Another Auction Firm, Raritan, Eliminates Printed Catalogs

This is the way things are going to go I believe. Recently HR Harmer delayed two auctions due to issues with onshore printing costs and went to Eastern Europe to have the catalogs printed. Only a matter of time before all follow suit.

Some off those hard printed catalogs were way more than educational and had lots of vauleable information . Getting them was like a reference book on some area of philality . I kept many over the years and it was easy to figure a price to bid if you can see the past few years of pricing .

Modern auction catalogues, if they're done well, are indeed works of reference in their own right.

Call me old fashioned, but I'd rather the catalogue in my hands than reading a PDF on a screen.

I am also a hard copy catalog fan and have hundreds of them. When I look at them though I do see the pile of money it took to produce them, and truth be told I only bid in a fraction of those sales. With increased printing costs many firms are left with a hard choice to make. At some point commissions have to go up and IMO they are already getting too high at some firms. Commission, taxes, shipping all adds up and cuts into what is bid.

I would rather see a firm charge $20 for a catalog instead of bumping up the commission. It would weed out the catalogs that go to non-bidders. First step though is to look at the sale online to see if you either want to bid or want the catalog for reference. All of the catalogs are online now anyway so I really foresee the printed versions go the way of rotary phone.

There has been over the last 20 years some very good auction catalogs to keep ,just for references sources . I like Regency's Mexico catalogue ,the information is outstanding . My favorite catalog was Kelleher 's Egypt ,that was the one I was going to advance my Egypt Collection . They had one lot the Postage Dues on pages catalog was $600.00 and opening bid was $250.00 ok .......my bid was top at $375.00 ,were does it go ? To $1500.00 ok what didn't I know ? .

Catalogs tell you stuff about the market place ,you don't know . When I was looking for a Cape Juby collection we went thru 2 1/2 years were none appeared ,then I pick one up as high bidder , the next year three appeared in the market place . I am sure it also happens with medium value stamps in the $200.00 to $1500.00 range for people trying to complete a page or a country ? Catalogs tell the story , it is not out there when you start looking ,sure the catalog has 20 stamps from the country in the next auction but where is the stamp you want ? .

Actually SAN is THE place to go for auction information. Have to pay though.