Next Sparks Auction...4 Full Days Of Entertainment

Yes Doc, the competition was stiff to say the least. Time will tell if it stays that way. I bid aggressively at the last sale and it turned out that the aggressiveness was unwarranted. The exchange rate is still favorable and with US firms collecting taxes I will still favor Sparks. They are a pleasure to deal with.

Not good at $32,000 that comes out to $400.00 per volume to the buyer .That is canadian dollars= $300.00 U.S.. I think that is low for a per volume . That is the same I am getting for sets of International that hold my duplicates .

I picked a lot of WW, mostly Europe. Mine was well under estimate but I saw that a lot of stuff went way over. I listened to part of the 4th day--my first time listening in--and it was very informative. Lots of interesting stuff. I have been buying some at Vance and will definitely add Sparks to the list.

I discovered Sparks from posts in this community and like them a lot. They're very nice to deal with and always answer the phone! Yesterday I was interested in the big collection but noticed a France collection that wasn't getting much interest and I thought I could buy it and use it to fill or upgrade a few spots and then resell it on ebay. Luna and I were headed to the vet and I didn't know if I'd be back in time to bid so I put in a lowball bid at 35% of estimate.

Luna and I were back in plenty of time so I watched the bidding but didn't plan on raising my bid. The bidding went right up to my bid and then stopped in a tie and I won it because I had the earliest bid, that has never happened to me before!

I bid $20K on the big collection but couldn't go higher without seeing it. I was concerned that the albums would be sparsely filled even if the collection had 200,000 stamps. 2000 stamps in a Minkus Global is hard for me to sell.

Ken , agree with you without sitting down and looking at it ,the gamble of bidding on it is not worth the risk .

I think you got a happy seller ,the pages are from different printers ,nothing says ALL DIFFERENT and no key sets or big ticket items .So what your saying is a mounted worldwide collection at 10 cents per stamp is about the limited .

Well, I bid on a number of country collections & a bit of Canadian stuff but didn't win anything. The ones I was interested in all went for over estimate (considerably in some cases). I imagine they must be pleased with the results of the sale.

The lot I really would have liked was #2517--Lot of Various Better Items still on Auction Cards. It's estimate was $200 and it went for $725. There was also a lot with a GB Scott Specialty album estimate $100 that went for $180. The boxes of material in dealer cards all seemed to go really high--I didn't plan on bidding on any but all of them went for well above estimate. A few things went cheap but overall the bidding was pretty robust. Will definitely be checking out the next one.

I picked up seven of the Steiner country collections, but had to lay off about a dozen more as they blew past my ceiling; the bidding was certainly spirited. Very happy with the material I won though: I got the three lots on my list I had assessed as "most useful" to my collection, and about half of my "very useful" lots.

I expect the consignor of the Steiner collections must be delighted with how well they sold (and especially happy they were broken up by country); those averaged considerably more per volume than the big Master Global collection did.

One thing I liked about the Sparks auction is that they had quite a few very low priced items. I can't remember seeing a SAN auction open at $10 but Sparks had several IMO this is a great way to introduce people to buying at public auction.

Ken, their minimum start bid for unreserved lots started at $5.00 cdn, as stated in term and conditions.

You mentioned you wondered about how the taxes worked in your earlier post. Foreign bidders mailing to outside Canada do not pay tax on lots. Apparently their is no duty going into the U S. but there may be state taxes to pay. Also mail going outside of Canada incurs no Gst, Hst if over $5. Cdn postage cost. Apparently the auctioners in Canada have to charge 5% gst only to foreign bidders, on the buyers premium only. It is not mentioned in Sparks condition of sales, so if it were me I would check that out.

If I purchase a lot for example $100. +15% buyers premium + 15% hst on top of that it totals $132 + I still need to pay postage cost + 15% hst on top of that expense too.

If I import stamps into Canada, there is no duty either, but if over $20.00cdn in value, I have to pay 15% HST in N.S. on top of that + a $10. Collection fee before I can get my package. All that + there is the fact it will cost me about $1.35 mid market rate to get a U.S. dollar + probably 4% for currency exchanger.

With the strong foreign currency, and the amount of taxes it is no wonder we are not able to obtain much quality material.

Mike

CODEHAPPY ----I have a few questions about why you purchased the Steiner pages . Do you plan on keeping them on those pages you purchased ? Do you now own the Steiner software ? Buying those collections were they "new" areas you wanted to include or are you trying to fill in present pages ? Does the color of the pages make a difference ? .....I am sure I have one or two questions more .