OMG record storage boxes !

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jamiegramo
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Re: OMG record storage boxes !

Post by jamiegramo »

Ahh so the £1400 sale didn't include buyers premium. I didn't know that. I believe it was the Roger Thorne sale. I missed one a few years ago that a British dealer had just sold to America for $1800 and I was the under bidder on the one that sold on eBay late last year but that had condition issues.

A friend of mine who has been attending auctions for years has a good rant about the auctioneers. Infact I daren't mention them for the tirade that will follow! He says that with all the charges and premiums they now take they are now being given every third item they sell! In the case of Toovey's it looks like more than that when you add on the selling commission.

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Mlund2020
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Re: OMG record storage boxes !

Post by Mlund2020 »

jamiegramo wrote:A friend of mine who has been attending auctions for years has a good rant about the auctioneers. Infact I daren't mention them for the tirade that will follow! He says that with all the charges and premiums they now take they are now being given every third item they sell! In the case of Toovey's it looks like more than that when you add on the selling commission.

I agree that the auction house fees in the 30% range in many cases (as with Toovey’s auction) are getting completely out of hand. I generally try to figure out in advance what my maximum that I will spend for an item is, then back out auction house fees and exchange fees to figure out what I actually dare to bid. That is money out of the sellers pocket and directly into the auction houses pocket. That is why I am such a big fan of Stanton’s auctions. Not only do I find Steve Stanton to be very honest and trustworthy in his representation/ description of items for sale, but his very fair 10% buyers premium is very refreshing in this day in age. I have left many absentee bids with him over the years and all have been executed perfectly and fairly. Besides Toovey’s crazy auction fees, they failed to properly execute the absentee bid that I left on this lot of 2 HMV/ Johnson record cabinets, taking me out of the running. While they were very apologetic about their error, it is still a little aggravating. Such is the risk of leaving an absentee bid, but Stanton has never made that mistake in the many absentee bids I’ve left with him over the years - just saying.

epigramophone
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Re: OMG record storage boxes !

Post by epigramophone »

Just to be clear, the example I mentioned which sold at the CLPGS Members Auction for £1400 only carried a 5% Buyers Premium.

The Society charges 5% to buyers and sellers, so buyers pay less and sellers receive more.

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fmblizz
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Re: OMG record storage boxes !

Post by fmblizz »

Most auction houses here in the states have become whore houses,,, putting them on par with Ebay,, IMHO

blizz

Dulcetto
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Re: OMG record storage boxes !

Post by Dulcetto »

Just to be clear about Toovey's in particular , they are the greediest auction house I know . Not only do they charge the buyer just under 30 percent additional premium , they also have the audacity to charge an extra SIX percent for the "privilege" to bid live on-line. They will tell you that the charges are imposed by the company running the on-line bidding platform , but it would be interesting to know what their answer would
be when told that 99 percent of all other auction houses charge only 3 percent for the service ! At the end of the day , its all about the money honey ! GREED !! My personal view is that on-line bidding should be a FREE service to the bidder , the costs of providing the service borne by the auction house who after all are because of the on-line bidder, getting increased hammer prices ! . Dulcetto

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jamiegramo
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Re: OMG record storage boxes !

Post by jamiegramo »

Hi Dulcetto, I must say the Toovey's charges are the greediest I've encountered. Even my friend, who thought he'd heard it all about auction houses, was speechless, briefly, when I mentioned the charges. I was confused when 2 days earlier the Elgin Gramophone lots were 3% Online bidding and then Toovey's were 6%. Plus the Toovey's website wouldn't accept pre bids sometime before the auction started giving you no choice but to pay the 6% if you couldn't attend. I don't see why the website shouldn't accept bids at least upto the start of the auction if not the lot, except for the fact they can charge you more.

Thank you, epigramophone, for clarifying the CLPGS charges to members. They are very reasonable and an incentive to bid aswell as join.

Perhaps I shouldn't repeat this but it's something I was told as a kid by an old time dealer. He said "There are more fiddles in an auction house than there are in a violin factory". I'm sure it's not always true. Mlund2020's account of Stanton's proves that some are great to deal with.
Last edited by jamiegramo on Sat May 19, 2018 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

epigramophone
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Re: OMG record storage boxes !

Post by epigramophone »

We in the CLPGS are fortunate, in that our President is a qualified and very knowledgeable auctioneer who founded the Mechanical Music Department at Christies. He conducts our annual Members Auction with great skill and wit, and as all the fees go into the Society's funds everyone wins.

As for commercial auctioneers, I am old enough to remember a time before the introduction of Buyer's Premiums. Whose idea was that?

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jamiegramo
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Re: OMG record storage boxes !

Post by jamiegramo »

Yes and helpful too! I wrote to him for pointers on how to tell whether a trademark horn was original or not. He sent photos of joins and pointed out other information. I couldn't beat the response!

Jamie

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PHONOMIKE
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Re: OMG record storage boxes !

Post by PHONOMIKE »

This is posted on Toovey's site:

Buyer’s Premium
Is calculated at 24.5% plus VAT (29.4% including VAT) of the hammer price, on the commission at the current rate, where appropriate. This will be charged on the hammer price of each lot purchased.

VAT stands for Value Added Tax. In this case maybe it should say NVAT with the "N" meaning NON.

I emailed them a couple weeks back about shipping these two if I had won and there response was we won't have anything to do with shipping. It's the buyers responsibility to arrange for pickup, packing and shipping and to do so within Toovey's regular hours of operation.

Talk about being of zero assistance. They didn't even recommend a company to help. All that being said the hammer price was more than I would have bid with the extra fees so I didn't miss out on anything.

As someone also pointed out, I think more would have been collected for the seller if these had been separate lots.

Mike

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Re: OMG record storage boxes !

Post by clevelander »

I started attending a local auction house in the late '60s when the buyer's premium was 5% (1/- in the £)
This meant , in old money, that you bid in pounds but paid in guineas.
Since the value of lots has increased dramatically over the last fifty years, why has the premium been raised so drastically?.

Alistair.
Last edited by clevelander on Mon May 21, 2018 7:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

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