Amoskeag Auction
- Thread starter iby
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RIA is as stingy with pictures too. They are making 25% I (sometimes less, depending) on seller, 17.5 on buyer- plus tax, plus shipping/ins- I feel like they could not care less how they present your gun. ALL sellers seem to look at their bottom line over a period of say a year...so just figure what their percentage of however much they do comes to, and if the buyer takes less... oh well- no skin off their A...
Amoskeag doesn't get the amount of action as RIA, but NO sales Tax...so bidders can figure that into how far they can go with their bids.
I've spoken to some, to try and decide how best to move my own.
Have spoken with Amoskeag, but one the things I told both was the amount of pictures that *I* want. ( rare stuff and two or four pictures is not going to cut it)
They are less than RIA and you can dicker more depending on what you are selling.
When they saw what I had, they made me offers on lower PC on my end, but in the end- it just does not seem worth it.
Amoskeag doesn't get the amount of action as RIA, but NO sales Tax...so bidders can figure that into how far they can go with their bids.
I've spoken to some, to try and decide how best to move my own.
Have spoken with Amoskeag, but one the things I told both was the amount of pictures that *I* want. ( rare stuff and two or four pictures is not going to cut it)
They are less than RIA and you can dicker more depending on what you are selling.
When they saw what I had, they made me offers on lower PC on my end, but in the end- it just does not seem worth it.
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Post your stuff in the classifieds section of this forum and post as many photographs as you want and incur a ZERO seller’s premium.
You can do better here. Seller has to be willing to bid such that sales tax makes it worthwhile. Here, no sales tax. And, no commission.
If you have something to sell with lots of buyer appeal, you are best offering it at auction, whether GB or auction company. Bidders seem to generally exceed expectations if the item is properly valued. On the Forum, you have to set the price and who knows what is the right number. Ask too much, it will set forever, ask too little it will be gone immediately, meaning you probably lost money that an auction would have attracted.
Auction companies make profit on both sides and most likely more than the seller comes close to making. Estate guns make sense because the seller has no connection to them and is only looking to make $ and settle and estate.
High tech monitoring
It seems to make sense to add photo’s so collectors can see more of any given item. “But” it’s all about the money. If it’s not worth their time then they won’t do it.
They monitor how many people hit/watch any given item and measure collector interest. If there is high interest they stand to make more money applying a better presentation. It there is low interest then it’s just not worth their time. At least that is how it plays out.
They are most definitely guessing just like everyone else. That’s obvious when you look at the estimated selling price and the final price realized. Which often times are miles apart!
Murph
It seems to make sense to add photo’s so collectors can see more of any given item. “But” it’s all about the money. If it’s not worth their time then they won’t do it.
They monitor how many people hit/watch any given item and measure collector interest. If there is high interest they stand to make more money applying a better presentation. It there is low interest then it’s just not worth their time. At least that is how it plays out.
They are most definitely guessing just like everyone else. That’s obvious when you look at the estimated selling price and the final price realized. Which often times are miles apart!
Murph
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There is no doubt that the bid/ask spread in our market for collectible firearms is very high. However, I don’t think that the fee paid by the seller gets up to 20% unless you have one, very low value item. That fee drops down to 10% eventually ($5,000+ ?). The fee the buyer pays is 20%, but you can reduce it to 17.5% by not using a credit card. Even so a 27-1/2% bid/ask spread is huge.
I don’t know how well Amoskeag handles requests for extra photos because I typically go to their preview. There is no substitute for physically inspecting a firearm - I don’t care how knowledgeable and honest the description writer is (and not all description writers meet either criteria). Rock Island has been great in providing me with additional info/pics recently. Poulin not so much. I do think that it is a disservice to the seller not to include a photo of a box or factory letter if one is available. Certainly both sides of a firearm need to be photographed (assuming a sale price of $1,000 or more).
I’ve only purchased from one SWCA member but I feel that all three sales were “win/win” scenarios. IOW we both benefitted by cutting out the middle man.
I don’t know how well Amoskeag handles requests for extra photos because I typically go to their preview. There is no substitute for physically inspecting a firearm - I don’t care how knowledgeable and honest the description writer is (and not all description writers meet either criteria). Rock Island has been great in providing me with additional info/pics recently. Poulin not so much. I do think that it is a disservice to the seller not to include a photo of a box or factory letter if one is available. Certainly both sides of a firearm need to be photographed (assuming a sale price of $1,000 or more).
I’ve only purchased from one SWCA member but I feel that all three sales were “win/win” scenarios. IOW we both benefitted by cutting out the middle man.
They do almost everything asked of them. Mike Priwer discussed a gun he was interested in on their last auction and they took several pictures and sent them to Mike. They even removed the rear sight leaf from a K frame to photograph the serial number on the bottom of the sight. I have also contacted them in the past with questions, and always received the information that I requested.
Those low "estimated selling prices" are nothing more than to cover their proverbial A..
Their contracts are very open ended and of course also written to cover THEIR A's, not yours.
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I stopped complaining about auction house premiums when I started to understand just how costly it is to run an auction. Companies like RIA have far more overhead than the local auctioneer that goes from farm to farm doing estate sales. That's not a slight against auctioneers and their work; it's just a reflection of time and and effort that goes into creating gun listings, photographing the guns (which is never an easy task), advertising, etc.
With every single auction I watch, I keep a little spreadsheet open on my laptop that lets me quickly calculate the "out the door" cost of the gun I'm bidding on. In fact, I can go in both directions with it ... I can figure out what the cost of the gun would be based on the current bid, and I can figure out what my maximum bid would be given a certain out-the-door price that I'd like to pay. I've done this enough that I can usually estimate shipping to within a few dollars (if the rates aren't already posted), and that prevents any unpleasant surprises.
I've really only had one auction problem with Amoskeag, which I'll not get into details about here. I'd bid on one of their auctions again, but I don't love the way they advertise and market their auctions and would choose a different company to handle something that I wished to sell at auction.
Mike
With every single auction I watch, I keep a little spreadsheet open on my laptop that lets me quickly calculate the "out the door" cost of the gun I'm bidding on. In fact, I can go in both directions with it ... I can figure out what the cost of the gun would be based on the current bid, and I can figure out what my maximum bid would be given a certain out-the-door price that I'd like to pay. I've done this enough that I can usually estimate shipping to within a few dollars (if the rates aren't already posted), and that prevents any unpleasant surprises.
I've really only had one auction problem with Amoskeag, which I'll not get into details about here. I'd bid on one of their auctions again, but I don't love the way they advertise and market their auctions and would choose a different company to handle something that I wished to sell at auction.
Mike
Like a wise old lady once said, "YOU'D COMPLAIN IF THEY HUNG YOU WITH A NEW ROPE". RIA does a great job helping folks both buy and sell a firearm.
Full retail?
I don't think there is a price list for a lot of the guns they sell @ their Premier Auctions
At least the ones I admire
