Trying to make a lot of sense out of this thread is apparently beyond me; what's with all the editing?
I edit when I misspell or use bad grammar.
Once, on another site, I deleted part of a post I wrote because I realized after the fact (I had written it in some anger), that I had been unfair and snide; in other words, I was wrong.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a paid employee of T&T, nor do I receive any $$ whatsoever from The Partnership. I volunteer to come work at the Auction; they (GenCon LLC) chose to advertise me as a "Celebrity Auctioneer", which I find somewhat embarassing.

Now, on to some of the "stuff" on this thread:

deimos3428 wrote: If you're running an auction (or are an employee of an organization doing the same) you shouldn't be bidding on items in said auction.  It's an obvious conflict of interest  

Someone interested in bidding on the items has no business being anywhere near the operational side of things.  That just leads to accusations of corruption -- as we've seen.

How can more people bidding against each other for something be anything but peaches and cream for the seller? When one us is on the stage when something comes up that we are interested in, we always have the other auctioneer put it up so we can clearly raise our cards to bid in full view of the entire hall. Bracton skewered me on something I really wanted in full view of the whole hall.
So far, the only insinuations of possible corruption seem to be coming from posters that don't know their butts from second base.

Mars wrote:...Any difference between someone who is an expert and someone marginally competent would be negligible.

If that isn't one of the most benighted comments on this sub-thread, I don't know what is. I have been auctioneering since GenCons in the mid-'70's and can tell you that expertise creates buzz and buzz drives prices.

FormCritic wrote:(I love Wikipedia.  What amuses me is that other sources are somehow considered less biased than Wikipedia.  Obviously, people do not regularly read history textbooks these days.)

From one history teacher to another--ain't that the truth, brother?

Kosh wrote:I do believe that Dragonsfoot is the best venue for your diatribe though, they love peeps like you

Oooh, just a trifle supercilious, aren't we?
Yes, I am active poster on DF.
Yes, we do do have some lovely, stupid, foolish arguments over there; I have participated in a couple. But we have a lot of fun, too. Maybe because we aren't pompus or tke ourselves too seriously.

mbassoc2003 wrote:GenCon Auctions - I may be blissfully ignorant of what really goes on, but I has always assumed Frank did the GenCon Auctions completely for free and because he was just that kinda guy. It never occurred to me that he might be ,making a profit out of the venture, and I'm happy to believe that he did not, and believed in offering his services for free out of a willingness to be charitable and a sence of wanting to contribute to the community and society that, let's face it' he helped build from those early years.

Well, I can't testify to anything pre-2006, cuz I wasn't involved.
I can say that the only money any of us "make" out of the auctions is the proceeds from anything we brought to sell. The only break we get is a free bidder card and no entry fees; they take the same bite out of our personal stuff as everyone else.
Every dollar raised for the Charity Auction (or items auctioned for charity) goes to that Charity. The Partnership eats the overhead for those very prime hours.

As a volunteer, I get free pop and coldcut sandwiches, a badge, a bid card, waiver of registration fees if I'm selling anything, and part of my hotel bill picked up. I work long hours there, as do all the volunteers (some many more hours than I), and I am primarily on stage for the Prime Time stuff.

It was my experience that the T&T guy bidding drove up the prices that the items sold for (more $$ for the seller), drove down the margin that they could recoup, and they knew how high they would go when they got into bidding on any particular item. They were not the only reseller bidding. Thanks to some very brazen thieves, who I would personally and gladly hamstring, The Partnership lost two computers this year. Factor that kind of stuff in, too, before you loudly lament thier imagined profits.

You can not possibly compare GenCon prices to eBay.
One is sold over a period of a week or more, with millions of potential buyers seeing it; the other is sold in a matter of minutes in front of a crowd of a few hundred at most who have already shelled out big bucks just being there.

Got something to sell and want top dollar? Well then, don't put it up for auction where you don't think it will obtain the biggest dollar. The Auction is something that started wbitd as a courtesy to attendees that were trying to unload old games no longer played, or old figures no longer needed, etc. It was not about making money for the organizers; when we did GenCon in the '70's we only took like 5 or at most 10 percent and that was just to offset the fact that square footage was valuable and had to produce income. I'd be willing to bet that GenCon could make a hell of a lot more money renting that room to some big company or for some big money generating activity. Luckily for us all, Peter recognizes the historical significance of con auctions.

Franks comment was NOT that he could somehow wheedle 10 times as much or more for something. His comment had to do with the ineptitude of who did nearly ruin the Origins auction. Why you should choose to read it any other way puzzles me, unless you are just looking for nits to pick.

As to what percentage I am responsible for, I have no idea. Probably somewhere around zero. That isn't the point. GenCon hyped me that year because it was a big anniversary and they wanted to get more people to check out the Auction; I didn't know they were going to until I saw it in the program; I was a little embarassed and a little pissed.

I'm entertainment, and I am good with that. The fact that I know a little about the really old stuff, and date back to the beginning of both boardgaming (I started playing them in 1962), and role-playing enables me to do what they want me to do; sell stuff in prime time, getting the best I can for each and every seller. (Btw, sellers are just numbers on the item slips.)

Kaskoid wrote:Franks comment was NOT that he could somehow wheedle 10 times as much or more for something. His comment had to do with the ineptitude of who did nearly ruin the Origins auction. Why you should choose to read it any other way puzzles me, unless you are just looking for nits to pick.

His statement is a direct response/comment to another member's opinion that expert auctioneers would not have much effect.  I deal in logic all day long and it is pretty easy to follow the suggested cause and effect.

1) GAMA thought expert auctioneers weren't needed so Frank left.
2) Frank left and the gross dropped from $50,000 to $500.

If you could enlighten me about the other cause that is mentioned/implied in this statement I would be happy to know.  I am only using the information presented.

Ironic too that you completely pull my quote out of context to call me benighted then accuse me of looking for nits to pick.

Although this is getting waaaaaay OT, I don't feel like starting a new thread . . . and I do have a few thoughts, having been a buyer on eBay for a while, an attendee at the GenCon auction for decades, and an occasional visitor at Christie's.

eBay has the advantage of size.  Lots and lots of people looking.  But it has disadvantages.  You're relying on the seller's description of the item and a few pictures to grade what you are getting.  There's a delay in getting the item, and when you get it, if there is a problem, the resolution can be a pain.

The GenCon auction has far fewer people.  Lots of folks who pay top dollar on eBay have never been to a GenCon auction.  On the other hand, if you want, you can take a look at an item and judge it for yourself.  If you see something and want to take a closer look, you can ask the auctioneer to go on to the next lot for a moment, so you can come up to the front.  For the rares, they have been pre-graded, usually by stratochamp.  If he says it's a VG-, you can be pretty sure that most anyone else will call it a VG+.  Missing pages, pencil marks and the like will have been noted for the auctioneer to describe.  And the real benefit of Frank and Tim is that they will know and share the history of the item, identify the printing, if applicable, and tell the audience how rare it is.  And yes, I have seen people jump into bidding after an auctioneer puts an item into context.

If an item on eBay is posted here before the auction ends and becomes the subject of some discussion, we may have the benefit of similar information.  But the majority of people on eBay aren't visiting here, and won't necessarily know.

And if you find a problem with an item after you buy it at the GenCon auction, you can return it and get an immediate refund.  Last year I won the auction for an early Dragon Magazine, but in looking through it, I found ads on several pages had been cut out.  I handed it back to the auction, and didn't have to pay.

In the end, however, the cost of an item at any auction depends on the last two bidders.  There are common items at GenCon which will sell which, on eBay, would never be touched.  The resellers present may be responsible for a lot of that, but it is still better than no sale for the seller.  The majority of rare items at GenCon seem to go for close to the typical price one would see on eBay.  I've certainly paid very fair prices for most of what I have won over the years.  There's no question that, years ago, real bargains were available at the auction.  Now, while there are still bargains, there are enough of us around every year to keep things pretty honest.

That all being said, I think this year may have been cheaper than usual, however, due to (i) the bad economy, and (ii) the absence of a number of Acaeum members who, last year, would easily have bid up several of those items.

And even so, that still didn't help me get the Fineous Fingers diorama cheap (thanks, in particular, to a proxy bid by . . . another Acaeum member who wasn't even at GenCon).  

Mars wrote:His statement is a direct response/comment to another member's opinion that expert auctioneers would not have much effect.  I deal in logic all day long and it is pretty easy to follow the suggested cause and effect.

1) GAMA thought expert auctioneers weren't needed so Frank left.
2) Frank left and the gross dropped from $50,000 to $500.

Yes, that's correct as far as I understood it...

If you could enlighten me about the other cause that is mentioned/implied in this statement I would be happy to know.  I am only using the information presented.

I think the logic mistake you are making is this:

I wouldn't go anywhere near paying a markup of the reported 100 times the going rate because the auctioneer was/is an industry personality.

The above doesn't follow from #1 and #2. Just because revenue is increased 100-fold when an expert auctioneer is present, it *doesn't* mean that there is effectively 100x markup on each item sold.

It *could* mean that, but that's unlikely.

As an outsider, I imagine the situation was more like this: In non-expert-auctioneer-year-1, there were somewhat lower sale prices that year, probably caused by a combination of no "celebrity name" to draw folks to the auction (thus fewer bidders and less competition) and less historical expertise (thus generating interest at bid time, fewer emotion- or excitement-driven bids). And with lower sales prices in year-1, you get fewer return sellers in non-expert-auctioneer-year-2 (I imagine that's doubly true for sellers of big-ticket items that don't want to lose out on large, large value), as well as the same downward pressures as the previous year.

Even so, it's a bit surprising that the result was a 100-fold decrease in two years, but apparently there was...

To be on topic, let me address this:

But, they do include insurance in most of their auction, which is more than likely why the charges go up as the cost of the item goes up.

Why should the buyer pay for something obviously the seller's responsibility? It is like a tracking number or something -- if I buy it, it becomes your duty to get it to me. I should not have to pay you more for that. So, I consider incorporating insurance and tracking fees into a "shipping quote" to be horrible practice and try to avoid those sellers whenever possible.

serleran wrote:To be on topic, let me address this:
Why should the buyer pay for something obviously the seller's responsibility? It is like a tracking number or something -- if I buy it, it becomes your duty to get it to me. I should not have to pay you more for that. So, I consider incorporating insurance and tracking fees into a "shipping quote" to be horrible practice and try to avoid those sellers whenever possible.

On this topic, Ebay is soon disallowing a separate optional charge for insurance, though it appears that it can still be lumped in with the item or total shipping:

Optional buyer charges for shipping insurance removed: The insurance option creates the perception that buyers need to purchase shipping insurance as a protection on eBay, an experience they're not accustomed to on other ecommerce sites. In fact, sellers have always been responsible for their items until they arrive safely in their customers' hands. That's why shipping insurance will no longer be included in the purchase flow as either an option or requirement for buyers.

Of course you can choose to purchase insurance on shipments, but not ask buyers to buy insurance separately. In some categories like Antiques, Collectibles, and Jewelry, shipping insurance for sellers is essential. When appropriate, you can include the cost of insurance in your item or shipping price.

http://pages.ebay.com/sell/July2009Upda ... x.html#1-9

Bought Castle Zagyg Campaign setting book from T&T last week and it arrived with the box having a gash in the side of it.  So I held my breath and opened it up.  Sure enough the book I bought had a huge gash in the side.  They had wrapped it with one layer of very thin bubble wrap.  That's it in terms of packing material.  I have sent it back.  I will update when I receive the replacement item or a refund.

In regards to my initial post, this book weighs far more than the 10 Goodman games yet they only charged me $3.50 for shipping as opposed to the $27 they wanted to ship the Goodman games.  Schizophrenia is horrible disease.

Martin

T&T would be great if they sorted out their shipping. So often I search for odds and ends I am after and only T&T has them, but I am hesitant to buy due to the hassles of negotiating the shipping.