The Heritage / Pedigree Schmell Collection Auction has ended...

[sufunk]

I agree with you and I think that supports some of what I am talking about. He should have spread this out over two years to increase the pool of bidders. I know I bought two books but if it had been stretched over two years I would have owned 6-8 books instead of two.

 

Its hard to say he made a mistake since he made a BOATLOAD of money and i dont know his reasons for doing it this way. Maybe he needs the money right away or very soon for whatever reasons. I dont see how anyone could think though that it wouldnt have been better to spread it out. If the books were spread out and say 1/6 of each title had been put in different auctions like every other month for a year, i 100% think probably every single book would have gotten and least 1 more and probably multiple extra bids

[trmoore54]

I was initially surprised to see it was going to go off less than 2 weeks after San Diego CC...wondering if that left many with depleted pockets...of course there's virtually a Con every weekend and another million auctions at all times so who knows if that had any effect...

[fantastic_four]

Having them out there all at once severely limited probably most peoples bidding. Like someone else said, if these books had been spread out, i could have bid on MANY more Avengers books. heck, over the right time period, i probably would have bid on every single one of them that i dont already own a Pedigree 9.6-9.8. Also, because of the amount of books, i didnt bid on 1 single non Pedigree issue and a few went for what i would consider cheap. there were just too many Pedigrees i wanted to bid on any of those even if they were bargains.

 

Couldn't agree more. I personally would have bid about ten of the FFs higher than what they went for, but I had to limit what I bid on so severely that I didn't even bid on those books. Also, what's up with Heritage holding auctions when 80% of the world is at work? That's the other reason I couldn't bid--if I could have bid live, I would have known that the books I did bid on but lost were no longer preventing me from bidding on others.

 

Is there an implicit understanding by Heritage that their bidders have unlimited funds and are dealers who would take a few days off from whatever day jobs they have? Not sure why else you put 10 million bucks worth of books for sale up during the middle of a weekday.

[fantastic_four]

I agree with you and I think that supports some of what I am talking about. He should have spread this out over two years to increase the pool of bidders. I know I bought two books but if it had been stretched over two years I would have owned 6-8 books instead of two.

 

doug was looking to cash out and retire; why would he spread it out over two years? $4mm in the hand is just as good as $4.5mm 2 years from now.

 

Didn't have to be two years--could have been two weeks and I would have bid triple what I ended up bidding.

[Flash105]

That's a 6% return. You can't get those returns today easily. If it was for retirement, he did not need the money all at once. For that matter he could have sold them over 20 years. My point is that this much material all at once does not maximize return. That is all I am saying.

 

He could have sold the big guns in the first auction and spread the rest out over several auctions. It sure worked for the guy selling the Rocky Mountain collection.

[paperheart]

That's a 6% return. You can't get those returns today easily. If it was for retirement, he did not need the money all at once. For that matter he could have sold them over 20 years. My point is that this much material all at once does not maximize return. That is all I am saying.

 

He could have sold the big guns in the first auction and spread the rest out over several auctions. It sure worked for the guy selling the Rocky Mountain collection.

 

i'm not really disagreeing but we have no idea of: his motivation, Heritage's demands, etc. who's to say that 3 months from now, the second highest bidder for the x-men #1 was out of the running and that book sells for $400k. there goes any boost he may have gotten for spreading out the other books.

[sufunk]

That's a 6% return. You can't get those returns today easily. If it was for retirement, he did not need the money all at once. For that matter he could have sold them over 20 years. My point is that this much material all at once does not maximize return. That is all I am saying.

 

He could have sold the big guns in the first auction and spread the rest out over several auctions. It sure worked for the guy selling the Rocky Mountain collection.

 

i'm not really disagreeing but we have no idea of: his motivation, Heritage's demands, etc. who's to say that 3 months from now, the second highest bidder for the x-men #1 was out of the running and that book sells for $400k. there goes any boost he may have gotten for spreading out the other books.

 

That's definitely true. I think all the $500-2000 books could have done MUCH better spread out. If some of the monster books took a hit though, that wipes out a LOT of couple hundred gains on the smaller books.

 

FF had a really good point that I didn't see anyone else bring up. Having it at 1pm on a Thursday seemed like a VERY odd time for such a major auction!

[namisgr]

Three points:

 

I'm sure Doug was able to strike the best deal with the auction house by offering all of his remaining SA at once.

 

Doug sold his ASM and Hulk books awhile ago, so it wasn't quite his entire collection being sold all at once.

 

Perhaps it's the title that you were tracking with a market that's gotten soft. Nearly all post-1965 Marvels have, and when Doug is out as a prospective buyer the small number of deep pocketed players is further reduced. Even with these caveats, and while individual issues vary, the FFs that I followed Friday and Saturday did pretty well overall.

[sufunk]

No, I agree with you Bob. I've been saying it since Thursday and even though most people disagree based on looking at single skewed sales, I think the majority of Avengers books did pretty damn well and some of the later ones were shockingly high IMO.

 

I still think he could have done better spread out more but I'm sure he had his reasons for doing it this way that none of us are privy to

[roulette44]

I've overpaid for many books over the years. And I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a monetary component to my collecting comic books. But investing definitely isn't and has never been the impetus for my collection. I enjoy the books. I enjoy the hunt. If I had to fret about overpaying for a book, I shouldn't be spending that money in the first place.

 

There have been tons of posts over years calling certain sales prices "insane" or another colorful adjective. And it does make for some interesting reading. But many times, those posts say more about the person writing it than it does about the price of the book.

 

LOVE THIS POST!

 

Barton is wise beyond his years (although i have no idea how old you are )

[roulette44]

No, I agree with you Bob. I've been saying it since Thursday and even though most people disagree based on looking at single skewed sales, I think the majority of Avengers books did pretty damn well and some of the later ones were shockingly high IMO.

 

I still think he could have done better spread out more but I'm sure he had his reasons for doing it this way that none of us are privy to

 

I agree with the theory that by moving this lot all at once, he was able to leverage a stronger deal with HA, thereby making it worthwhile (i'm sure he crunched some numbers too!).

 

While a few books here and there seemed like good deals, it generally seemed to sell pretty strong. And with $10M worth of stuff, just after other big auctions and sales, cons, etc. I think Roy has said (as have others, I'm sure), the market is much bigger than we sometimes give it credit for.

 

FWIW, most of what I picked up, I thought I paid pretty well for......e.g., JIM84 cgc 7.0, paid GPA, FF2 cgc 6.0, paid 25% over GPA.

 

But what a great auction, filled with great great books. Not just the Schmell collection, but some of the others were GREAT too (felt like they were a little shadowed by the Schmell books). x-men 9.4, several TOS39s, AF15s, etc.

 

By the way, two auctions that really surprised me

 

1) TTA27 cgc 7.5 - sold for over $13K - although a guy I know told me he got in a bidding war on it (and it got personal, )

 

2) Flash 105 cgc 8.0 - sold for over $8K (edited, thanks Teddie)

 

I'm sure there were others in both directions, but interesting.

[roulette44]

Oh, one last thought.

Over the course of just a short couple weeks, you had three (count'em 1,2,THREE) AF15 cgc 7.5s go up for auction...between two at HA and one at CLink...

 

the sold for (something like) $47K, $52K, $57K.....

 

the books clearly looked different (e.g., page quality)...but this is definitely a wide spread!

[TeddieMercede]

The Flash 105 8.0 sold for 8365 not 9K+.

[roulette44]

Fixed my post, thanks (was going from memory)

[Silver Surfer]

Is this the one you sold previously?

 

Pretty sure I've never owned a 9.8 before and same goes for the Pac Coast copy. I bought both the #98 and the #101 for under $1,000 total. I am so stoked. Was pepared to pay over $2k for the #98. This is an example where Doug would have been better off sell these as run's over a few months as he could have done way better. I was the under bidder on the #75 but I didn't bid more because I thought it was an easy $2k book. I think it sold for under $1,500.

[roulette44]

 

Is this the one you sold previously?

 

Pretty sure I've never owned a 9.8 before and same goes for the Pac Coast copy. I bought both the #98 and the #101 for under $1,000 total. I am so stoked. Was pepared to pay over $2k for the #98. This is an example where Doug would have been better off sell these as run's over a few months as he could have done way better. I was the under bidder on the #75 but I didn't bid more because I thought it was an easy $2k book. I think it sold for under $1,500.

 

Love this book - nice pick up

[sufunk]

Is this the one you sold previously?

 

Pretty sure I've never owned a 9.8 before and same goes for the Pac Coast copy. I bought both the #98 and the #101 for under $1,000 total. I am so stoked. Was pepared to pay over $2k for the #98. This is an example where Doug would have been better off sell these as run's over a few months as he could have done way better. I was the under bidder on the #75 but I didn't bid more because I thought it was an easy $2k book. I think it sold for under $1,500.

 

That 98 is awesome and was a complete steal IMO!

 

I saw it sitting at what I thought was OBSCENELY low and was almost regretting that I know and am friends with you! I knew you were going after it so laid off and was stoked for you when I saw the bidding end where it did!

 

Congrats man!!!

[Silver Surfer]

Thanks. I had it bid up to $2,500, now that could have hurt.

[Sqeggs]

I agree with you and I think that supports some of what I am talking about. He should have spread this out over two years to increase the pool of bidders. I know I bought two books but if it had been stretched over two years I would have owned 6-8 books instead of two.

 

Its hard to say he made a mistake since he made a BOATLOAD of money and i dont know his reasons for doing it this way. Maybe he needs the money right away or very soon for whatever reasons. I dont see how anyone could think though that it wouldnt have been better to spread it out. If the books were spread out and say 1/6 of each title had been put in different auctions like every other month for a year, i 100% think probably every single book would have gotten and least 1 more and probably multiple extra bids

 

He may also have been concerned that tax rates are likely to be sharply higher next year.

[sufunk]

Could be

 

Like I said, I'm sure he had his reasons whatever they may be that we might never know. Pretty much EVERY single person I talk to on here, including some VERY heavy spenders, have said that their bidding was SEVERELY limited because of the sheer numbers of uber HG big $$$ books in this auction. Despite that, the majority of books did pretty damn good IMO. Sure some took a bath but some also did awesome. Overall, despite everything it had working against it, it seemed damn successful IMO

 

For a variety of reasons, people LOVE to always make things out to be the death knell of our hobby. I'm sure some "proof" of this can be manufactured from the auctions results but I just don't see it