Question
It seems the original thread about REAL LIFE auctions started by kevin vanished off the page, and I dont feel like hunting it down.
So we'll make this PART II !!!
For the past few months auctions in my neck of the woods have been pretty boring. I've noticed a general decrease in both quantity and quality of stuff. Alot of the auction stuff is estate material and it seems like the better stuff is just being kept by relatives. I would think they'd be ebaying it themselves, but overall my forays into ebay as a buyer has also shown a general decline in quantity and quality of merchandise there too.
I am primarilay a bookseller, with a focus on antiquarian, with the booksites being my main market. I rarely sell books on ebay these days.
Although I also delve into other types of items, books are my main area of expertise. And what I have seen lately is distressing.
My main competitor is in the process of virtually dumping his inventory at firesale prices. A shame, but I may indeed purchase some of his stock. Sales of decent books are in a slump these days for many of us who do not do Amazon type books. Perhaps expected for the season.
However, at real auctions it seems every brother and his body are trying to get into the book business. Freaking flea market vendors have even started fighting me over old books. I dont know what they think they are going to do with old O. Henry reprints but I'll take them up to MY retail often just to prove a point. That if they dont know what they are doing, books are the wrong business to be in. I have no problem with the 'readers' and happily leave them alone.
The latest craze seems to be coffee table books. The type that sell on Amazon for a buck or two. But in real life the twits will fight up to $10 to $20. I dont really mind, but I know Im in for some hell if a CIvil War coffee table book happens to be in with a bunch of old Trollopes.
Aircraft books seems to be another hottie. Most of the standard types are fairly worthless (with of course exceptions) and the other day I shook in disbelief as people were bidding up to $30 for Reader's Digest type aircraft books in small stacks, while I walked away with a whole 50 pound set of professional pilot's manuals for a pittance. The binders alone are worth over $100.
I had to fight hard though for an early illustrated Dickens, but at least it was worth it.
I am focusing more on ephemera, and fortunately this is something that alot of people overlook if it is not in a shoebox or a beer case.
I also believe (though I have still yet to verify it) that I found a picture of my grandfather and his wife at auction last week. The auctioneer thought it was funnny when I held it up, and made a quip about 'instant family' .
Indeed....
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Certainly changing times...wish I could figure it out myself. Those Amazon sales are not that great either. Amazon, also competes with it's sellters.
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I have sworn off (almost) all auctions until the summer is over! With too much inventory, I need to concentrate on selling and not buying. I think we all know how that is.
We plan to attend our favorite every-other-week auctions until we cannot stand to sit in his building with no air conditioning any longer. I also have an acquaintenance who just recently received his auctioneer's license. He has a sale on June 12th so we might go just to cheer him on.
Here is a list of what I spent the last auction I attended:
McCoy Cookie Jar Bottom - $5 (now I just need to find a lid)
A box lot of Fire King - $5
3 box lots of postcards - $16
Red rocking chair (not necessarily old) - $15
Box lot of old b/w and cabinet photos - $2
4 cup cobalt blue measuring cup - $17.50
Set of 4 1950s glasses - $5
The auction house was not full that night which accounts for some of the low prices. Another reason is that (as mentioned above) the quality of merchandise was not up to par. I think the auctioneer knew he was going to have a small crowd and saved some of the better things for a later sale.
I did not buy it, but he did sell a nice old NCR cash register in working condition for $70. If I had owned my own shop, it would have been mine.
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Amazon has basically a horrid business model, and a setup that is immediatley apparent was designed by someone who did not have a clue as to the nature of the book business. Bezos just thought he could make a fortune, and used dot-com hype and venture capital to forge a niche where he never really belonged.
As booksellers, they are mediocre at best, in an industry that really does not require middle men for selling new books any more. But they have set up a system for soaking the myriads of used book sellers and are trying to get rich capitalizing on a dysfunctional system that is slowly imploding.
The penny sellers are killing not only Azon, but the entire book market as well. If 37 cents becomes the perceived value of a recent NYT best seller, then soon to the public ALL best sellers are worth only 37 cents, plus shipping.
I sell on Azon through Alibris, and have had only two sales through them in a month. It used to average about 20, till they made some 'modifications' and it seems the whole site went to hell.
As far as real life auctions, I'd be afraid to deal in ceramics at this point in time. I passed up a lovely *OLD* Nippon set tonight, because the market for it, at least the last time I tried to sell it, had tanked. Like it has for alot of other glass/ceramic wares.
Postcards can do well, but unfortunately most of the ones I seem to run across are the relatively worthless tourist types, that locals still run up to $20-40 thinking they have found treasure.
I tried listng a series of WWI small town France doughboy postcards a while back for $20, with absolutely no takers.
Old tools also do quite well. I have a friend who scoffs up old and broken Craftsman tools and exchanges them for new. There are many antique tool collectors, but they know what is valuable, and I sure as hell dont. But if I ever want any good tools, I can always ask an Amish friend what is the best quality.
Tonight I got distracted and missed bidding on a couple of choice book lots. Fortunately the buyers left most of the best books, which more than compensated for the lots I did bid on. Though I got an expensive signed first edition for $10, that and a couple other treasures will go into my personal collection, so at least I have merch to sell.
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Thanks Snakebait,
I had been going to pull up the old thread for the last week or two and never got around to it.
(Any prices quoted are in Australian dollars unless otherwise stated. AU $1.00 is currently about US $0.71)
As I mentioned at the time, I went down to Tasmania for almost 3 weeks on a buying holiday. I intended to cover as many auctions as possible, but there was very little to interest me at any auctions, so I only stayed at one to meet a country "runner" (dealer who buys private and sells to other dealers). The day before I went down there was a major estate postcard collection at a Hobart auction, but my timing was wrong, so I missed that.
The most interesting thing I saw come up to auction in Tasmania had an element of coincidence to it. Earlier this year a museum in Ballarat was sold up - intriguingly amongst the collection was a platypus skin rug, the first I had ever heard of. I wanted to get to the auction but went North the day before and had good success at a country town auction (mentioned in the other thread). The catalogue did not go online, although the auctioneers usually put one up for the auctions that they run, so I could not determine whether it was worth travelling to this (otherwise) well promoted auction. I got word a couple of days later (and confirmed in a newspaper article) that the platypus rug had made $3750. I thought it was a unique piece, I was interested because it was colonial and I was raised on a farm that had platypus in the river - I would be most offended by a modern platypus rug, but as a historic item it held interest and appeal, and historically I thought that it would have sold a bit dearer.
So, a couple of months later in Tassie, the Saturday paper advertises a platypus rug from an estate (with Government permit numbers for the sale) to be offered in Launceston. I got to see this one, and the estate was interesting but there was nothing for me personally at the auction. It was made of 42 platypus skins (cut rectangular and sewn together 6 x 7), one skin was tatty and a section of sewing was unravelling. They could just as easily have been furry rabbit skins. This one had much more limited promotion, but the same auctioneers had sold another one about 8 years ago for $8,000 - their estimate was $5,000 to $8,000 but they said it would have been sold if it only made $2,000 or $3,000. I was 80 miles away on the day of the auction, but it made the regional news that night, this one selling for $15,000 - which made the first (better promoted) rug appear very cheap indeed. It was folded up in a (expensive) shop that I covered the following day (in a town famed for platypii), so it was a dealer that paid that price, and I assume they bought it to resell.....
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Since getting back I have covered one interesting farm clearance auction out west, that had a nice variety of old stuff, of which I got a 3 bottle oak tantalus with key, but damage to 2 bottles for $120, and a shoe box of 1930's postcards, with quite a bit of Pacific material for $20. The latter attracted some serious interest during inspection and I was amazed that there was only one other bid, if it had not been in such a remote area I would probably have had to pay $150 or so. For someone with no knowledge, I found one item's sale very interesting. Next to an anvil was a thick block of cast iron with holes cut into it. It was a swage block, designed to both mould steel for a blacksmith and hold his tools. It went up without any tools (people wanted it offered seperately) and it made $800. I would not have given it a second glance until now - a handy thing to know about.
An antique auction in the same area a day later was very dull, and I did not even wait for it to start. Someone I know picked up some Australian pottery cheap, otherwise prices were very dear.
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Last Sunday I went to the FIRST auction of a railway memorabilia collector's estate in Melbourne. Well promoted it attracted a large crowd and lots of money. The auction usually runs at about 150 lots per hour, but the bidding was so heavy that they only got through about 60 lots per hour for the first three hours (and it was a 600 lot sale). There were serious collectors of railwayana from all over the country, and whilst this auction house uses fairly stiff reserves on most items, until they got into the paper, the clearance rate was extremely high. These prices are plus 16.5% buyers premium.
There were 105 lots of "Locomotive Builders, Class and Number Plates" - of these 14 made in excess of $1000 to a top price of $2800 for the cast metal plate, and loco floodlamp with glass side numbers for steam locomotive R734.
Some other feature prices:
2 x Flaman's Speed Indicator and Recorder made $2100 and $1900.
A Silver presentation trowel with ivory handle used to lay the last brick in Flinders Street Station, Melbourne, together with the same person's 9 carat Omega pocket watch - made $4,000.
A group of 31 numbered chromed employee cap badges, such as Station Assistant, Shunter, Porter, etc. made $1700
10 similar in brass incl Station master - $600
Circular railway pendulum wall clocks up to $1300.
A wrecking train folding width gauge for measuring the width between rails (early and ornate) - $1150
Signal panel for controlling a crossing loop on the Geelong line - $2000
Pair of railway crossing gate lanterns - $1250
Signage was about on par with other sales in the region.
Signal box block instrument - $1700
Id'd Bank Engine Key - $2600
2 Electric Staff Instruments - $ 1100
Books were not so strong overall, the exceptions being some local reports and publications, and literature on signals. I picked up some very cheap modern reports, some being quite specialised, and some important subjects for modern Australian railway development and proposals. Hopefully they will yield interest on Ebay - but they are likely to be hit and miss.
A Scale model of the N.A.Class Puffing Billy, by the Australian Locomotive Company. $2,800.
11 lots of Postcards (each lot an album) grossed $16,200 plus premiums - most going to a Melbourne dealer. The high price being $4750 for an album of about 400 Australian & New Zealand cards - good but not great.
Victorian Railways "Men of Service" posters, showing men in their railway related jobs, circa World War Two, somewhat patriotic - 4 out of 6 sold for $1500 & $1600 (2 unsold at the $1500 reserve) - also a "Women of Service" showing a female porter - made $2600.
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Nothing on for tomorrow, I rang up two auctioneers, to determine which one to travel to and discovered that neither were worth the cost of travel. I will decide whether I get up early and do garage sales - but I really find the local garage sales to be a waste of time, so I probably won't do much this weekend at all.
Cheers, Kevin
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> The penny sellers are killing not only Azon, but the entire book market as well. If 37 cents becomes the perceived value of a recent NYT best seller, then soon to the public ALL best sellers are worth only 37 cents, plus shipping. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Barnes & Nobles has their own way of killing any bookselling market left out there outside of antique books.
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Today we went to a small town implement/car dealer auction.
The auction had not been advertised extensivly (only 15 miles from me, and I only heard about it at the last moment). Generally we try to buy parts before it gets to the auction state, so we don't attend many auctions. About one a year it seems like.
This had primarily parts and literature (manuals, parts books etc).
This dealer had handled Minneapolis Moline, Case, Bobcat, GMC, and White apparently.
Who ever orginized the items should have been shot. They had the different lines all mixed together. I feel they would have done a lot better if all the GMC, Case, Moline etc parts would have been seperated by each individual make. The auctioneer did not help matters as they would group together parts of different brands also. I "coached" one of them into keeping the different brands separate, the auction went much better then. The other ring person did not seem to be able to comprehend this. In fact one lot we purchased a buyer had asked to bid on one item, but this ring person still grouped it all together. I sold this and some other items for more than what we paid for it ON THE SPOT, plus kept what we bid on.
At the last moment they decided to do two rings, so we had to split up. My partner took the books, so I did not personally see what happened there.
We purchased all of the GMC parts books and manuals as GM is our specialty, and we had little competition. The tractor stuff went very high from what I saw, but I am aware there is good demand for those items. There were about 6 dealers whom purchased most of the "worthy" tractor literature.
With the parts, I was able to get about 75% of the GMC parts at this auction. Because of the way they ran it, we also purchased some tractor stuff with the GMC items, and missed some items because the tractor guys wanted something in that batch. We did do some horse trading after the fact however. Most of the tractor stuff we purchased will be either ebay or dumpster bound. The GMC stuff went cheap, again we had no competition.
Minneapolis Moline mechanical stuff went very well at this auction. There were about 12 very serious dealers/collectors at this auction whom bid it up nicely. Gaskets really seemed to go high Internal engine componants did very well also. IE pistons, oil/water pumps, camshafts etc.
Case parts didn't seem to have any one even looking at it. I was tempted to buy some of it, but refrained.
I would guess if the items had been better organized and the auction better promoted, the seller would have seen a substantial increase in revenue.
Two kind of cool piece's of literature that we did obtain is a 1973 and 1974 Chaparral Snowmobile parts manuals. I don't think anyone else saw them. Paid $5.00 for the whole box which included these.
I also heard from a local that this dealer had handled Studebaker at one time. About 20 years ago, they hauled it all out for scrap http://community.here.com/infopop/em...s/icon_eek.gif
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G'day D-Dub,
Any Minneapolis Moline paper that I have ever listed on Ebay has always sold well, it seems to have a real following. It looks like someone was aware of it at your auction, but if any turns up in your boxes it may be worth listing.
In case it helps, I am finding that on tractor stuff I am (mostly) getting about even category hits from listing in double categories in Collectibles:Advertising:Agriculture... and Business:Agriculture:Tractors.....
Cheers, Kevin
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Kevin,
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Any Minneapolis Moline paper that I have ever listed on Ebay has always sold well, it seems to have a real following <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Minneapolis Moline probably has a even greater following in this area. We are only 200 miles from where they were built. The company had very good distribution up here, hence a good following. I have never seen so many Minneapolis-Moline hats as I did on Saturday http://community.here.com/infopop/em...on_biggrin.gif
I listed some of the Minneapolis Moline and Wisconsin engine parts that we ended up with. Hope they sell. My goal it to have the items we "wanted" for free http://community.here.com/infopop/em...icon_smile.gif
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A friend recently earned his auctioneer license and we thought his first sale was yesterday. Turns out it is next weekend and we both have to work!
We thought about attending this auction just for the fun of it but decided with that many people expected, it really wouldn't be any fun, would it? http://community.here.com/infopop/em...icon_smile.gif
We went to our regular auction house last night with nothing of note in the ad and pretty much nothing when we got there. A nice thunderstorm helped cool things off a bit as the temperature dropped about 20 degrees which helped since the auction house in not air conditioned.
I purchased a piece of white carnival glass (which I think is made by Fostoria) for $9 and I got a jar of glass marbles for $5. Another flat of old photos for $7 and we left for home.
There were a lot of primitives last night with some of the picket fence-type items (benches, shelves, plant stands) bringing $25-$50 each.
Two guns, a 22 rifle with scope and a Jennings 9mm pistol did not bring the reserve of $100. However, a Red Rider BB gun in good condition went for $17.50.
Some lighted advertising signs (some worked, others did not) went for $30-$75 each.