Hammer down at the RIA
 

This is for the folks who have never bid at an online auction and what to expect.

Live Bidding Fee $217.50 -- So, you went there? They charged you a fee on sitting there bidding?

In Julia, I saw a sign saying for winners spending $15,000, they discount $200. For winner spending $18,000, they discount $300. Of course, no one intentionally spending thousands to get that discount. It's not enough to cover the traveling cost either. But, at least, they do encourage bidders going there.

And, RIAC discourage bidders going there? Too crowd, maybe?

I heard Julia only had 50 bidders sitting there. All other bidders were on phone. Those 50 must be local people. Not many bidders in Poulin either according to what I saw. I guess most were dealers. Some items sold from Poulin quickly turned to gunbroker.com and sold again. Poulin is not an auctioneer carrying high end items, frequently sold at relatively low price, but their items do fit gunbroker.com or gunauction.com well, and belong to "high end items" on those online sites, so some items were moved around in this layered selling system by people.

Hugh,
Was the Live Bidding fee the 3% they charge for using Proxibid or Invaluable?
I won a gun in the last RIA auction and here were my charges. I used their phone bidding service.
Winning bid= $2000
Buyers premium= 300
Shipping= 67.70
Insurance= 21.85
Live Bidding fee= 0

Tom

[QUOTE]Was the Live Bidding fee the 3% they charge for using Proxibid or Invaluable?
I won a gun in the last RIA auction and here were my charges. I used their phone bidding service.
Winning bid= $2000
Buyers premium= 300
Shipping= 67.70
Insurance= 21.85
Live Bidding fee= 0]

Tom,
Were you on the phone when your item came up for auction or did you call in your bid before the auction?

I was on the phone when my lot came up for auction and bid live.

I used RIAC selling service on small scale. Not really because I have to do that, I could sell those items without them, but I did have curiosity on their process. So I consigned a few items to them.

I have to say,,, they are very professional. They gave a market estimate, informed owner on which auction session the items would go, they called consignor to confirm arrival of the package, and they took care of picturing and text description. Almost zero effort on owner's side. What else an owner could expect?? One thing that they could improve is sending relevant items' description to owners before printing, that would avoid some obvious mistakes. Other than that, I had nothing to complain on them.

Alvin, are you as a seller charged for putting an item up for sale? How much of the Hammered down price does the seller receive?

Yes. In premiere auction, RIAC charges seller 20% on C&R, 17.5% on pre-1899 antique, 25% on non-gun and modern guns. In their regional auction, they charge flat 25%. The charge is on hammer price. Consignor did not see 15% buyer's premium, that has nothing to do with consignor.

So the fee is not low. In the past, I saw people buying expensive guns from them (e.g. C96 Carbine), and selling it via them a year or two later. Those people must lose money, due to as a buyer, he/she paid 15% buyer's premium, and as a seller, he/she paid 20%... with this 35% difference, a $15,000 hammer priced gun has to be sold $20,700 hammer in future session to be flat (15000 x 1.15 x 1.2).

But, if expensive guns were acquired cheaply elsewhere, or bought many years ago, or inherited from family,,,, consigning to them does save owner lots of effort. Especially on high value items.

Hugh, what was the live bidding fee?

I have bought an item or two on proxibid and the smartest, but most expensive items were direct on the phone live with them, but then I ensured I got the item. As I have bid on an item, proxibid said I got it and later in the day it didn't even mention i had won. I was told, someone live there must have bid same amount...

As stated in the invoice:$217.50

yes, I saw that

what does it mean :confused:

That is what they charged me for placing my bid over the internet instead of over the phone or actually being there at the live auction.

interesting - I have been charged extra for on-line bidding by proxibid, but haven't bid through RIA. And proxibid just charges 2-3% more.

If that is RIA charging that, I think its BS, its there site??

OK, today I called IRA and got the skinny - to save the $200+ I should have signed up for the phone service. I could watch the auction on the internet and they would call me just before my item came up on the block. I would place my bid and either raise my bid or dropout for no fee. Like I said this thread was for people to learn about auctions - I learned how to save a couple of hundred. In the future I will not click on the bid button but just tell the person on the other end of the line my intentions...............

RIA charges for everything and I mean everything.

After acquiring Julia Auction, hopefully, Morphy Auction could compete with RIAC on fees and on item qualities.

But collectors are both suppliers and consumers of C&R items, auctioneers are just middle men. If collectors could trade among themselves privately, that is very efficient and does save a lot of fees. Auction service is used only when necessary.

I heard "baby boomers" are retiring at the rate of 10,000 persons per day. I expect more guns will show up on the market over next few years.

I'm sure. It's still very backwards to charge an extra fee for internet bids, but not for keeping their staff on the phone to receive bids. Would make more sense the other way around, wouldn't it? :confused:

I asked the same question and the lady (she operates one of the phones during the auction) said there might be a change in the future but for now that's the way its done.