I think you will find over time that one thing you wrote is not true:
" A balanced consignment is necessary for either of us (the consignor or
myself) to be satisfied"
Trust me when I say there are LOTS of consignors who have loads of near
worthless posters, and they can and will send them to you to auction
individually (whether for a 25% commission or a 75% commission), and they
won't mind getting pennies a poster, but you will waste much valuable time
and energy.
I guess you can leave it vague and have people send specific lists of what
they want to send, if that is the route you want to go in.
I prefer to make it clear that auctioning items for under $15 is mostly a
waste of my time, and that I will either return posters I am sure fit into
that category or put them in bulk lots.
Bruce
On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 11:00 PM, Richard Halegua Comic Art <
sa...@comic-art.com> wrote:
> Bruce
>
> First let me thank you for your compliments on my being able to move
> MoviePosterBid.com in the right direction since I took it over back in 2006.
> It's been lots of hard work and it's gratifying that another dealer like
> yourself, who is of course also a longtime friend, to recognize how
> difficult it is with all the work involved. I of course could not do it
> without the help of my secretary Anna who has become an invaluable asset to
> me and helps me process the posters we sell from beginning to end. I hope I
> can find someone else in 2010 who can help me as well as she does so we can
> expand a little this year.
>
> (you might remember Bruce that back in 2004 you had this in one of your
> weekly newsletters: "I first met little "Richie" Halegua sometime around
> 1968 at one of the first July 4th Phil Seuling comic book conventions at the
> Statler Hilton Hotel in New York City. I was around 15, and I believe he was
> a year or two younger. Now we are both pushing 50, and I am wondering where
> all the years went! Rich has stayed in comic books all these years, but in
> addition has branched out into other collectible hobbies. Recently he popped
> up as a movie poster seller on eBay, and since Rich only does things in a
> big way, I would imagine he has big plans in mind!")
>
> Concerning your post, I'm really glad you asked these questions so I could
> answer them. They are really good questions and every person who would
> consider consigning their collections or extras or whatever to
> MoviePosterBid is most certainly going to ask these very questions of me at
> some point. So let me start from the beginning:
>
> *1) I don't see that you have ANY minimum value at all on consignments.
> Can someone send you 500 one-sheets that all figure to auction for a few
> dollars each, and you will only take 25%?*
>
>
> While some people will wonder if this might be the case, I think that most
> people will realize that is of course, not something that can be done. There
> is no denying that you, Heritage and myself sell very many items of lower
> price value and we all sell better quality items at the same time. It is a
> balanced sale. So of course, my commission rate is based on getting a
> balanced consignment from someone that includes posters that sell from 99
> cents to several hundred dollars so that the auction result on a weekly
> basis achieves a certain value. Not surprisingly, your business model as
> well as Heritage's are based on the same philosophy and if it wasn't, you
> would certainly fail as a business as would anyone else. So a balanced
> consignment is all that really works. For instance, in the auction ended
> January 27th, we sold 279 posters. Of those 165 posters sold at $15.00 and
> less. 67 posters sold between $15.55 and $50.00. 31 posters sold between
> $50.01 and $100 and 16 posters sold for $111.00 to $406.00.
>
> Obviously there is a certain balance to that which 1) brings customers and
> 2) helps the cheaper stuff sell for a little extra when a bidder wins
> something nice and then buys a few other posters because it might not cost
> anything extra to ship them together. I'm sure that any potential consignor
> who read my initial post also looked at the results sheet and would get the
> idea that a sale of just low value posters would not achieve the best
> results, making it a waste of my time and theirs as well. Just as you, I'd
> have to bundle up lots of 100 or more posters for bulk lots to make anything
> like your question work.
>
> the best example is the current collection that I sold last week & am
> selling this week, with very many hi quality examples and very much crapola.
> Most of the crapola was sold last week.
>
> *2) I don't see any restriction on types or sizes of posters. Can someone
> send you 50 beat-up low value 6-sheets (which are a nightmare to
> photograph), hundreds of tightly rolled newer one-sheets that all figure to
> auction for a few dollars each and you will only take 25%?*
>
>
> I will sell posters of any size.. I don't care if they're 24 sheets, 6
> sheets, half sheets, lobby cards.. . But it's really the same answer to the
> above question: A balanced consignment is necessary for either of us (the
> consignor or myself) to be satisfied. If someone wants to send me a 6 sheet
> for King Kong, a selection of better titles and 100 other 6 sheets that
> stink, I'll be happy to sell them.
>
> Only a few collectors can afford to collect Universal Horror posters
> (apparently even forged ones sell for alot of money, including one you
> almost sold a couple months back until I questioned the piece) and while the
> collectorate gets larger for items as they get to lower prices that are more
> fitting for the large part of the population, there are people who also
> collect lots of posters that sell for under $25. All of us who sell sell
> alot of titles that are - for lack of a better word - shit! But that doesn't
> make the people who buy them shitty customers does it?? We all know there
> are collectors for everything and I'm not just happy to be able to help them
> all find what they're looking for, I strive to make sure I don't lose sight
> of the fact that there are collectors at every price level and none of them
> should be left out of a sale if that can be helped. That's why you sell a
> $406 poster at the same time you sell 99 cent posters. That way there is
> something for everyone in your auctions.
>
> *3) I don't see any restriction on amounts of posters. It seems to take
> all you can do to auction 200 or 300 items a week (I am amazed you are able
> to do this, by the way). If you are sent many thousands of items, you are
> promising to auction them within 60 days. How will you do that?*
>
>
> yes we sell about 300 items a week and it is a Herculean task, but we did
> it for 50 weeks last year.. Again, I couldn't do it without Anna who it took
> some time to train the many tasks as she had never been involved with
> posters or movies. But you did the same thing with Phil Wages who has become
> your most valuable asset. neither you nor I could do what we do by
> ourselves.
>
> Unfortunately one of the most time consuming tasks is sending out near
> daily emails to newsgroups, make net posts and other promotion like ads and
> flyers, I constantly wonder how you can do your weekly emails. You have more
> text in your posts than an Alabama high school textbook has on Darwin's
> theory of evolution. You must be having an employee doing all your important
> work I guess.
>
> But to get to the heart of your question, like yourself, I can only sell so
> many things. What I expect to be able to do is deal with a small number of
> consignors each quarter who send me a certain amount of material and I would
> auction them 2 or 3 weeks of each month. It isn't possible for me to sell
> the 2000-3000 items each week you sell with your 25 employees (you have 10x
> the people and sell 10x the material).
>
> However, it is possible for me to take consignments from people who want to
> see their stuff sold in a short time period and make quick money, something
> that I know from personal experience isn't always the case with you. I mean,
> I sent you about 500 classic and by your own description "great stills" back
> in April and so far you have auctioned something along the lines of 10% of
> them. I do figure the time period might be shortened if I had sent you 1
> sheets, which is the poster size we both sell most often. Of course, the
> reason for sending them to you was kind of to make more money that I could
> in turn spend with you as we both know I bid on alot of your auctions just
> as Phil Wages bids in mine. I was hoping to spend it with you in 2009 &
> 2010, but at the current rate, I might still be getting a check from you in
> 2015. But I'm certainly not trying to bash you. It's just the truth, which
> for some reason I think makes my interest in taking consignments from people
> we both know work in my favor just a little bit.
>
> Look. I'm not trying to knock off other dealers, or auctioneers. Especially
> not my friends, and I have no illusions of becoming the person who has "sold
> more movie posters than anyone in the world" mostly because I'm not
> interested in having 25 employees and to do so would mean I'd have to work 3
> times as hard as I currently do and I'd have to send out a weekly
> dissertation like you do, which is plainly impossible. But if I can get 5%
> of the consignments you get and 2% of the consignments Heritage gets,
> neither one of your businesses would even notice because I know that both of
> you already get as much as you can handle anyway. This David couldn't
> possibly hit Goliath hard enough for the rock to feel like more than a
> bother. On top of that, both of you are likely to grow anyway on an
> annualized basis.
>
> That said.. Any potential consignor who is thinking of sending something to
> me, please email me and I'll call you.
> If you would like to see your posters sell in time for the baseball season
> to start so you can take off until the World Series in October, I think I'm
> your best bet. I'm happy to take any balanced consignment (like the one that
> I have listed the just past & current auction) work out a favorable sales
> schedule, and like the current consignment I will advertise your merchandise
> in Classic Images and Movie Collector's World as well as have full color
> flyers sent out & given away by linenbackers and framers like Sue Heim.
>
> also please note. My email post was incomplete. On items over $500, I will
> only take a 20% consignment fee and if you want to consign something of
> extraordinary value, I can negotiate something more favorable. I will also
> pay you 30 days after your consignment has been sold. Take note of the
> results I'll post of the current auction and you'll see my results are
> competitive.
>
> You want to sell posters!! If you think I can help.. Yes I can!!
>
> Rich
>
>
> Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
> ___________________________________________________________________ How to
> UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to:
> lists...@listserv.american.edu In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF
> MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
>
>
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
___________________________________________________________________
How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List
Send a message addressed to: lists...@listserv.american.edu
In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L
The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
