What Is The State Of Stamp Auction Houses?

I was having a conversation with a fellow member of my club, the Oregon Stamp Society, this past Saturday and he mentioned to me that he was an employee of a local stamp auction house for 26 years (the name of the auction house eludes me at the moment).

As we spoke, I felt the emotions of discord welling up in me, as he talked about the "great deals" he got at a recent Harmer-Shau auction here in town. As he droned on about prices realized for US classics, and how great his collection was, my mind kept turning to my own experiences of buying great stamps off ebay, et al.

I have been to a couple Harmer-Shau auctions here in Portland, but never purchased anything. In fact, I was so annoyed at the prices, I never even bid on anything!

ebay is mainstream and here to stay. Therefore, I must ask: How long will these auction houses be able to stay in business? Does anyone forsee a time when even Seigel will convert 100% to online auctions?

What is the current state of auction houses worldwide?

Brian

I like to answer the question but your not going to like my answer .

I'd be bored to tears if we all agreed with each other! I'd love to hear your comments!

First you got to understand the Philatelic market place . There are people of all different incomes who buy and sell stamps . Buying and selling on ebay is a waste of money and time . I put in asphalt parking lots all summer and many other collectors are medical people or business owners our time is valuable and playing around looking and playing bidding wars with nickles and dimes is a waste of time. We got money to buy stamps not spending money on shipping and packing a $5.00 item . If I am going to buy I need it to be a one day event not a daily event . If I buy something I want 100 stamps worth a thousand or more not check the mail each day for one item We like buying specialized collections or once a year special item and not screw around bidding against someone over 5 or 10 dollars for a item daily .I work hard all year and I will go to a stamp auction and fight for what I want. There are special items that show up on ebay sometimes that would be nice to buy but the job and family takes all my time so I will continue to buy from major auction houses so my time is spend on my collection and not looking thru pages of garbage ,just to find something I would like to own .

Floortrader, there are many collectors who would not agree with you at all about this. The chase is part of the fun. Many collectors do not buy collections, but buy individual items or small lots, whether for $5 or $5000 (if they are fortunate enough to have it). There are not all that many collectors buying the way you do relative to the total number of collectors out there. There used to be more, but the market has changed over the last 30 years.

Rileysan - ebay (and its ogre brother paypal) hates its sellers - something all sellers know. Those of us selling there do so because we have to, not because we want to. When my surplus is cleared Il'll never cross the threshold again.

Yes! This is certainly one good reason why I don't see philatelic shows going away anytime in the future. I am inspired every time I see a member posting posting pictures of a great stamp they found at a show they recently attended.

Unfortunately, my time is limited and is most efficiently spent on the computer.

*sigh*

I couldn't disagree more.

I wish I understood the aversion to buying stamps on ebay; I really don't understand it. I know my evidence is anecdotal, but I have a really great collection. I really do! And 95% or more of my collection was acquired via ebay or other online auction site over the past 16 years. If acquiring by way of auction house or philatelic show, it would take more time and money to build my current collection than I could have accomplished in my entire lifetime!

I simply could never have imagined owning the items I own if ebay, et al, never existed!

Brian

Back to the original question: What is the current state of the industry? Are Auction houses doing well, breaking even, or losing money? Any stats on how many auction houses have closed (or opened) their doors over the past 20 years?

There are fewer houses now. A few do very well, and the rest seem to be making enough money for the present since they continue to operate. The big problem facing auctions today seems to be obtaining enough quality material. Very strong competition between houses. Whether there will be enough serious collectors to maintain them 20 years from now is anyone's guess. The young collectors of today seem to be mostly topical in nature and not interested in the classics or learning about serious philately.

It seems that stamp auctions are doing well these days and that many have live online bidding available and going on through websites such as stampauctionnetwork.com Auctions are a very good place for collectors to buy things for less than from a dealer at retail especially when the collector is able to bid on something and get it that a dealer was also bidding on. One can usually get material in big lots or collections from 10% to 20% range of catalogue value as a collector that dealers sell for more.

Floortrader,

I sort of see where you are coming from. I also see that there are many levels to this hobby/business. All big stamp auction houses are not doing what they are doing to promote philatelic collecting. They are a business. But as a business they need to have a certain level of expertise in the subject.

Bigger auction houses have a lot of knowledgeable people who can identify and properly represent the client be it collector or investor. But as the world of philately changes there are those who understand the changes and adjust. Others just fall by the wayside.

I don't see Ebay/paypal's model being an auction house but that a clearing house. A clearing house that can bring individuals and businesses a platform to sell what they have to a wider audience. Do you think that ebay gives a spit about what is sold? I don't think that they do but for an occasional perfunctory police action to make their business more legit.

But for people with less means ebay is an available avenue that wasn't there 30 years ago.

Great topic Ryleysan

I, myself have not yet purchased stamps from Auctions Houses but there are quite a few of our Stamp club members that do and from what I understand buy quite a bit from them.

When I first re started out again 15 or so years ago I purchased many large lots from ebay and for the most part was quite satisfied with my purchases. I have found quite a few treasures in these lots and used many of the duplicates obtained to trade for material that I needed.

I now have quite a hoard of stamps to sort through and therefore have not purchases any of these lots in a couple of years. Thanks to my stamp club and the 2 yearly shows we put on I have kept my collection going by purchasing smaller lots and individual stamps from fellow collectors and dealers that attend our shows. I have also purchased quite a bit of material from members of this forum.

I'm not saying that I will never purchase stamps from Auction Houses but so far I have not had the need to or interest in doing so.

Dianne

I like ebay just a bit. It can be fun finding the odd thing that interests me.

I also use the SAN to bid on items that I never see or rarely see on ebay.
Looking at the amount of auction houses listed on SAN it looks to be healthy and thriving,

I have other beefs with SAN such as finding out from the auction house if I won or lost a bid that had me winning when the SAN part of the auction closed. Not sure if this is all SAN's fault.

There are very few auctions near me that I can attend in person.

I buy almost exclusively from auction houses. The ones I frequent certainly seem to be doing well, based on the hammer prices they're bringing in.

IMO ebay does not 'hate sellers'. It's business model is simply to appease buyers, the buyer are who they consider their customers. Some Sellers think they should be the customer to ebay (they think they pay the bill), they hate this business model. Agree or disagree this business has been hugely successful. ebay's impact on online business has been unprecedented. I guess we are all welcome to find other ways to sell online, including online auction site which treat the seller as the customer.

Let's face it, in a very short period the number of stamp 'dealers' exploded as we all began to sell our extra stock online. Obviously this had to have an impact not only on traditional auction houses but also the beloved brick and mortar stamp shop. I would guess that this impact will continue to apply pressure to 'in-person' auctions; weeding out many good firms. But of course there will always be some that manage to survive, and perhaps even do well, in the shrinking marketplace.

The advent of telephones didn't stop auctions firms, they integrated the technology. The internet will be the same with the exception that it has also introduced a large amount of additional competition.
don