auction glut

Is it typical for this time of the year for there to be so many auctions? Do you think this is a sign of end times for sellers who are trying to liquidate their collections before the bubble bursts?

Here are the auctions off the top of my head
heritage
mastro
goodwin
sloate
luckey(done)
huggins
milehigh(done)
19thcentury

I have always thought that too many of these auctions tend to end around the same time. Definitely makes you really choice if you are on a limited budget.

Lee

I agree, It's just to much to keep up with.
The Cards I can afford turn up frequently on Ebay and various B/S/T Classified/Private sales.
I tend to just make Impulse buys when I accumilate enough money to do so.

zouraspm wrote:Do you think this is a sign of end times for sellers who are trying to liquidate their collections before the bubble bursts?

If that's the rationale for bunching auctions together, I think these companies are making a big mistake. If there's any risk of a bubble bursting, it already has. There's no question that the market is down substantially, but that's no reason to jump ship. Vintage cards will always have value, and one could argue that now is the perfect time to BUY low, not SELL low.

I don't see any benefit in holding an auction at the same time as so many others. As Lee mentioned, it forces the limited budget collector to restrict their participation to just one or two of the auctions. It would seem far more beneficial for an auction house to spread out their auctions to times where they won't see as much simultaneous competition. Then again, maybe the benefit of limited budget collectors is not these companies' primary concern?

I think you'll see a few of these auction houses disappear. Competition is stiff for quality material. Those with that material are not about sell in a soft market like this unless they are in dire financial need. The only really significant material is going to be from new finds and very little from established collections. This means that quality offerings are going to be way down and most of the big collectors are going to go to the major houses and bypass lesser and newer auction houses because they won't be able to realize prices like REA and the other biggies can.

Jay

It's easy to get burned out when there is so much going on. It's great when you have the funds, but if you don't, you just have to watch. Bummer....cause it's an awesome time to buy.

don't forget lipset's and hunt's either. i thought there were too many auction houses a couple years back, and today we've seen a couple new ones. but as long as people keep consigning there'll be auctions...maybe that's why it's in the best interest of certain people to keep complaining about ebay.

sabrjay wrote:I think you'll see a few of these auction houses disappear.

I don't know that B-L will go extinct, but the e-mail about some unsold lots now being available without the BP was a bit of a head scratcher. An auction house depends on its ability to attract quality consignments and a large volume of bids. I suspect collectors now will be very reluctant to place the initial bid on many of their future offerings and quite possibly hesitant to consign to them. I'm no Andrew Carnegie, but that move just doesn't make long-term business sense to me.

Given that email, why would anyone place a bid on a lot? Most minimum bids seemed a bit high so not bidding would be a good strategy for lots that had very limited appeal or low demand. As you said, doesn't seem to be a good business move.

Jay