Going to Estate Auctions you have to be OK with getting outbid repeatedly

Just a fact of life at estate auctions: Quality Sells. If you are adverse to considerably overpaying then you will not likely "win" many of the better items you came for since many of the opposing bidders must have deep pockets and ignore the comparable prices realized elsewhere. I can't see how dealers can make a living when everything realizes such high prices and only the "scraps" remain. Perhaps this is just an effect of the pandemic and being the first really good auction of the year.

Sorry for the rant.

 

There's also a big difference between buying for yourself and buying for resale. Go to a lot of auctions and you will get to know the dealers just from the volume of their purchases. A savvy dealer is restrained by profit margins - and the knowledge that there will be another sale tomorrow. If you outbid a dealer on something for yourself, you likely still got a good deal.

 

A lot of the dealers I know go for the box lots and stuff piled under the tables. This was a semi-catalogued sale (no internet bidding though) -- I think I am going to avoid catalogued sales in the future.

 

Just what I was going to say...I usually just buy for myself, stuff to add to my collection; so I figure that gives me at least a 25% advantage over the dealers who are buying for resale....all other things being equal, they have to drop out before I do, in order to maintain their profit margin.

 

I'm hoping for in-person auctions to open up & go gang-busters by summer. I've got a huge storage unit filled with stuff from my mother's estate that needs to find new homes!

 

Biggest problem we have at the moment are all the people looking for extra income during this plague and competing against us.