How Do You Feel About Public Auctions Without Live Viewing?

I just checked on the Michael Rogers bids that I am watching on SAN and I may not be bidding after all. The five lots I am interested in are already at or within spitting distance of the estimate. I would take a chance if I could see the material but I am not going to get into a shootout over something that is described in a few sentences and has one photo.

I'm not bidding in this auction either for the same reason.

I've requested pics from Cherrystone and will report the outcome.

Kelleher is apparently holding their Collections auction on April 25th Internet only no viewing. IMO it is pretty weak compared to their normal auctions. Very Disappointing.

Ken - This is the quarterly collections auction that was supposed to be held in May?

I guess so, the coming up paragraph mentions a Flagship auction as the next event. I like some of the country collections but not much WW.

Some of those US collections could be good, but how can you evaluate with tiny photographs? I can't see myself participating in this one.

Cherrystone quickly responded to my request for some pictures. Here is the auction for which I was requesting pics;




Here is Cherrystone's response;




I was surprised by this response. To be fair I don't think I've ever bid in their auctions because I haven't seen any WW collections but I think they may have to get used to the new normal. There is no way I can travel to view the lot even if they allowed viewing but they expect me to bid over $10,000??

If they don't want to put the effort into scanning I don't want to put my money into their pocket. It sucks for the consigner unless Cherrystone owns the lot. Even so you would think that they would be interested in achieving max realization.

Surprised what Kelleher did by listing collections with Rodgers weekly auctions and then turn around and bump up the regular collections .

I can think of only two reasons for this ----They got a heck of a lot of material coming in and need to spread it out more, shipping all that bulk is a problem . The other reason being they feel the economy is going to tank . My guess they got massive amounts of material coming in and Europe is unloading stamps .....what is your thinking ?

The Kelleher collections sale only has about a third of the lots it usually has. I spoke with David this week and his main issue is that he is working with a skeleton staff and is swamped trying to handle billing, receipts, catalogs, running live auctions, lotting and describing, shipping and on and on. It will return to normal in not too long when he has the staff to handle business as usual.

My hope is Kelleher is holding the better collection material until they can staff up and traveling and viewing are possible again.

For those that haven't viewed material at Kelleher's it is a staff intensive process. Each viewer is assigned a staff who finds the lots and brings the lots to the viewer's table. I only look at collections and the staffer actually unpacks and repacks the albums in the boxes as I view them. I suspect there is a security element involved but I like to think of it as concierge service, but anyway you look at it a lot of staff is required.

Buying without seeing is a crap shoot for me and when I get a clunker I have to work just as hard to break it up and sell it as I do for a winner. Buying blind results in about 50% winners versus 90+ % after viewing. So Cherrystone will have to do without me.

While I strongly disagree with Cherrystones refusal to supply images, I am astounded that they do not at least offer the service for a fee. Perhaps offer it as an optional fee but then refund the fee if the person wins the lot? In my opinion only being willing to supply a 50 word description for their 15% of a $10k lot seems excessive.
Don

Don I'd gladly pay $50 for a 1 hour Facetime session and I'd probably look at a couple other items too!

Kelleher announced that they will do video previews on a first-come-first-served basis.