Consigning to Heritage 2 2

[BuscemasAvengers]

Looking to do so for the first time, and hoping to hear from those who have experience doing so to answer/address/confirm/correct some of the following (if there is a thread already dedicated to this, apologies):

• Buyer's premium is 18%?
• Seller's premium is 15%? Negotiable?
• Books/items to be placed in an upcoming auction need to be shipped to Heritage before contract/agreement is signed?
• Does seller have any say in how the books/items will be listed? (i.e. as a lot, individual, etc.?)
• Any other hidden fees?
• Differences for Canadians submitting? (I'm hoping not, but if there are Canuckles who have consigned and are willing to share their experiences, I'd appreciate it)
• If books/items sell, length of time before payment is received?
• Positive/negative overall experience?
• Anything else I need to know that is not above?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences ...

[Ricksneatstuff]

Hey Tim, I am probably a little biased, now that I am working with Heritage as an independent consultant, but I had bought and sold with them for several years before that and those experiences informed my decision to work with them. Here are some answers to your questions in italics.

  *   Buyer's premium is 18%? It is 20%.
  *   Seller's premium is 15%? Negotiable?  It’s 15%. The fees can be negotiable for consignments of CGC comics, and at the high end for consignments of comics and comic art we certainly match the best terms offered by any competitor. Please feel free to send me information on consignments and we can discuss.
  *   Books/items to be placed in an upcoming auction need to be shipped to Heritage before contract/agreement is signed? Contract is signed then books are shipped. The advance agreement is typically signed after the receipt of books.
  *   Does seller have any say in how the books/items will be listed? (i.e. as a lot, individual, etc.?) Yes, and we email you previews before the auction even posts, so you can help us correct any mistakes.
  *   Any other hidden fees? Only grading fees if applicable.
  *   Differences for Canadians submitting? (I'm hoping not, but if there are Canuckles who have consigned and are willing to share their experiences, I'd appreciate it) Not that I am aware of, only local taxes, if any, as far as I know. Exporting from Canada typically isn’t difficult, and many Canadians consign significant collections to us routinely.
  *   If books/items sell, length of time before payment is received? Payment is made 45 days from the date of auction. Early settlements can often be arranged, especially for repeat consignors.
  *   Positive/negative overall experience? My experience with Heritage as a consignor and now as someone who works for them and takes consignments has been excellent.  They offer excellent interest free advances, have the best website that generates by far the most bidders and give care and attention to every item in my experience.
  *   Anything else I need to know that is not above? If you are not already working with a consignment director at Heritage feel free to contact me.  I can help you. I do not get any commission on your consignment. I just work with Heritage to bring comics and comic related items to auction and to direct sale through Heritage ComicMarket.

[fifties]

Hey Rick, just curious, and I know it would depend on specifics, but overall, would mid grade PCH fetch more net for the seller on Heritage or eBay, in your experience?  And if the former, would the hammer price cover the 5% difference they charge the seller, over eBay's 10%?

[lou_fine]

1 hour ago, fifties said:

Hey Rick, just curious, and I know it would depend on specifics, but overall, would mid grade PCH fetch more net for the seller on Heritage or eBay, in your experience?  And if the former, would the hammer price cover the 5% difference they charge the seller, over eBay's 10%?

The only problem with trying to compare or analyze auction results based upon the hammer price is that the only time you really see this pricing information is during the actual auction before it actually closes.  Once the auction is closed, the historical pricing numbers and any sales related tracking sites such as GPA or GoCollect is always based upon the final auction result which includes the 20% Buyer's Premium in there which you never receive as it is generally always retained by Heritage themselves (unless your consignment is significant enough that you can also negotiate this figure downwards).  

[Ricksneatstuff]

5 hours ago, fifties said:

Hey Rick, just curious, and I know it would depend on specifics, but overall, would mid grade PCH fetch more net for the seller on Heritage or eBay, in your experience?  And if the former, would the hammer price cover the 5% difference they charge the seller, over eBay's 10%?

Auction results are unpredictable and so pretty much impossible to determine the results in any auction, as you know. Heritage has a significant reach of educated buyers in comics and cross appeal from other collectible categories. There is a weekly comics specific auction that draws bidders to it and there is a small group of PCH on a weekly basis that is vying for attention on this weekly auction so I think the right items with the right bidders can achieve amazing results. eBay really is charging 13-14% when you factor in PayPal fees and you are doing all the shipping work and paying for shipping materials for each individual lot you sell.  

[lou_fine]

1 hour ago, Ricksneatstuff said:

I think the right items with the right bidders can achieve amazing results. eBay really is charging 13-14% when you factor in PayPal fees and you are doing all the shipping work and paying for shipping materials for each individual lot you sell.  

+1

I would definitely agree with the gist of your comments here.  

This is why I could never understand when sellers of vintage collectible books would try to auction off their vintage collectible comic books on eBay.  Especially when they could do it on any of the specialized comic book auction sites like CC, CL, or even HA at a lower percentage cost (except possibly for HA) where you have a much better chance of the right eyeballs looking at your books, along with the additional bonus of not having to do any of the hard selling and associated shipping work.

Now, if you are talking about the much more recent or Modern common books with hundreds of uber HG copies already slabbed, Yes for eBay, since the client base for the specialized auction houses generally don't care for these kinds of speculative books.  Especially since these kinds of books would tend to do much better in an eBay setting, with their client base generally being graded label chasers which is pretty much what the majority of these books would be.  

[BuscemasAvengers]

Rick: is there a minimum estimated value before Heritage agrees to consign the book?

[Ricksneatstuff]

18 minutes ago, BuscemasAvengers said:

Rick: is there a minimum estimated value before Heritage agrees to consign the book?

I would not consign individual books that would sell for less than $100 because of the $19 minimum BP. Usually lower priced books are sold together in lots to get above the value threshold that would make sense. 

[lou_fine]

3 hours ago, Ricksneatstuff said:

3 hours ago, BuscemasAvengers said:

Rick: is there a minimum estimated value before Heritage agrees to consign the book?

I would not consign individual books that would sell for less than $100 because of the $19 minimum BP. Usually lower priced books are sold together in lots to get above the value threshold that would make sense. 

Drat.......now you tell me, and after I spent the whole day gathering up all of my B&W Indie books, Jim Lee's ultra rare X-Men #1, Valiant's Deathmate run, etc. and lining them all up to ship to you guys down there in Dallas.    

[Hepcat]

8 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Drat.......now you tell me, and after I spent the whole day gathering up all of my B&W Indie books, Jim Lee's ultra rare X-Men #1, Valiant's Deathmate run, etc. and lining them all up to ship to you guys down there in Dallas.    

You have a copy of Jim-Lee's ultra touted rare X-Men 1? Wow! I don't think that's one you'll ever be able to part with.

[mwotka]

Hey Rick, can you maybe try and work on the auction operators to change the presentation for comic lots?  The staggered over-lapping 3 issues, especially for larger lots, and with no other pictures, is not great presentation.  Yet they will literally have pictures of the pulp lots with 4 issues non overlapping AND have multiple images.  I get they can't picture every book sometimes.  But these multi-books lots that don't show several books that are each not cheap... I have a hard time bidding on comics I can't see.  

Thanks!

 

[fifties]

2 minutes ago, mwotka said:

Hey Rick, can you maybe try and work on the auction operators to change the presentation for comic lots?  The staggered over-lapping 3 issues, especially for larger lots, and with no other pictures, is not great presentation.  Yet they will literally have pictures of the pulp lots with 4 issues non overlapping AND have multiple images.  I get they can't picture every book sometimes.  But these multi-books lots that don't show several books that are each not cheap... I have a hard time bidding on comics I can't see.  

Thanks!

 

Agreed.  Kind of  a PITA when three raw books are shown in a group, and the one you would put your money up to get is the second or third, and all you can see of it is the left edge and title.  That's turned me off from bidding numerous times.  When only two or three books are in a group, shouldn't be a problem to show the full covers of all of them.

[Ricksneatstuff]

@mwotka @fifties Thanks for your feedback. I will bring these things up for consideration. 

[Ricksneatstuff]

On 12/21/2019 at 10:57 AM, Ricksneatstuff said:

@mwotka @fifties Thanks for your feedback. I will bring these things up for consideration. 

If requests are made by Thursday or sooner for specific books to be pictured we can usually get them photographed and added to the listing. Hope that helps 

[buttock]

I consigned a large mix of books and art last year.  Mostly quality stuff, but not the creme de la creme.  HA got about 35% more than my conservative valuation.  You can argue that my valuation was low, but it wasn't unrealistic.  And the process was as smooth as you could imagine.  All I have to worry about is the taxes. 

[Point Five]

13 minutes ago, buttock said:

I consigned a large mix of books and art last year.  Mostly quality stuff, but not the creme de la creme.  HA got about 35% more than my conservative valuation.  You can argue that my valuation was low, but it wasn't unrealistic.  And the process was as smooth as you could imagine.  All I have to worry about is the taxes. 

Dan, did they run in the quarterly  auctions or the weekly? Idly curious.

 

[rjpb]

On 12/20/2019 at 7:25 PM, fifties said:

Agreed.  Kind of  a PITA when three raw books are shown in a group, and the one you would put your money up to get is the second or third, and all you can see of it is the left edge and title.  That's turned me off from bidding numerous times.  When only two or three books are in a group, shouldn't be a problem to show the full covers of all of them.

It doesn't seem to hurt final hammer much. I'm guessing one factor is that folks probably trust Heritages raw grading more than some other sources, but it still doesn't explain why larger lots, often of mixed genres, seem to sell for more than one would expect the individual issues to sell for on ebay. Such lots would seem like potential dealer stock more often than not, but rarely seem to have much upside potential broken up. 

[buttock]

2 hours ago, Point Five said:

Dan, did they run in the quarterly  auctions or the weekly? Idly curious.

 

A mix of both.  All performed well.

[jmg3637]

I recently consigned my first selection with Heritage.  The raw books went in the first weekly selection a few weeks ago

My individual lots did fairly well,  but they grouped the lessor books in fairly large lot of 30-50 books and those did horribly

34 Silver First series Aquaman with an estimated OSV of 800 sold for 252 including the 20% Buyers premium

41 Captain America's  below 200  with an OSV of 350  sold for $126

At least the 12 Hulks with an OSV of 225  closed at 228

 

Is there a better place to try and sell runs of Silver/bronze books

 

 

[fifties]

1 hour ago, rjpb said:

It doesn't seem to hurt final hammer much. I'm guessing one factor is that folks probably trust Heritages raw grading more than some other sources, but it still doesn't explain why larger lots, often of mixed genres, seem to sell for more than one would expect the individual issues to sell for on ebay. Such lots would seem like potential dealer stock more often than not, but rarely seem to have much upside potential broken up. 

I suggest that it would very likely help the final hammer more, but regardless, how much more effort would it be on their part to display the full covers of a 2 or 3 comic lot?

AFA mixed genre large lots going for more than their individual books, I think very possibly the thrill of digging through a pile of various genre books might account for the whole being worth more than it's parts.