Advice to collectors: Dealing with dealers (part one)
It’s the Internet Age: Empower yourself!

By David Chesanow | March 30, 2010 | Category: Advice

166 150x145 screwed <strong>Advice to collectors</strong>: Dealing with dealers (part one) <br/> It’s the Internet Age: Empower yourself!

More and more often, we at AmeriCollector.com are receiving e-mails from readers with specific items they are interested in selling or at least valuing.

For example, recently a gentleman e-mailed me to say he has a Union Pacific Railroad poster dated 1869 and asking how to determine its value, and a woman asked me about a couple of pieces of correspondence between Lady Clementine Churchill (wife of Sir Winston) and Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery (Montgomery of Alamein), whose World War II legacy includes the command of all Allied ground troops in a little mission called Operation Overlord, better known as D-Day.

These inquiries are very gratifying, because it means people are visiting this Web site and believe in us enough to ask our advice.

I only wish I had the expertise and experience to tell folks what a specific item is worth. I don’t, of course, but at least I can offer a course of action:

1. Do your homework!

If you prefer to be lazy and simply ask a dealer or even another collector what your item is worth – and if you don’t know and have good reason to trust him or her – then beware: You are ripe for fleecing.

I am distrusting of offers from dealers in general. Sound cynical, coming from a blogger on collectibles, auctions, etc.? Friends, it comes from experience. No matter how sincere a dealer seems – no matter how “high-class” his or her shop or Web site looks – if you have no clue to the value of what you have, you are running as much risk of getting ripped off by that dealer as you would by flashing a wad of cash in the worst part of New York City at midnight.

When I started collecting rare books and autographs in the early 1980s, many dealers were content with making a 50 to 100 percent profit on a sale. Nowadays, dealers may try to get 300 or 400 percent OR MORE on the items they purchase. They do that by low-balling the clueless, then jacking the prices up as much as they can.

A high-end autograph dealer in New York accomplishes this in a way that allows him to sleep at night: He asks you what you want for an item, then hopes you’ll be dumb enough – as I was – to undervalue it. What bugged me then – and still does now, three years later – is that I knew this guy from way back and trusted him to say, “Look, it’s a nice piece but I need to make a profit. Let me offer you X dollars for it, which I think is a fair price and as good as you’ll get from another dealer.” He didn’t do that; when I offered him an autograph letter of a certain early American photographer, he played dumb and asked me what price I had in mind. I suggested $200; he said fine, then listed it on his Web site for $1,200, describing letters by this photographer as “shockingly rare.” Was this unethical? Arguably no: This dealer will no doubt say, “Business is business, and I didn’t break any laws or lie to you.” But if you’re going to be Blanche DuBois and trust in the kindness of strangers – or even longtime acquaintances – without some knowledge of value to support you, you may be in for an unpleasant learning experience.

(This is one reason why I love “Pawn Stars” on the History Channel: At least, when an item that pawnshop owner Rick Harrison doesn’t know the value of comes through the doors, he calls in an expert, who authenticates and prices the thing in front of the person who wants to sell it; only then does Rick negotiate the amount, explaining that the expert’s appraisal is the retail price and indicating how much profit the pawnshop needs to make on it. I also enjoy the fact that Rick is a collector himself, and that he really gets off on the HISTORY behind the best stuff that’s brought in.)

If you are a buyer, the same principle applies: If there’s a collectible you like but you have no idea offhand what the fair market price is, DON’T BUY IT UNTIL YOU’VE RESEARCHED IT ONLINE, taking into consideration that crucial factor: CONDITION. If you don’t, be prepared to get scalped.

(Incidentally, notwithstanding the fact that “Pawn Stars” is about a Las Vegas pawnshop, I note that Las Vegas collectibles dealers tend to price their goods to infinity and beyond – which is no surprise: Vegas is a shopper’s paradise, and dealers are no doubt targeting those tourists who are either lucky enough to win or disciplined enough to save some cash from the casinos. And it’s not just a Nevada thing: One obnoxious bookseller in Seattle told me he prices high intentionally because many prospective buyers want to “bargain”; clearly, this is a tactic by which he can appear to cut the buyer a break in order to seem accommodating. Of course, it wouldn’t occur to this jerk to price reasonably from the start, as he may luck into an unwitting buyer willing to pay the inflated price.)

How do you guard against this? As I told the fellow with the Union Pacific poster: Ask around. Make good scans of the item you want to sell and send them to several dealers and auction houses that specialize in the kind of collectible you have. If it is a unique item (as opposed to, say, a coin or limited-edition plate with a certain book value), you’ll be surprised at the range of offers you’ll receive.

Also, there’s a wealth of free information at your fingertips by researching your item online. Google your item and see what comes up. Sometimes you’ll find the same or similar item on a dealer Web site and you’ll get an idea of what the asking price is. (Take it with a grain of salt: The dealer may be way overpriced.) On “Antiques Roadshow” the appraisers are always talking about “comparables”: what the same or a similar item sold for at auction at a certain time: Many auction house Web sites, like that of the Dallas-based Heritage Auction (www.ha.com), will tell you how much they sold a comparable item in the past. (You generally have to register on the auctioneer’s Web site to access this information.) For books, there’s BookFinder.com, which includes other book search engines such as AbeBooks.com, Alibris (www.Alibris.com) and Biblio.com. Also, there are subscription Web sites, like WorthPoint (www.WorthPoint.com) and Artprice (www.Artprice.com), that professionals use.

Then there’s eBay, of course. No matter what nasty things brick-and-mortar collectibles dealers say about online auction sites – that eBay is killing their businesses – they all buy and sell online. If you find a comparable item there, it may give you a sense of the price it can fetch; if the item is up for auction, watch till the end to see what it sells for – and consider bidding if, after consideration, you think it’s a great deal. If the item is listed on “Buy It Now” and no one’s purchasing, again, take it with a grain of salt: That price is meaningless. If the item is nowhere to be found on eBay, you may have to watch over a period of months or even years before a similar one comes up for auction. That may give you some indication of its scarcity as well.

Finally, if you have a genuinely rare piece, don’t hesitate to contact museums that have holdings like yours in their collections. Museums are not in the business of pricing items, but a curator or researcher may be nice enough to give you some information on it or a lead on who to contact. Most public and university museums generally don’t have much money to buy items, especially in these economic doldrums, although a private museum may. A museum may ask you to consider donating your item for a tax write-off: Ask how much. If you are able and willing to do so, I take my hat off to you: Scholars can study it and museum-goers can enjoy it.

To be continued …