Featured Heritage Pulls Back The Curtain, Editorial February 2019

Interesting article in MAD this month about how auction house handles post sale items. I like it as it allows a second bite of the apple to bidders who lost and now wish to make another offer or someone who is looking for an object for the first time can see what it sold for and make an offer based on latest selling price. All anonymous. Cool idea!
https://www.maineantiquedigest.com/stories/heritage-pulls-back-the-curtain/7317

 

Interesting for sure but it seems that this feature could be abused. Like an interested party spamming hundreds of offers to punish the owner for not selling to them. Also what happens when a dealer purchases the lot on Heritage and only holds it for a short time before selling it on another venue or through private sale. Do they get tons of pesky offers on items they no longer own?

 

I just don't see all that happening. Heritage is just acting as a middleman here for 10% if a sale goes through. The buyer & seller are known only to Heritage & remain anonymous to each other.

 

I think this is a REALLY GOOD IDEA in marketing, tip of the hat to Heritage! It requires the auction house to get off their ass and assemble a database of objects & update that database after every sale/auction. That is not an easy thing to do and requires effort, time & resources. I hope it works for them!
I'll bore the forum with a little parable, once upon a time there was this pilgrim era chest of drawers, AKA the "Bird" chest. I registered for the auction, did my usual research, determined highest amount i was willing to pay, bla bla bla.
Day of the sale came and it became obvious towards the end this chest was between 2 bidders, me (online) and someone from the floor at this sale. Bid reached my limit & i stopped bidding, i was the underbidder.
Days later, upon reflection, i contacted auction house and asked if they would contact winning bidder and ask if they would consider an offer on this chest. They said "sure, no problem, if they are interested, we will contact you". Never heard another word about the chest so i assumed winner was not interested in selling.
Years later, I "met" (online) a dealer of old furniture about another piece, got to exchanging emails, phone calls & guess what, THAT'S RIGHT! it was the winning bidder on the Bird chest! First question i asked, did auction house ever contact you about an offer on this chest? Nope! never heard a word from them about any offers on this chest!
Years after this in which dealer often contacted me about research i was doing on pieces of old furniture that they were interested in also, i finally acquired this chest of drawers, 10 years or so after original sale date, no thanks to auction house who basically just blew me off.
I get it that humans are creatures of habit, they want to do today EXACTLY what they did yesterday, change is often hard. If the antique furniture industry ever wants to get out of the depression it is in, change is going to be REQUIRED!

 

wondering if they will be getting another 10% with the new system in place?

 

They have been doing this for awhile, 2009 i think & yes, they get 10% of any new sale after their original auction.

 

sounds like a win-win

 

I think making $1.6 million is enough of a push for any company to do something different.

 

LOL, well yeah but those were the 2 "most successful years", 16 million in sales X 10% = 1.6 million gross. Plus it doesn't say how much it cost to set up or how much to keep feeding that database.
The point is, these guys came up with a way to stay in contact with the objects they sold at auction & become in effect, almost a retailer, I am IMPRESSED!
Most auction houses, they sell an object, it's gone forever, never to be heard of or seen again.

 

Heritage is a huge player in the high-end rare coin market with some coins selling for 7 figures. They only need to facilitate a couple of large sales for this to pay dividends.

 

I didn't know that, they need to get into old furniture a bit more!
Another thing that i like about this is, it's a GREAT research tool for collectors & dealers alike as database tells you what, when & how much object sold for.