Auction Houses "This they call a gramophone!"

[Sidewinder]

A previous post of epigramophone made some valuable observations: - here my 5cents.

Many years ago in Europe when Christies, Sotheby's, Phillips etc held Mechanical Music sales, the commission to the Auction house was about 17%. High I thought at the time ( as a student).

However what you got for this commission was auctions run by experts in the truest sense like Christopher Proudfoot & George Glastris, who know more than I ever will, and their knowledge inspired more people to the field. In addition, the Auction House had their own packing departments for smaller items, which I think was included, the customer paying only the postage fee.

Now we have auction houses charging north of 30% with a dire lack of expertise and not much interest to even connect purchasers to a shipping company (allegedly unless the shipping company pays them a %??? it seems).

As an aside. I was pleasantly surprised to bid at a German auction house in a large city in the North East, that had 1 page of their website dedicated to their packing and shipping and with details of costs by weight and dimensions - what a breath of fresh air you are thinking.

So I bought a smaller item and asked for the appropriate quote.

Answer was that they had 700 lots to pack and could not manage.

right......

So I told them I was in no rush, in a week or 2 would be fine

No, they were very busy

next month....? next quarter

no, still very busy....

I asked if we could schedule it for mid 2023

Also not possible

Which of course made me defer to my favorite film....."A man who tells lies, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it. "

[AZ*]

here my 5cents.

Pay more, get less. That seems to be how it is these days. When you actually get good service, or someone meets their commitment and does what they said they would do, it's a shock.

It used to be 2 cents. 250% inflation to a nickel. Just like everything else.

[Raphael]

It used to be 2 cents. 250% inflation to a nickel. Just like everything else.

(Not to be too picky, but the inflation rate of 2 cents to a nickel is actually 150%.)

With on-line auction houses charging such huge fees, why is everybody accusing eBay of scandalous behavior? Their buyer's premium is 0% (zero) and selling commissions are around 10%. And, many sellers will do the packing and shipping, be responsible for en-route damages, etc. - eBay is starting to look like paradise.

Raphael

[poodling around]

It used to be 2 cents. 250% inflation to a nickel. Just like everything else.

(Not to be too picky, but the inflation rate of 2 cents to a nickel is actually 150%.)

With on-line auction houses charging such huge fees, why is everybody accusing eBay of scandalous behavior? Their buyer's premium is 0% (zero) and selling commissions are around 10%. And, many sellers will do the packing and shipping, be responsible for en-route damages, etc. - eBay is starting to look like paradise.

Raphael

An interesting point.

I notice that at the moment (and actually for some time) there seem to be far less interesting items at the auctions. (Unless you consider EMG's). Maybe 'house-clearance' people are selling more on ebay or some other routes ? Maybe lock-down has started a change in selling behaviour.

Also, ebay saves traveling time and petrol costs.

[epigramophone]

On line bidding, usually involving an intermediary such as www.thesaleroom.com, has been the only option during the pandemic.
This has increased the level of fees to the point where buyers and sellers between them are paying half the sales proceeds of the item! Will fees reduce when normal bidding resumes? I doubt it.
Now that eBay has parted company with PayPal, they charge about 12.5% to sellers and nothing to buyers.
As Raphael says, eBay is starting to look like paradise!