Which do you prefer

[moondoggy]

Another contemplation

 

To everyone who has used auction houses, which do you prefer and why ? Am thinking of using one but it is like shopping for a car, everyone says they have the best deal. I'd like to hear from the grassroots on this one......

 

thanks,

Mike

 

See more journals by moondoggy

[Six Mile Rick]

To me auction houses are for auctioneers to make very much money. If your reserves are too high you will still pay and not even sell.Best bet on a proof coin selling is around 65% FMV and the auction house will get 15% so you need to be ready to sell your set at 50% or so.

Find a few of your coins that are selling soon and watch them. Deduct buyers and sellers fees and you will know a little better where to send your coins if you do so.

 

JMT----Rick

[Mr Bo Jingles]

I have done business with David Lawrence Auctions and they seem to be pretty good and the customer service is great. Their website has all the contact info. I dealt directly with John Brush.

 

That being said, I have also done very well going to a show and just hoofing it around the bourse floor asking dealers what they were looking for. I have always left the FUN shows satisfied with the money I received for my coins.

 

Good Luck!

[wheat'swheats]

I like both DLRC and Heritage

wheat

[Broke-Daddy]

That's a pretty good question. I've dealt exclusively with Ebay for the last 15 years, not giving much thought to others. Unless it's a really hot item, My listings tend to hang there for quite a while because I can't afford to lose any money, listing it for the fair market value. They generally sell after all the "low ball" priced items are gone.

 

The auctions are generally a "Buyers" market, becuase it's the Seller who eats the cost of doing business!

 

At times after the auction close, i've been lucky and received offers on the closed items, and been able to make a large direct sale that way. Some by sending a Paypal Invoice or by Postal Money Order for the total $$$.

 

It's that total transaction fee percentage that'll make you faint, Ebay/Paypal scalps me for about 12-14% on every sale, and when your sale is for several Thousand Bucks, in addition to insured shipping costs- Just Add it up- Wow!

 

Is there a better route?

[coinsbygary]

Overall I am happy with Great Collections. I have had two consignments with them that turned out pretty well for me. The sellers fee is 5%, and for items that sell for over $1000 its 0%. One thing for you to do though is your homework. Each auction house keeps archives of auction results. Search and compare those results with the coins you are wanting to consign. Then subtract their fees for the net gain to you. Whichever is highest go with them. However, I would probably stick with the main players Stacks, Heritage, Teletrade, Great Collections. Of lately I have soured on selling through E-Bay and I agree with Broke-Daddy on their fee schedule. Regardless of which way you choose, I wish you the best and that you get the highest price possible for your coins. One thing you might want to consider first, is posting them for sale in the market place portion of these boards. That way you can sell them direct without any fees.

Gary

[rockhobby]

I have used Heritage and found them to be quite good. One caveat to that though; common material does not seem to do that well as they will want to bundle items together especially in their premier auctions such as Long Beach, etc.

 

Just my 2 cents worth. Doug

[CBC]

Buying - I have bought through eBay, Heritage, Stacks, Teletrade and David Lawrence auctions with generally good results. The only gripe about Teletrade is they often show items as "pending" well after the auction closes so you don't know whether you won or not.

 

Selling - I sold a few things on eBay years ago but the fees got so high I haven't sold anything there recently. Occasionally Teletrade has a zero% sellers fee special and I have sold a few things on those auctions, for generally acceptable prices. Again, one gripe is they sometimes set reserves (even though I didn't tell them to) and you can end up losing money. I had one coin listed with them a while back. The bid price was around $50 at the end of the auction but they "no sale"'ed it and re -listed it. The next round, the bid only reached $35, and they did the no-sale trick again. They re-listed it for Round 3; this time, apparently the bidders were fed up with the "no sale" and didn't bid at all, so it sold for $15. Believe me, I was not satisfied with that one.

 

Heritage has a high minimum (last time I talked to them they wanted a minimum consignment of $5,000 total), and I haven't tried to meet their minimum. If i was selling everything I would probably give them a shot.

 

Recently I have done several deals through the Money Marketplace here on CS. Good deals, meet a few fellow collectors in the process.