Rasdale Taking To Breaking Down Collections For Sale

Couldn't help but notice that in the upcoming Rasdale sale instead of offering a large collection intact for sellers like Ken to break down they have opted to do so themselves. This seems to be becoming SOP for Rasdale when they are offering a quality substantial collection. They may be doing what is right for the consignor, but I miss the days when you had a shot at the entire package.

Lots 130 through 156:

https://stampauctionnetwork.com/RA/ra4557.cfm#18

SOP = Standard Operating Procedure

Pepperidge Farm remembers...

with the "unknown quote" above. I would hope that had I consigned a large collection with several better individual items, that they would sell the better items as seperate or small lots, and the rest of the iot as general collections. I understand and appreciate that dealers were looking at minimum 100 or better bid per lot because of costs. Unfortunately, sometimes better items do get overlooked, and thats where the knowledge of specialisation comes in to play when searching for value. After all is said and done, if you want it sold a certain way, break it down yourself and work with the auctioner to maximize your materials potential benefits for both yourself and the dealer as the final financial interest is the same.

Dear Pepperidge Farms - Cherry-picking valuable stamps that stand alone as their own lots is not the same as breaking apart albums into Country groupings. Not all all the same. Sorry Pepper but no gotcha this time.

Not a fan of auction houses doing this when it's just chopping up a Scott album alphabetically into X pages a lot, as it puts unrelated countries together in lots. E.g. might be interested in Aden, but not in Algeria. Breaking into smaller groups makes sense when the larger album is organized that way, so actually grouped.

Looking at the country groupings, I am tempted to call these 'letter groupings.'

The changing face of the philatelic market place .

I have to believe the pressure to fill up 4 stamp auctions per year is putting too much stress to be able find enough material with the added need of a balance in material for a auction to satisfy all their customers . has it limits .

Ebay and other market places took care of the low end of the market place which newspapers and magzines ads serviced , How hard is it for auction house to find good material when owners are now listing stuff themselfs .

If you look back at Regency Stamps , just before David passed away he did explain that the stamp auction business was getting more diffcult and it was not the same as years pass .

So the concern here being maybe Rasdale is trying to see if something new will fill up their auctions ,if it doesn't work then move on if the day after they are still holding a bunch of unsold lots or maybe shipping them back to the consignor .

Rasdale is in the unfortunate position of being highly specialized. A "wholesale" seller of bulk goods more or less. Most other firms, Kelleher comes to mind immediately, can have a name sale or a China sale or a postal history sale….you know what I am saying. They can flow with what walks in the door. Kelleher IMO is the best at servicing all comers.

I don't see Rasdale existing down the road. Dutch Country is probably their closest apples for apples competitor and they seem to less fixated on having an auction based upon a hard date as opposed to having the right stuff in-hand to sell.

It looks like what some resellers do when they buy collections at auction and then break down to sell on ebay? They are often just country pages.

Why not just cut out the middle man and sell on ebay directly?

Because then they'd be paying ebay's ridiculous fees instead of taking it all for themselves. Let's say a house charges 20% consignment then 15% buyers premium. It's basically free money. If they started to sell on ebay then they couldn't charge that buyers premium and would instead be shelling it out I figure. Just look at Nystamps. You can actually consign to them (I never would) and they have their stipulations for consigning or outright selling in the description of every lot. They take the stripping out good stuff approach, but perhaps too much so as I've heard stories of people having their collections sold then a year later see a key piece being sold on its own without being told or later notified of the sale. Consignor beware

"It's basically free money " Really !

I am not sure which stamp auction you been to ,but at some they feed me for two days and then others we go out on Friday for dinner and drinks on them , then for 3 or 4 days they hire day-labor guys or girls to bring me boxes and lots for viewing for 6 or 8 hours . Printing those catalogs are not cheap and they are expressed by Fedex to my house .

People who have never worked at an auction house say things like that all the time. As if the stamps get up and do all the work themselves.

Where an auction house is selling on behalf of a vendor, the 15-20% commission and the 15-20% buyer's premium are its income from providing the service. The fees might be loaded a little more in the seller's direction, but for smaller houses, that would make them a less attractive proposition than ebay.

Where does Rasdale get their material from? My impression is was it was largely from estates, some from dealer close-outs. I'm not sure how they could more pro-actively acquire material. Seems their business model is mostly waiting for people to call.

Material comes to them in many ways, but I know there is one stamp dealer who has had "buy" ads in Linn's Stamp News for many years going way back. He buys estates and collections from people answering his ads, keeps what he wants for his show stock, and the rest of it is boxed up into lots and sent to Rasdale. He doesn't want to mess with eBay, and he has been doing this for years. Less work, and less hassle for him, and he still makes out pretty well.

Linus