[meteorite-list] Heritage auction

From: Michael Farmer <mike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2012 19:39:19 -0600
Message-ID: <58698CBD-D9BC-4B78-B1A9-FF324F42B6C5_at_meteoriteguy.com>

25% buyers premium is highest I have ever seen, I wanted to bid on several items but calculating that extra 25% killed it for me.
Michael Farmer

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 14, 2012, at 7:33 PM, Yinan Wang <veomega at gmail.com> wrote:

> No one forced anyone to participate.
>
> If something didn't sell, chances are it's because it had a high
> reserve set by the seller. When you set a high reserve, you run the
> risk of having no buyers, just like in any market.
>
> I'd say a photo fee and shipping is a low price to pay for a chance to
> sell something to a large audience for several times what its worth.
>
> -Yinan
>
> On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 9:23 PM, Michael Farmer <mike at meteoriteguy.com> wrote:
>> It is a train wreck for the suppliers who had to pay to put the items in, ship them from Europe and elsewhere, and pay to ship them back!
>> Michael Farmer
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Oct 14, 2012, at 7:21 PM, Yinan Wang <veomega at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> No offense intended, but how do you interpret this auction as a train wreck?
>>>
>>> Having worked in the natural history auction industry, this was a very
>>> good auction for everything except the high priced pieces. From what I
>>> observed, the sell-through rate was probably over 80%, which is great
>>> for a natural history auction. Many of the lower and middle ranged
>>> items went for 3-10 times the market price.
>>>
>>> High priced meteorites in general don't seem to sell often at auction.
>>> For example, the Willamette was very well marketed last year but did
>>> not sell at $650,000. Looking at past auctions, it seems $90,000 to be
>>> the top price for a meteorite sold at auction in the past few years,
>>> at least with this auction house.
>>>
>>> Personally I think the market for extreme high end meteorites may not
>>> be well established in auction houses yet. Yes, someone will (and has)
>>> shell out up to 2 million for a dinosaur at auction but won't do the
>>> same for a meteorite.
>>>
>>> -Yinan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 9:08 PM, Adam Hupe <raremeteorites at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> I think the timing of this auction during the middle of a political campaign might account for the train wreck witnessed today or the economy is worse off then anybody could imagine. Prices were all over the place, some excellent, some poor but not a single item exceeded $50,000.00 even with the huge buyer's premium in place. A few of my friends watched parts of this auction on CNN and thought many of the descriptions should have been based on the importance of the items instead of comparing them to famous artwork.
>>>>
>>>> All of the big auction houses are struggling right now from what I have read. Hopefully things will settle back down after the election.
>>>>
>>>> Best Regards,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Adam
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Received on Sun 14 Oct 2012 09:39:19 PM PDT