much into your profits. Places like SCP and REA typically a have a 15% consignor's fee on top of a ~20% buyer's premium. This basically means that the auction house keeps ~35% of the total price of your item. If you have high value items or consign very early, you might be able to negotiate them down from these prices. My favorite auction house is Goodwin for prewar cards, but they're typically more selective in the items they choose. For example, they don't take most GAI-graded cards. Goodwin has 0% consignment fee, which I like.

judgebuck · May 18, 2011 11:57AM

On behalf of a friend, I consigned a number of items to Hunt Auctions. My friend's father was a former major league groundskeeper who had accumulated quite a few items over the years, including items from the Reds during the Big Red Machine years. They put the less valuable items in their monthly auction and the more expensive items in their quarterly (I think) live auction. We were very pleased with the sales results in the two auctions. Also, Hunt handled everything in a very professional manner. You can see the results in this stuff at Hunt Auctions website, Lots #'s 232-242. Autographed balls were included. Hunt had the integrity to return to us several autographed balls that they deemed to be clubhouse signatures, rather than trying to include them in their auctions.

Ironmanfan · May 18, 2011 10:35PM

I'd love to see a couple scans of the ball & letter..........

Thanks

IMF

GB5HOF · May 19, 2011 7:13AM

Thanks everyone for the info! I will definitely put up some pics of the ball and letter before I sell it.

Actually its been resting comfortably at my parents house for the past 20 years. I'm going to be picking it up this weekend.

msassin · May 19, 2011 7:22AM

Huggins & Scott is on the top of my list.

Question: Best Consigment/Auction House? Recommendations?

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