How Do You Feel About Public Auctions Without Live Viewing?

I presume that access to stock reflects restrictions on personal contact. Some auction houses here do "roadshows", at which they value items - and acquire them or arrange for them to be auctioned. They may also visit homes if a large and potentially valuable collection is involved. Neither of these approaches will have been available recently, nor may consignors have been able personally to deliver goods to the auctioneer. As restrictions are eased, one would expect the flow of goods to increase. One might also expect recent purchasers to start asking themselves "Why did I spend that much on this?"

"Why did I spend that much on this " Never had that feeling with stamps . Bought the 5 Pound Orange and thought Oh...sheet .....now got to buy all the other Great Britain high values ,just to balance the album .

You're just more philosophical about the turkeys than I am

Goeff is correct about the reason for a lack of auction house's ability to procure new material.

"PROCURE NEW MATERIAL" You have to understand where the auction houses get material. Then you need to understand what has changed to reduce their ability to acquire material.


First-The big change has been the size of personal collections ,in the last forty years ,peoples collections are a lot smaller and more specialized .

Second there are a lot less dealers out there and they are not building huge inventories like years past ,dealers are more on-line and able to sell unwanted material quicker so the old backroom now doesn't exist because they know everything finds a buyer on ebay .


Third -is ebay , nobody carries a huge inventory because it is so easy to sell it youself with out the 15% a seller pays the auction house then the buyer factors in the 20% that he has to pay the auction house ,so 35% goes to the auction house .

fourth there are too many auction houses fighting for inventory ,on SAN it is not unusual to see a new firm every week having a auction .

The Kelleher Collections & Balances auction on August 8 appears to have some interesting stuff in it.

The material is out there. Funny thing is, there's post after post on the philatelic Facebook groups every day of people who have inherited collections - some are little childhood or beginner collections through the grand room sized collections and everything in between. The problem is that the people who acquire these collections have little knowledge of what they have and what they can do with these collections. I've pointed a few of them in the direction of Rasdale's, Dutch Country as well as various dealer's local to them. It would be a lot better for them to take that route than to deal with onslaught of others mostly from other countries asking "how much?" when the current non-collector owner has no idea what they have.

Dan - Thanks for the heads up on Kelleher. It does look interesting.

The "Auction not Viewed , Elephant in the Room" ....... Picked up a lot earlier this year that had an attractive description including "some duplication". Just opened a sheet-file with "some duplication" !! I'm now the proud owner of 280 copies of Scott #634 in singles and strips. Ya' push the button and takes yer' chances

The "Elephant in the room " for non viewable auctions is more of problem for stamp dealers and ebay resellers , who need more accurate idea to bid a lot than someone who buys for entertaitment like myself or other collectors . Bidding up a lot is dangerous ,not the buying at some auction house opening bid or close to opening bid .

Most buyers who are looking to turn a profit can work thru a few break even purchases but running up the bidding is where they are most cautious because every tick is cutting profits .I believe most collectors understand this and wait in their bidding to shake out those dealers .

This August ,I will be looking for another set of Internationals because the spare set that I been filling over the past year is just about done and ready for sale,then start another set for my duplicates .

I sat in on two auctions over the weekend from smaller auction houses, Sterling and Emerald Ventures, and bidding was VERY active in both. Lots didn't go cheap.

To me the Kelleher auction is very disappointing compared to their usual 2 day extravaganzas. In the February 2 day auction there were 63 listings under Worldwide Collections the August 8th auction has only 10 and really nothing I want.

Usually I would agree that a collector can outbid a dealer because we need a profit margin, but my inventory will run out in 3 weeks so when I'm bidding on something now it's existentialistic. Two or three bidders in my situation can make for some strong bidding.

The other factor is $,. I haven't been buying plus I got a lot of $ back from canceled events so I am ready to bid but I don't have anything to bid on. It might be my ebay exit ramp!!

I just cracked open the Harmer August 6 Collections and Accumulations Catalog and it is slim pickings as well. The WW section has 13 lots and zero album collections. Not much material at all. No meat at all. One lot is kiloware and another is a "mystery" file box. Bah.

Someone else pointed this out in another topic but it seems some of the auction houses are breaking the larger collections up into small lots and selling them. Usually they'd sell the whole collection and I'd break it up. This is certainly bad for me, but there is definitely fewer large collections available now than a year ago.

I do think Kelleher is doing a much better job of giving us pictures.

Don't care for the videos Kelleher puts up for some auctions. While some lots have 1 photo, a brief description and a $ 3000.00 opening bid for a lot I can't see. Yes they have gotten better but there is still a ways to go. Better but inconsistent.