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Welcome to Auction Talk Radio
Auction Talk Radio is intended to be America's first radio show dedicated to auctions, collectibles and eBay. If you are an eBay enthusiast, a garage sale junkie, an antique lover, or just simply want to know what your old stuff is worth, you won't want to miss this show. We were recently guests on KNX Radio here in L.A. and may soon hit the airwaves where you live. Welcome to our website!
Souvenirs, mementos related to late president make "a startling increase"
As the nation pays its respects to former President Gerald R. Ford, interest in items connected to the 38th president have flooded aBay and other auction sites.
Searching the term "President Ford" netted a total of 935 items on eBay as of late Friday afternoon. That number is an increase of 100 since Barton Deiters posted a story on the subject in the Grand Rapids Press, the Michigan paper based out of Mr. Ford's hometown.
Deiters found items ranging from gold-gilded, signed copies of Ford's last book for $889 to campaign shot glasses for $5. The writer may not have been looking too intently, however, since we found a set of the late president's golf clubs up for sale - a potentially significant collectible considering Mr. Ford's foibles on the links. So far, however, the $5000 starting bid has attracted no takers for an auction that ends New Year's Day. In fact, our very informal survey found a great many items with no bids - perhaps a testament to how many items related to President Ford have been offered for auction.
"There's a startling increase in the interest in things related to President Ford," Tim Miller, owner of Nashville, Tennessee-based flatsigned.com - a dealership of rare and autographed books, told Deiters. Miller has a Ford-signed copy of J.F. terHorst's 1974 book "Gerald Ford and the Future of the Presidency" on eBay. Bidding Thursday was at $499. And he says the number of Ford-related items at auction might be higher if not for the holiday season.
"If not for the unusual timing between Christmas and New Year's, there would be even more interest."
Auctioneer's 15-cent listing day attracts 5 million new auctions
The discount listing day eBay offered on Wednesday netted the company some big rewards, with a 56% increase in total listings posted that day, according to Ina Steiner at AuctionBytes.com. Citing data compiled by MedVed (which has tracked eBay auction listing data since 1999), Steiner notes that at the start of business on December 27, eBay had fewer than 9 million listings. By the end of the day that toal had jumped to 14 million. She notes that this increase is well below the 78% jump in listings eBay enjoyed from last year's post-Christmas promotion.
The Motion Picture & Television Fund announced this morning that it would be the recipient of over 200 rare items from the archives of Twentieth Century Fox. Included in donation are signed contracts and even more rare internal memos.
Items in the auction represent dealings with over 50 Hollywood legends including: Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn and Elvis Presley, and involve some of the greatest films of all time including: Seven Year Itch, Miracle on 34th Street, The King and I, All About Eve, and Love Me Tender, according to the the web site dbusinesnews.com.
The auction, scheduled for January 25, 2007, will be conducted by Swann Auction Galleries in New York City. Proceeds from the sale will directly benefit the MPTF insurance fund that provides health insurance for actors.
It may be no surprise to you if you are an avid auctioneer, but eBay's fixed-price venture, eBay Express, has gained little traction with consumers. The woes of the initiative are detailed in a piece called "eBay Express Flops with Buyers, Sellers" on Startup Journal, the entreprenuers' section of the Wall Street Journal online.
Vauhini Vara interviews a number of users, whose experiences she describes as "lackluster." For sellers hoping a listing on eBay Express will put more eyeballs on their items, Vara mined this little nugget: "While eBay's main auction site attracted more consumer visits than any other online retailer in November, eBay Express was at No. 87 on the list of top shopping and classified sites, according to research firm Hitwise Pty. Ltd."
One assessment of the challenges that have prevented eBay Express from catching on concerns perception. As a fixed-price enterprise, eBay Express may not be connecting with consumers who associate eBay so closely to online auctions. "The company is now so synonymous with online auctions that it is having trouble convincing people it can offer something beyond that," Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., told Vara.
Chicago nets nearly $4 million from auction of taxi medallions
A sealed-bid auction of 50 taxicab medallions has netted the city of Chicago nearly $4 million, according to an article on Chicago Business online.
With winning bids falling between $77,000 and $81,000, well above the $60k minimum, the auction represents a revitalization of the tourist trade in the Midway. As a result of the downturn in travel and tourism after 9/11, medallion prices had fallen as low as $42,000 in 2001.
Online Sales for Barack Obama Paraphernalia a Rage
If e-tail purchases were votes, Barack Obama may have his position in the 2008 presidential sweepstakes locked up. According to both Amazon.com and CafePress.com, a full-fledged case of "Obamamania" has hit the internet, with those sites reporting a massive sales spike for all things related to the junior senator from Illinois. From mugs, bumper stickers and buttons, to books, photos and assorted tchotchkes, online sales have continued to soar since September, with present sales of Obama-related items far outstripping those related to any other current U.S. political figure.
A brief review of eBay as of this posting showed an even 150 listings for items connected to Senator Obama. The highest-priced item was a "Buy It Now" sale for the domain name barackobamaforpresident.com, with an asking price of $10,000. The highest-priced item at auction was a signed copy of "Dream from My Father." The book started at $5.22 and as of this posting has received 11 bids and was up to $91.00.
eBay announced today that Wednesday will be a 15-cent listing day. All listed auctions put up or pre-scheduleded to launch tomorrow, December 27th, will be charged at a 15-cent rate - half off the normal 30-cent fee. This is a good day to liquidate multiple lots of similar items that can be listed and launched with relative ease - or for just taking a seller's discount for a few unwanted holiday gifts.
eBay holds such discounted days regularly and randomly and with very little notice. Users should make it a habit to check for an e-mail from eBay about such discount days, especially right after big shopping holidays.
Sale of handwritten Clement Moore classic announced on "the night before Christmas"
It was the night before Christmas and all through our house the only thing stirring was the hand guiding our mouse, as we scrambled to get this to you for your Christmas Day consideration:
An original copy of "A Visit from St. Nicholas," signed by author Clement Moore in 1860 (he wrote the story in 1822) sold at auction last week for $280-thousand. "The buyer, identified only as the chief executive officer of a media company, received the copy of the poem this month, just in time to read it to relatives and business associates at a holiday party in his Manhattan apartment, Heritage Auction Galleries president Greg Rohan said," according to Yahoo News this morning.
(We will not post an Auction Talk Radio podcast update this week, but count on hearing more about this in next week's episode.)
A one-of-a-kind LP copy of Meet the Beatles sold at auction today for over $115,000. As we noted here on ATR last week and on our most recent podcast, the album was given to Louise Harrison, sister of George Harrison, as the Fab Four were on their way by train to Washington, D.C. for what would be its first paid gig in the U.S. It was February 11, 1964 - just two days removed form their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show - the band had just released Meet the Beatles, their first American release, and band manager Neil Aspinall presented Louise with a copy signed by her brother. John Lennon, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney.
The album was purchased by an unidentified buyer for a total of $115,228.82, including buyer's commission. Mark Zakarin, president of the online auction company ItsOnlyRockNRoll.com told the Associated Press today that he believes the sale set a record price for a signed Beatles album purchased at a public sale.
By way of correction, we reported here that this item would close last Saturday (12/18), when, in fact, we should have noted that that was merely the opening day of this auction. However, ATR's Frank Higginbotham did state in our latest podcast that this rare LP would sell for "a boat load of money" and, hey, we got that part right.
Caricature by John Pritchett as it appears on his web site.
Like rival Christie's, New York auctioneer credits surge in art sales for robust year
The world's number two auction house had a very good 2006 thanks to the sale of modern and impressionist art. Sotheby's, the New York company that ranks just behind London's Christie's as the world's leading auction house, announced today that it sold $3.4 billion of art in the 11 months through November, a 36% increase from the same period a year earlier. The company credits its banner year in art to the sizzling market for modern and impressionist works.
Driven by billionaires such as L.A. developer Eli Broad to Hong Kong's Joseph Lau, the global art market has seen a 10-year tripling of contemporary prices. On top of that, they've lured sellers to the market with promises of minimum prices and other benefits.
"A significant part of the growth comes from collectors being confident it's a lucrative time to sell," Chief Executive Officer William Ruprecht told the Gloucester Daily Times.
The tally by Sotheby's is mirrored by that claimed by Christie's, which reported sales of $1.26 billion in modern and impressionist art this year. In May, Sotheby's lured some business away from Christie's with guaranteed prices for works including Pablo Picasso's "Dora Maar au Chat," (pictured) which took $95.2 million at a New York auction. Christie's countered with guarantees for its November impressionist and modern evening sale, winning many of the top lots.
Forward-looking auctions have made consumers "craftier," says study; "There's no reason to commit to a bid until the very end."
The forward-looking apsect of online auctions benefits the ever-crafty consumer with last-minute bidding an effective strategy. That is just some of what trend watchers, bargain hunters and avid eBayers will glean from a just-published study called "Forward-looking Bidding in Online Auctions" by Prof. Robert Zeithammer of the Chicago Graduate School of Business.
Published in the Journal of Marketing Research with its findings reported today by U.S. News & World Report, the study asked, "What happens when the role of an auction changes from selling unique items at Sotheby's to driving large markets for consumer goods on eBay?" The answer, according to Zeithammer, is that "consumers get craftier and craftier," using the forward-looking nature of online auctions to get the best deal.
"Having information about future auctions changes how bidders should behave," says Zeithammer. "Bidders should take the entire known set of auctions into account. If they lose the current auction, they can still bid in future auctions selling similar products, whereas in the Sotheby's world, if I lose at an auction for a unique Renoir painting, I go home empty-handed and my bidding is over."
The study confirms a practice among many savvy buyers: last-minute bidding. "There's no reason to commit to a bid until the very end," Zeithammer says. Conversley, "Sellers should be careful when formulating their own strategy, avoiding the sale of the same items back to back."
Sellers brace for rate hikes, dim-weight pricing by major shippers
As the new year approaches, online sellers can make a collective exhale as the penultimate moment in the holiday season offers a respite from what all indicators say was a busy one - perhaps even a record-setting one.
When business gears up again, sellers will have to contend with some new pricing and shipping equations. Specificially at issue is so-called dimensional-weight pricing. As Ina Steiner explains on AuctionBytes, "Dim weight pricing is based on the cubic size or dimension of the mailpiece rather than the weight, and is designed to account for packages with a large size-to-weight ratio (in other words, big packages that don't weigh much in relation to their size)."
Additionally, rate increases at FedEx and UPS will take effect in the new year, with a USPS rate hike likely to follow. But before conceding to the reality of higher shipping costs, volume shippers ought to talk to these companies about discounts. That's what Len Oppenheimer, owner of The Golden Box Inc., a box and packaging business in East Rockaway, N.Y. told Joyce M. Rosenberg of The Associated Press, in a story we found on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette web site.
It was a good year for Christie's, thanks to robust sales of impressionist and modern art. The London-based auctioneer sold $1.26 billion of impressionist and modern-art pictures in 2006, including four Gustav Klimt paintings recovered by Nazi victims' heirs. That total is an 82% rise over last year, according to a story published in Bloomberg today.
Closing the market-share gap with rival Sotheby's, Christie's won most of the top lots for November's New York sales by way of key alliances with sellers and innovative incentives such as minimum prices, according to Christie's CEO Ed Dolman. Klimt's portrait of the Vienna hostess Adele Bloch-Bauer (pictured) sold for $87.9 million.
Beyond the big art sales, Christie's has also had success with rare but lower-priced lots. This month, the Givenchy dress Audrey Hepburn's wore famously in the 1961 film "Breakfast at Tiffany's" took $922,299 at Christie's in South Kensington, setting a record for a gown made for a movie.
In a twist, auctioneer to offer rare rides in pairs
If one is good, two is better. That's what the folks at Barrett-Jackson must hope collectors will be thinking when it offers 12 lots of paired cars up for bids at next month's 36th annual Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction in Scottsdale.
"The only thing better than a classic, rare collector car is a near identical one to match it," Barrett-Jackson CEO Craig Jackson told The Arizona Republic today.
"With 12 pairs scheduled to cross the block, we're adding a new dimension to the auction for hardcore collectors. The chance to nab two timeless classics with one swipe will be impossible to pass up," Jackson said.
Two ultra-rare 1954 Dodge Firearrow concept cars, and a pair of 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Tankers are among the pricey pairs up for grabs.
As we discussed in our December 12th Auction Talk Radio update, an overhauled and tricked out Hummer, once part of the CNN motor pool imbedded in Iraq, is also on the block, with proceeds from the sale benefiting to The Fisher House Foundation, a group that builds "comfort homes" for families of hospitalized military personnel. The auction is set for January 13th through the 21st in Scottsdale.
Records from Judy Garland's First Studio Session Fail to Sell
A pair of early music recordings by Judy Garland failed to sell at an auction in Hollywood, Calif. on Sunday. Auctioneer Bonhams & Butterfield said Monday that the two acetate discs, which were recorded in 1935, were expected to sell between $20,000 and $30,000. However, as the auction closed Sunday, the discs failed to reach the minimum bid of $22,500. The Hollywood Reporter via the Associated Press, quotes B&B spokesperson Morgan Levy: "Clearly, there was interest, but perhaps Christmas shoppers didn't want to dig too deep into their pockets."
The recordings, made when Garland was just 12-year-old Frances Gumm, feature renditions of four songs she sang in her early vaudeville shows, including "Bill," from the Broadway musical "Showboat," and a medley of "Good Ship Lollypop," "Object of My Affections" and "Dinah."
It is ironic that on the very weekend these rare recordings failed to sell, another Hollywood auction, this one from the folks at Profiles in History, sold the costume Burt Lahr wore opposite Garland as "The Cowardly Lion" in the "The Wizard of Oz" - to the tune of &700,000!
Shown is a 1937 photograph of child actress-singer Judy Garland at an unknown location. (AP Photo)
Study says eBay Items Tied to Charity Sell for More
New evidence says that what has long been suspected may be true: buyers are willing to pay a premium for an item affiliated with a charity or non-profit.
Two professors in the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis collected data from eBay auctions. They looked at regular eBay auctions versus those through its "Giving Works" program, where sellers choose to donate part of their earnings to a non-profit of their choosing. By way of this comparison of prices that similar items command, Brian P. McManus, assistant professor of economics, and Daniel Elfenbein, assistant professor of organization and strategy, found that products connected to a charity command higher prices than unaffiliated products.
On average, charity-linked items sell for a 5% premium, the study found. The results, released in a working paper titled "A Greater Price for a Greater Good? The Charity Premium at eBay Giving Works," and synopsized on the Washington University in St. Louis web site, also indicate that there is value in non-profits selling retail items to raise money.
A number of web sites exist for the purpose of educating the philanthropic in the ways of online auctions. You'll find a wealth of information at the cmarket site. Tell 'em ATR sent you.
Biz/Tech Scribe Says "Lack of Accuracy" is Bad for Small Biz
As part of her research for a book on starting a small business, freelance business and technology writer Alice LaPlante has been hanging out on eBay and talking to lots of power sellers. Her talks, she says, turned inevitably to the topic of feedback. As she puts it, "Feedback is a very important fact of life for anyone participating in the eBay community." So stated, and understated at that, LaPlante makes a thoughtful argument that the eBay feedback system, which she asserts is "probably the largest public forum for judging the reputation of a business in the world," is fatally flawed in ways that could make it fatal to your small business. She also details some possible fixes in an article published Saturday on SmallBizResource.com. Click on this week's Auction Talk Radio update (to be posted on Monday) in the Episode Blogs section and give us your thoughts on this intriguing and controversial topic.
George Harrison sister's Meet The Beatles signed LP is heading for a world record for a set of Beatles autographs as the one and only copy belonging to Louise Harrison with photo documentation and eye-witness authentication sells today as part of the ItsOnlyRockNRoll.com Catalog Online Auction.
The auction site reports: On February 11, 1964, just two days after the Beatles historic first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in New York, the band boarded a train en route to Washington, D.C., where they played their first U.S. concert before a paying audience at the Washington Coliseum. On the train with the Beatles were reporters, as well as members of the Beatles entourage including Louise Harrison, George's sister. Midway through the trip, Beatles' road manager Neil Aspinall presented Louise with a promotionally stamped copy of the groups' first U.S. release on Capitol records, Meet The Beatles.
A short while later all four band members signed the reverse of the LP cover in black ballpoint pen as follows; John wrote "To Lou many love from John Lennon X"; Paul wrote "To Louise with love from your older brother!! Paul McCartney XXX.".; George wrote "To Lou with Love from 'Brother'!! George Harrison"; Ringo wrote "To Lou Lots of Love Ringo Starr XXX."
The LP has been personally consigned by Louise herself, who has treasured this keepsake from the day it was signed. The cover was recently on display at the Clinton Museum. It is one of fewer than ten U.S. signed Beatles albums known to exist. More on this in the new Auction Talk Radio podcast next week.
With more people shopping online this holiday season, and with auction sites among the most popular, the danger of becoming a victim of cyber crime is greater than ever. Cal State Northridge professor Vernon Cook says there are some things you can do to protect yourself. A computer science expert, Cook says there is certain information that a secure, reputable online company will not ask for, such as your social security number. Beware of questions about which bank account a merchant can draw the funds from, which is a red flag, Cook says. Major credit card companies, he says, may ask for a complete bank account number, but in the future they will block out that number for your protection. Cook says it is best to stick with well-known major company sites with a good track record. (Source: Rick Williams/Russ Spears @ Metro)
Blog topic: Does the idea of sticking to well-known, name-brand sites limit the chances of a small entrepreneur gaining a niche in a marketplace already dominated by big companies? Please share your thoughts with us via the Episode Blogs page, where you'll find the new Auction Talk Radio episode on Monday.
The Hollywood Memorabilia auction presented by the folks at Profiles in History found a bidder with a lot of courage, who paid $700,000 for the Cowardly Lion costume worn by Burt Lahr in "The Wizard of Oz"...If this wasn't enough to sate your appetite for Hollywoodiana, two more Tinseltown memorabilia auctions are on for this weekend in L.A. with collectibles from stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Charleton Heston, and the Cowardly Lion's favorite gal pal, Judy Garland, up for grabs...Speaking of Hollywood legends (and this is gonna take two lines), the Oscar that Karl Malden won for his performance as Mitch, the lonely man who falls for Blanche Dubois in Elia Kazan's cinematic version of "A Streetcar Named Desire," is a fake. The genuine article was replaced with a phony when the actor took the statue to its Chicago maker for re-plating back in 1985, with the whole mess coming to light when the real trophy was put up for auction in eBay this fall by a father and son now involved in a lawsuit over its rightful ownership (more)...Warren Hill, who was on the wrong end of a bogus bid of $155,406 for his one-of-a-kind acetate of the album The Velvet Undergound & Nico, has the item back up on eBay... Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas auctioned off a two-of-a-kind $1000 bill to an art collector who paid about $2.3 million for the U.S. bill printed in 1890...Avid toy collectors, especially of 1:18 diecast cars (Ertl, Corgi, Signature) will likely make good reading of Dave Caldwell's piece in Sunday's New York Times called "12 Worth Collecting"...In a move designed to lure talented workers by giving them a new way to cash in stock options, Google said this week that it will let employees sell their stock options in online auctions...In Paris on Friday, Christie's completed an unprecedented sale of a thousand lots of erotic literature belonging to a Swiss collector, to the tune of $7.5...Call it gift card deflation, but a Loyola Marymount University professor says to expect deep discounts on holiday gift cards by recipients looking to liquidate their presents via online auctions. 'Tis the season, alas.
VoIP service provider Skype announced today that its president, Alex Kazim, will be leaving the company to return to eBay where he had worked for eight years. Kazin had joined Skype when the companies merged 14 months ago, according to major news outlets, including Reuters today.
Following Kazim's exit in January, Skype's chief marketing officer and director of Country Operations Henry Gomez will take over the president role. As president, Gomez will serve as an advisor to Skype's CEO Niklas Zennstrom and the principal liaison with eBay and PayPal.
Gomez had worked at eBay for seven years, and joined Skype in November 2005 as general manager for North America. The executive has worked in building the company's US and Canadian business operations before becoming its CMO.
What Christie's auction house thought would be a bright idea connected to Thomas Edison apparently didn't illuminate any interest during a "Landmarks of Science" auction Wednesday. As we reported last week and discuss in this week's Auction Talk Radio update, a box of 23 lightbulbs the famous inventor used in court to defend his patent on the device he created failed to sell during the auction in London. The box of light bulbs was discovered in the attic of a private home in the United States in 2002, and Christie's expected the contents to fetch between 400-hundred and 600-hundred-thousand-dollars.
Among the items that did sell was Albert Einstein's first scientific essay, which brought in 344-thousand English pounds, close to the amount expected. Christie's says the scientific auction brought in one-point-three-five-million-pounds overall. (Source: IOL.com)
This auction turned out to be a pretty dim deal overall. So much for that bright idea, Edison!
(Pictured: A lamp used at the historic 1879 New Year's Eve demonstration of the Edison Lighting System in Menlo Park, New Jersey. Courtesy: The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village via the IEEE Foundation Virtual Museum.)
Online scalping called a "disgrace"; eBay to halt re-sale of tix
The first tickets for the Princess Diana memorial concert in London were sold out in just 20 minutes yesterday. 30,000 were snapped up as phone lines and an Internet booking site opened for business at 9am. By 9.20am, the lines were closed.
But event organizers were left furious after many of the seats found their way straight onto eBay at up to five times their cover price. A spokesman for the organizers branded it a "disgrace" and called on eBay to immediately pull all the tickets for the concert, proceeds from which will go to charities supported by Diana.
As reported by the London Evening Standard picked up on the Gulf Times web site: "A spokesman for eBay promised to remove the Google advert and halt the re-sale of tickets to the show, which will feature Sir Elton John, Duran Duran, Joss Stone and Andrew Lloyd Webber and is the brainchild of Diana's sons, William and Harry."
Presley wedding ring, "Oz" Costume, "Rebel" prop on the block
Elvis fans have a chance to buy a little piece of the King's history. Starting today, an auction of celebrity memorabilia by the folks at Profiles in History will take place in Beverly Hills. A diamond and platinum band worn during Elvis and Priscilla Presley's wedding in Las Vegas nearly 40 years ago (pictured) is expected to fetch as much as $150,000. Other items for sale include the "Cowardly Lion" costume worn by Bert Lahr in "The Wizard of Oz," the switchblade James Dean used in "Rebel Without A Cause" and artifacts from the Steven Spielberg thriller "Jaws." TV fans can bid on the cowboy hat James Arness wore on "Gunsmoke," or the deerskin shirt worn by actor Jay Silverheels on "The Lone Ranger." The auction will be live on the Internet through Friday at www.ebayliveauctions.com.
The birthplace of Walt Disney is now on the auction block. "As cultural treasures go, the house is a Mickey Mouse job. And the way it's being sold is a little goofy" is the opening graph in a story on the ecommercetimes web site:
The nation's largest radio group is teaming up with one of the country's favorite electronics retailers for an auction to benefit the U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Teens Foundation. "Clear Channel (NYSE: CCU) and Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) plan to auction off 814 Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii consoles as part of an effort to raise money for Toys for Teens, a program that gives away gifts to underpriviledged teenagers for the holidays," according to a story published today in the San Antonio Business Journal.
Despite eBay's recent moves to become "flatter" (as we discuss in this week's "Auction Talk Radio" podcast) and, thereby, address the concerns of the investment community that have the company's stock off 30% from the start of the year, a Cowen and Company Internet conference in New York last week found analysts sceptical of eBay's ability to "keep pace with the growth in overall e-commerce." So wrote Liz Peek in the New York Sun on Tuesday:
A case of "using new technology to commit and old-fashioned" crime
Twenty-one people are facing fraud charges in an alleged international scheme to con people into buying items on the Internet that they never got. Eight of the 21 defendants were arrested early Tuesday in the Chicago area, while five more were arrested earlier, one will surrender later, and six more are fugitives, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said. All this according to Chicago's CBS 2:
False bid sinks rare LP auction! Tuesday, December 12, 2006
According to the Globe and Mail, a Canadian man who discovered a rare acetate Velvet Underground album has been thwarted in his attempt to sell the collector's item on Bay. Friday's final bid on the album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (pictured) a staggering $155,406, turned out to be too good to be true.
The Montreal man, Warren Hill, discovered the acetate, a temporary, in-studio medium preferred by musicians to record day-to day-work, at a street sale in New York in 2002. Hill purchased it for 75 cents and, after waiting a day, contacted a friend and fellow music collector, Portland's Erik Issacson, to verify its authenticity. Together, they determined the acetate to be a draft of sorts of Velvet Underground & Nico. The acetate is thought to be a "draft" of the album that Andy Warhol, one of the band's mentors, have tried to sell to labels.
Hill had been nervous as he watched the bidding price of the acetate skyrocket. At that time, Hill told the CBC that "Things have kind of fallen through before so I'm not gonna get too excited about it yet." Hill added that "I just want to wait until things actually happen before I get too excited."
It now seems that the sale, won by a user with the handle "mechadaddy" in the L.A. area, was debunked when a friend of "mechadaddy" bid on the item using his e-mail account. The Globe and Mail quoted part of the reply e-mail from "mechadaddy" that started with "Ohmigod, I'm so sorry." The e-mail offered an apology, which included "I can barely afford gas for my car," let along more than $150,000 for a 40-year-old musical collector's item.
Hill told the Globe and Mail that "I kind of had my doubts early on...especially when the numbers started to jump more than we thought they would." Despite the let-down, Hill remained stoic. "That's the way things go." (Source: CBC Montreal & Globe and Mail)
Hoops Inventor's Notes Sell for $71K at Auction Today!
Helen Carpenter is the granddaughter of James Naismith, inventor of the game of basketball. When Carpenter's mom left her a bunch of family artifacts, she didn't think they were worth looking at:
"My mother told me they were family things and had no value," Carpenter said.
Her mom once tried to get the Smithsonian Museum to take them, Carpenter said, but the museum only offered to put them in its archives, not display them.
"Her response to that was, 'If you are going to keep them in your basement, I'll keep them in my basement,'" Carpenter recalled.
The picture here shows the the original rules for basketball (when they actually called traveling), the whistle Dr. Naismith used when he coached the University of Kansas team, and a photo of the first basketball team - made of of players from the International YMCA Training School in Massachusetts (Springfield College today) circa 1891.
They stayed in her basement for decades, but when Carpenter finally realized she had items including her grandfather's hand-written notes on the first game ever played, she put them up for auction. The auction took place yesterday, and the loot went for a total of $293,972. The big-ticket item was a hand-written account of the first game ever played, which sold for $71,700. If you missed out yesterday, don't worry. You'll get a second shot, when 300 more items go up in a second auction on Dec. 15. (Source) Heritage Auction Galleries/(Photo by Jim Manoney/DMN)
A box of bulbs is expected to bring in more than half a million dollars when it hits the auction block, but they're not your average bulbs. There are almost two dozen bulbs in the box that none other than Thomas Edison used in the late 1800s to defend his patent. They're being put on the block by Christie's auction house and are said to have been at the center of a dispute between Edison Electric Light Company and United States Electric Light Company. Some call it the most important technology- related infringement case ever for the U.S. as it involved profits from lamps. A key witness for Edison used the box during the proceedings and that helped sway the winning decision their way. The auction house says the box was rediscovered a couple of years ago in a house attic and has its original wooden case and key. It is believed that the 116-year-old bulbs may well light up if they wer ever tested, but, as India's The Hindu newspaper put it, "to historians it would be as blasphemous as using the Holy Grail as a shaving bowl." The box of bulbs will be put up for sale next Wednesday (12/13) and could bring in $600,000. Hear more about this on our latest podcast. (Source: Metro)
An IRS advisory panel is urging eBayers to be ready to pay federal income taxes on profits. Noting what it termed a "significant" number of online sellers who "either choose to ignore income reporting requirements or are unaware of their obligations," a non-governmental committee of tax specialists told the Internal Revenue Service last week that those who profit from online sales should be forced to pay their fair share of taxes. The committee said that it is trying to close the "tax gap" between what Americans actually earn and what they report. The panel recommends that IRS target under-reporting by online sellers by requiring a federal tax I.D. The committee's recommendations are similar to an enforcement option raised this summer by the staff of the Joint Congressional Committee on Taxation. Interestingly, the web site accountancy.com, which tracks accounting and tax matters for the UK, ran a story Friday (12/1) titled "eBay Traders Warned to Register with Taxman," noting that online sellers there are already required to register with HM Revenue & Customs or risk a fine up to 100 pounds.
It looks like one of the featured items in the auction of Dick Clark's celebrated memorabilia collection may be a fake, according to ABC News:
One of the featured items in the Dick Clark Auction scheduled today at Guernsey's Auction House was Paul McCartney's autographed Beatles' era, left-handed Hofner bass guitar.
It was estimated to sell for $25,000 to $100,000; however, the makers of the Hofner have told "Good Morning America" that the model wasn't made until 1978, years after the Beatles disbanded.
Guernsey's Auction House has agreed to remove the guitar, for now saying:
"In as much as time does not permit us to properly investigate the matter, the lot will be removed from the event. Depending on the outcome of our research, the bass guitar may be offered at a future date?" Arlan Ettinger, president of Guernsey's Auction House, said in a statement this morning.
For more on this developing story, listen to this week's "Auction Talk Radio" podcast.
On Tuesday, November 14th, Auction Talk Radio's founders and hosts, Frank Higginbotham and Chris Ruh, were featured guests on Bob McCormick's "Money 101" on CBS Radio News-talk powerhouse KNX 1070 AM in Los Angeles.
To listen to a sample of that segment, click here:
As reported Friday (12/1) in the Los Angeles Times, a young wine fanatic is using his deep pockets, much of it family money, to amass one of the biggest collections of wine in the world. The story says that Rudy Kurniawan has spent an estimated $1 million a month bidding at nearly every auction of old and rare wine in the country. His simple passion is his explanation saying "I'm not a collector. I'm a drinker." Hear more about this Southern California man on our next podcast. Read the story here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-et-rudy1dec01,1,4092337.story
As tracked by ZIP code, Lumberton, New Jersey is the busiest eBay community in the country, according to the auction site. As reported in tennessean.com - which noted that Nashville 37201 comes in at #2 - Lumberton 08048 is the municipality with the most eBay action. Henderson, NV 89011 and its bigger neighbor Las Vegas 89141 rank third and fourth, respectively. Talpa, TX 76882 rounds out the top five. As part of its "Community Counts" project - the first "census" of its kind by the company - eBay calculated the list by tracking online activity from Nov. 1 to Nov. 21 in every U.S. ZIP code and awarded points on bidding, buying and charitable donations through eBay Giving Works. With a population of 549,110, Nashville is the largest city on a list that is dominated by small towns such as Lumberton, which has a population of 12,424. Vegas is #2 in population on the list with 545,147 residents. All population estimates are based on U.S. Census data. For the rest of the top ten, click on to our next podcast, which will be posted by late afternoon (PST) Monday, Dec. 4th.
