Selling an expensive collectable

[padraicpaul91]

As sales have dropped for my cheaper items, I have been listing some of my rare, hard to get collectables. However, I am reluctant to list those in the $1000 and up range. This is due to my fear of them falling into the hands of ebay scammers who make false claims. These harder to get items mostly end up in the US. I've been burnt once before and obviously wish to avoid this happening again.

Do readers have srategies to lessen this possibility.

[chameleon54]

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@padraicpaul91 wrote:

Thanks for all the replies. Unfortunately, as I have written, these higher priced collectables almost always go to the US/Canada or Europe/UK. That rules out local pick up or facebook marketplace.

I have considered auction houses but the trouble is that I have not come across one that specialises sufficiently in my niche and  they lack the critical mass of buyers.

That leaves collectors sites, but do I need to tell any of you how tight **bleep**d that bunch are? I generally make about 50% more on ebay, without the hand wringing and protestations of poverty.

Maybe I'll just have to take the risk, when I get desperate.

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I sell rare / unusual collectables up to a value of around $500 on ebay. Like yours, they go all over the world. Today I have just packed one to U.S and another to Japan. Other than describing well with planty of photos and faults clearly photographed and described, packing well and using tracking for more expensive items, I dont take any special precautions.

I might pay AP insurance if an item is worth several hundred dollars, depending on how I feel on the day. I cant remember when I last had a problem with selling and mailing rare collectables. Buyers are usually pretty genuine and dont want to burn their bridges as far as other similar items I may offer in the future. Any problems I do have on ebay are usually for more generic items, selling to non specialist buyers.

As for really expensive items worth several thousand dollars, I list these with auction houses that run specialist auctions in the field. You may have to contact a number of auction houses and wait 6 or 12 months for an auction specialising in your particular field, but usually one of the big auction houses, somewhere in Australia will have something eventually. If the items are highly collectable, the auction house staff will be keen to keep you on their books, as they are always looking for the highest quality key items to be features in their sales. Any of the decent auction houses will have live internet bidding and have buyer contacts in specialist fields.

 Probably my most succesful transaction using specialist auctions was a pair of antique books purchased for $1000 from an overseas seller on ebay, which later sold through an Australian specialist book auction for $4500........ 

Another option is to sell through a quality, well known specialist trader in your field. Some of these experts sell quality items on a commission basis, as they like to regularly present rare items to their clients. It improves their standing in the collectable field and benefits you at the same time. These sellers usually charge around 30% commission and while this is higher than ebay, they often can ask a premium price for the item in the first place as they have the wealthiest, top end buyers in the field on their buying lists. I have sold some super rare items this way and achieved some exceptional prices.