Kelleher Stamp Auction-Collections December 2022 Now Listed

"Let me stick my neck out and say most would not sell ....."Got that right ,looks like others were thinking like me ,that those worldwide stock cards wouldn't sell ,too pricey .

Concerning lot 2096. Pure curriosity, but does Kelleher have any responsibility to accurately describe a lot. Mr. Revenuecollector, and Mr Friedburg, 2 experts in this field, described the lot as "garbage, low quality, spurious". surely Kelleher has expertise also.
Or is this a matter of buyer beware. Floortrader in a much earlier thread mentioned that the old timers from NYC and Chicago knew how to put a screwing on you. Is this more of the same, or does Kelleher get a pass.
Just a question. Cheers
mark
correction:The lot was described as "full" of Surpious, low quality, garbage etc..

I would say total caveat emptor on 2096. As per the ToC, No returns on items that contain more than 10 items. This is the auction house escape hatch. Personally I never buy collections because I tend to think collections like this are the secret to concealing defects in sales. Any "Great" items are cherry picked out or used as bait to conceal other things, and to think every possible major discrepancy area of value is not gone through at least 1x even as a skim, is naive.

I think every last imperf in that lot looks bogus, without knowing anything about revenues. It is out of my collecting area, but I'd want to see huge margins on all sides where there is no indication of a trimjob, or the adjacent stamp. Otherwise you cannot state with certainty that its an imperf. just my humble opinion.
Since I can't comment on the rest of the lot, when I see stuff like this - it calls the rest of the lot into a total question mark of quality. So I think whoever this Richard Friedberg guy is, in this particular case he is spot on with his assessment of "garbage low-quality and spurious items."

edit: my fleeting thought, is perhaps there is an item in here, that was overlooked, and someone saw a point of value that read to it being bid-up. But again no idea.

Re: Large lot descriptions:

As a consignor of large lots that held a great deal of faulty and questionable items, I can attest to the acuity that auction firms have when it comes to what is inferred, said and NOT said in lot descriptions.

Banish the thought that an auction firm has not thoroughly gone through every lot no matter how large unless it is an easy assessment that the material likely does not contain anything that could become a smaller or single lot. They make their money getting YOU the most money that they can so if there were gems to be picked, they would be picked.

I once consigned 38 full red boxes and every single 102 card was looked at in the process of reorganizing everything. For all I know they did pull singles. It is all on faith and trust.

"Banish the thought that an auction firm has not thoroughly gone through every lot no matter how large unless it is an easy assessment that the material likely does not contain anything that could become a smaller or single lot. They make their money getting YOU the most money that they can so if there were gems to be picked, they would be picked."

There are times when an auction house simply bites off more than it can chew by accepting more stuff than they have time to go thru thoroughly or too much stuff comes in at the last minute and they are unwilling to let it wait for the next auction. In these cases they material will not get the close look you are assuming.

Also, their net isn't just commissions, it is commissions minus costs and if they spend too much time going thru a consignment, their costs could be more than the extra they might get by finding & pulling out an item.

You should make it clear that a high percentage of those large mixture lots are made up or as I like to say are "manufactured " for the auction both by outside parties and by the auction house staff . There is only a small amount that is actually what both you and me would call a desk or a room clearence lot from one source .

If I had a auction firm and was the buyer for the firm and dealing with a estate or family with a deceased collector . The approach would be to buy the proper collection or get the better stuff on consignment . Then make the offer to clean up all the loose stuff and disorganize junk and offer $500.00 or $1,000.00 for all the junk stuff to be removed by me ,just to help the family ,knowing full well their is a few thousand dollars in bulk lot material in that offer .

I am not assuming anything and stand by my first-hand experience with multiple firms over the course of two decades.

Cheers

Somebody needs to write a article or even a book about all the crap that goes on in the stamp business .

If you been a buyer of stamps for a few years ,it is common knowledge you been screwed over a few times or you been cheated in your younger days . It goes with the territory .

On the above discussion about the Kelleher lot 2096 ,{first let me say ---I know nothing about U.S. REVENUES } if that lot was as good as they write and the people were giving expertise opinions off of computer scans were just guessing off their previous experiences . What stops a describer at the firm to call up a friend and say to his friend ' We got a lot that came in on consignment that you would like even if you bid over our top estimate " I could believe three or four different phones calls were made to tip off friends on good lots that are up for auction and none of the is ILLEGAL , just helping a friend to make a bid .

The firms describers know whats is good and what their friends would be interested in , This would apply to telling a bidding agent that if they have a buyer of French Colonies ,that a consignment came in that they should look at to discuss with their customer a chance they would like to bid on ,again nothing is ILLEGAL about that .

Absolutely goes on.

I think they are very deliberate in what they don't put in scans. At Kelleher I missed a few collections a while back that had items I really wanted. I have come to find out, that the stamps came from the lots. Now the well connected dealers can gouge. When there is a questionable lot, I will request more info or visit them for inspection. And my initial reaction was of course, these people are delusional betting this lot up.

Richard Friedberg has been one of the top revenue dealers in the country since 1975.

WAIT -A-MINUTE Revcollector ----"He is spot on with his assessment of garbage low-quality and spurious items ." That lot opened maybe at $3500.00 and sold for $12,000 plus $2400.00 in juice ,so someone paid $14,400 for it . People who don't have a clue are not usually spending 14,400 for a stamp lot .Someone or two people wanted it for it to go at that price . Maybe the scans don't tell the whole story .

floortrader, so is the whole story 2 people became irrationally exuberant on a garbage lot, engineered by kelleher to unload busted wares, or there are secrets to the lot, that were hidden.

Where the latter gets really dicey, is if material is not visible, does it get pulled from the lot, to "less notable" buyers who didn't inspect...

So many ways shenanigans can be orchestrated.

I assure you they do. But certain dealers don't know or care; they simply sell everything as it is and collectors out there who don't know better buy them. We all know who does this, they get talked about enough here. There are auction houses who would never sell a lot like this one, and we know who they are too.

revcollector, so you are basically saying this lot was geared toward a unscrupulous reseller? I think in recent times, this auction house has sacrificed integrity for the "bigger picture". Was hoping it was more short term... The Langs material was so massive for example, they couldn't turn it down for quality concerns, based on the profit potential.

I have found that the buyer of these lots can usually be discovered fairly quickly, if for instance you track new listings on ebay-the final home of the sussy material.