SU don't like to take items that have been on Your Props or shown off on forums.
Art, sorry to go off track again, but just wanted to clear up the facts. No need for anyone to reply to this - Dan/Mark if you would like to discuss offline, no problem at all - always want to work with you guys.
Anyway, the comment above was a bit inaccurate. What we don't want to take on consignment are items that were just recently for sale on ebay, message boards, or elsewhere. In many cases they are "dragged through the mud" with price decreases over and over, and then it doesn't make business sense for us to take something that has been overexposed. For items just shown somewhere or listed on yourprops, we take them every day - no problem.
However, the bigger issue, is that we don't want to take on consignment items that were just recently purchased on ebay that have no authentication at all except for an ebay seller's word. We turn down consignments every day, and in reality, that is our right. Please understand that consigning an item to us means that Jeff and I have to put our name on a COA that goes with the item. No other auction house does that, that I'm aware of. That means 10 years down the road if the customer has a problem and needs their money back, they come to me, not the consignor who could be long gone. So if the piece is not something I think is authentic enough to purchase for my own collection, I can't take it. This is the reason we are in business, because of reputation, and there is no 15-20% commission that would make up for having to pay a customer back $10K several years down the road if there is an issue.
So the pieces that we turn down may very well be perfectly fine, they just don't have enough authentication for me to be willing to put my personal money on it, or allow my customers to do the same.
I hope this helps. Again please don't reply to this, let's keep this thread on track regarding "that other auction".
Desi
