British Comedy Autograph Blog

I am often asked if I want to buy autographs and collections and when it is something of interest to me I will usually make an offer. The problem with making an offer for an item, is meeting the expectation of the seller, this is true of any collectable that is sold; whether it be at a car boot sale on ebay or any other option!

So the next best bet appears to be auctioneers.
If you sell at a specialist autograph auction, then you guarantee all the big collectors and dealers will be able to see your item. However, this comes at a cost!
These auction houses will take up to 20% of the sale price from you and the same from the buyer.
So let’s assume you sell a signed photo of Laurel & Hardy that you have had for 10 years and need some money fast as we are in recession. It sells for £500.00 (not too bad although you probably paid £600 for it), you have to send the autograph by insured post, say £10.00, then the auctioneer take their cut £100 leaving you with £390.00 – the cheque will probably take a month to come through the post.
So you made £390.00 that’s not too bad I guess, but what about the auctioneer, well they made £200.00 (£100 from you the seller and £100 from the buyer). So, the item is now worth £600.00 to the buyer – yet you only got £390.00.
If the buyer turns out to be a dealer who wants to sell the item on, he would need to be looking at a commission to cover all his or her costs (buying a catalogue, going to the auction, cost of advertising, web site,collecting or paying for it posting….). So let’s assume the dealer works on a 40% margin, this means the signed photo will sell at £840.00. This of course is over double what you sold it for!

I guess the moral is be an auctioneer, least risk of all and nice profit margin!

As for how should you sell your item, well I would advise trying to sell it privately or consider the dealer – it might be the real deal!

Moving on to buying at auction, as you can see from above there are always hidden costs (not hidden really all the auctioneers publish their terms) but when you are competing with another buyer you sometimes ignore them!
Having watched autograph auctions for the last twenty years I have come to the conclusion there are rarely any bargains, in fact most of the items I have seen recently have sold at more than I sell at on my website (and that’s before the auctioneers commission).

Tony de Whytell
British Comedy Autographs