Sandafayre Auction House

This was a nice auction house. I am sorry to see it close. Lots of changes in philately recently. I wonder why not sell the business to someone even just for the brand.

https://www.sandafayre.com/

They had interesting stock and good knowledge. If anything was wrong with a lot, they, quickly, refunded.

However, they were overestimating their lots. Almost all lots I bid on, I bid at a discount of 20% on the lower estimate. Almost all, I won.

Also, I do think they did not check their lots well enough: series sold as having watermark A but one or two having B, unmounted sets having mounted stamps. I do think this was unintentional.

Another thing I noticed that a very large part of items offered reappeared four to six weeks later.

In the end, the items offered at auction and their quick refunds if anything was wrong did make them an interesting source for me.

Completely agree.

Much of the material was also heavily recycled through the philatelic system. I know because bulk excess material I consigned to auction in the US ended up heavily broken down in their auctions. From what I could see it was relisted over multi-year periods without selling. The pattern was that if it did not sell it would be resisted again weeks later. After multiple attempts without a sale it disappeared for a sale or two or three and then it was back.

This type of reselling for an auction house is problematic because they are losing the seller commission while at the same time paying a commission buying the material.

Or maybe they tried and couldn't find a buyer.

Well they owned all the lots in the Sandafayre auctions (but not their Cheshire auctions), so of course it was going to keep reappearing.