Anybody Have Experience With Sandafayre Mail Bid Sales?

Specifically I'm wondering how their estimates compare to a winning bid. Can I win a bid if I bid under the estimate range?

Thanks,

Ken

I believe they won't even accept a bid if it is less than 80% of their estimate.

I note that their asking prices are often top end.

I have occasionally purchased and had no issues with them or the material as they are a very long established auction house.

Ken - I have been bidding with them for decades on and off. In fact, I just won a lot this week. In my experience I am usually successful with a bid of 75% of low estimate. (It used to be 70% was minimum accepted but that changed) They are a bit pricey but stand by their material and shipping is quick and very professional. 75% of low estimate for US buyers ends up with commission and exchange rate right about at the low estimate number when all is said and done. The only thing that irks me is that the exchange rate they use is invariably the highest one that they can find but it is still pennies on each dollar. Just ticks me off on principal. Other than that, they are good to deal with.

I agree with previous posters. Their estimates are on the high end. I note some Dutch stamps recently had an estimate above ebay 'buy now' prices, certainly when considering the buyer's premium.

In my experience, you must check the lots. It, regularly, happens that a set described to have a specific watermark is a lot of mixed watermarks, or that a set described as unmounted has one or more hinged stamps mixed in. They do refund if this is the case, but it raises the question on how well they check their lots.

As rogdcam states, when they offer payment in your currency, their exchange rate tends to be high. I note the euro is almost 2% over the mid price, where Dutch banks, normally, charge O,5% or less on cable.

There has been an earlier thread on their minimum bid accepted. Vincent Green himself posted a reply to that.

This is the earlier thread

https://goscf.com/t/73230

Rogdcam, greetings from the London International.

There's a simple solution to the exchange rate issue (known as DCC: "dynamic currency conversion"), always pay in the local currency and let your Stateside card issuer convert it to USD. If you have AMEX, most of their cards convert at interbank with no commission, Mastercard adds about 1% and Visa up to 3%.

Hope that helps ease the pain,

Steve

Yes you pay a premium at Sandafayre but they stand by their material and the lots are returnable (plus they pay return postage). Their turnaround is fast too. For the right material, premium service is worth it.

I agree on them standing by their material. However, if they cannot determine whether a stamp actually has the correct watermark or even whether it is hinged or not, you better be capable of assessing whether a stamp is a fake or not.

I purchased my Kelantan "Chief's Hats" set from them. Very reasonably priced described as lightly hinged when I received them they were unmounted mint so nice bonus. Shipping was prompt. Also picked up my GB 1£ PUC unmounted mint for under $400 from them.

They're chefs' hats

I met someone from Sandfare today at London 2022. In fact they approached me to advise that they have a lot coming soon in an area I was interested in and was discussing the material another dealer had on display.[ and purchasing a couple of items]
They now have 18 staff and are still growing heavily on their IT systems.
I got a good impression today. They admit that they are not the cheapest but give a good service and to do this means they have high overheads, so I suppose this is reflected in the prices.

Triangle - Thank you for that info. 18 employees is impressive for a stamp auction firm. I like their website a great deal. One disappointing thing is that there is no search capacity for past sales nor are there any archived catalogs. Maybe it has to do with a lot of stamps being relisted many times over in their mail sales. The Chesire live auction division sells much better but again, there are no archived auctions to view. You can look on SAN for the mail bid sales, but I find that often times the images are pulled down quickly.

As I said earlier in the thread I have only occasionally purchased from them.Today he was seeking my opinion on a specialist lot to both sell it to me and to help with the description/assessment of the material.He promised to contact me after chatting for about 40 minutes about this.
As I am after a part time job with a stamp dealer having worked in another industry for many years, it was encouraging to have this sort of opportunity.

Thread bumped

They have now started to sell stamps outright from an online shop.