Auction House Policy: A Comparison

[kingjammy24]

can someone explain this to me:

"We don’t make a point of disclosing them because we didn’t buy them to sell for profit, we pay the consignors whether their items are paid for or not (as long as the item sells for reasonable market value) and just re-run the items that don’t get paid for"

as i understand this then; someone consigns an item to vintage, the item technically receives a bid above the reserve and eventually the auction closes. if the buyer does not actually end up sending payment to vintage, vintage will still pay the consigner?

if an item is not paid for, vintage still pays the consigner and keeps the item. the item is then re-run, but the original consigner has already received payment? is this is the case, then it seems the vintage has bought the item from the consigner and becomes the new owner. if they are the owner and they re-run the item, then they're offering items in their auction that they own.

do most auction houses pay consigners if payment on their item is not received?

do most keep the items and re-run them?

thanks,

rudy.

[TNTtoys]

do most auction houses pay consigners if payment on their item is not received?

do most keep the items and re-run them?

thanks,

rudy.

Rudy,

I think the policy differs from house to house. I have ran into a couple of interesting scenarios out there where the item wasn't exactly re-run but sold after the auction completed.

For example, Heritage lists items that didn't sell in prior auctions at fixed prices after the auction has completed. If you are interested (which was the case for me on an odd occasion), you can simply slick the button (like "buy it now" in ebay) and the item is yours for that price. This would imply that they have cleared an acceptable price with the consignor and that the consignor is continuing to allow the auction house to try to sell on their behalf. You probably would need to check what is really happening behind the scenes -- I never really gave this any second thought.

Recently I purchased an unsold item from Premier. They told me that they would first need to check with the consignor if I can purchase it at the starting bid, and then got back to me with the clearance. They also told me that if the consignor did not agree, they would get it back... hence, one of two scenarios -- either they don't re-run the item or it has already been through their auction house more than once. Again, you'd want to check.

Haven't had any experience with this at any other auction houses... but interesting stuff anyway.

Nick

[Eric]

Dave O'Brien-

You're close with American Memorabilia- any luck getting them to answer about their policy?

Eric

[Mark17]

can someone explain this to me:

"We don’t make a point of disclosing them because we didn’t buy them to sell for profit, we pay the consignors whether their items are paid for or not (as long as the item sells for reasonable market value) and just re-run the items that don’t get paid for"

as i understand this then; someone consigns an item to vintage, the item technically receives a bid above the reserve and eventually the auction closes. if the buyer does not actually end up sending payment to vintage, vintage will still pay the consigner?

if an item is not paid for, vintage still pays the consigner and keeps the item. the item is then re-run, but the original consigner has already received payment? is this is the case, then it seems the vintage has bought the item from the consigner and becomes the new owner. if they are the owner and they re-run the item, then they're offering items in their auction that they own.

Wow. If this is how it works, people could really play games with them. Someone consigns an item, two of his buddies from the office, who don't particularly care about memorabilia, register as bidders, and outbid each other to the moon. The winner doesn't pay and is blacklisted (and he doesn't care,) and the consignor gets huge bucks for his item.

Kind of hard to believe an auction house would leave itself open to this type of scam.....