Goes to 22% on Jan 1. You'd think that the success of Great Collections would give them and SB a hint. My more recent consignments have gone to GC. Mike
Talk about greed, don't they also charge a percentage to consign a coin. Maybe they feel everything else is going up, so let's do it because we can. I wonder how much of a bump in pay their employees got.
Yeah, my belly gets warm over that thought. The collectibles I bought might be getting boost... Hopefully it's not short lived
I held my nose when it went from 15% to 20% with a $29 minimum. At 22% the stench will probably be too much for me. If anything I'll just drop my bids by another 2%, the sellers will be going elsewhere because of that, and I'll see fewer coins I'm even interested in on there. It's always been a place for higher end stuff but I think they overestimate the number of people out there who just throw money around.
I've avoided Heritage for a long time now. Between their buyers fee and higher shipping/handling fee the total can add up to close to 30% for lower priced coins. I would only put in bids of 70% of market and walk away when the bids exceeded that. I recently sold my Indian Head Cent registry set at GC and my sellers fees totaled less than 5% (coins bid over $1K were charged no seller fee and those under $1K 5%; ~$5/coin for a listing fee). I was more than happy with all of the bids.
It's hard for me to blame Heritage. Almost every company is having a hard time controlling operating cost. What some think is greed, can also just be a company trying to keep the doors open. If they don't raise prices they have to start sending workers home. Everyone in this hobby is having to adjust prices. I believe long term collectors are probably doing better than most if they are selling. Those that are buying seem to be taking the most risk. Just my opinion.
And I'm betting that with a $5 listing fee, GC is not overrun with rotting Zincolns, parking-lot errors, "RARE NO MINT MARK" business strikes from the 1970s...
Yeah, that will be my strategy for bidding too. Decide the max I will pay, then max bid is 1/[1 + buyer’s premium as a fraction]. If max total is $1,000 and premium is 20%, then max bid is 1000/1.2 = 833. 833 x 0.2 = 167. 833+167 = 1000. I don’t see any justification for the increase. The main expense difference between GC and Heritage/SB is that GC doesn’t send out paper catalogs. I often don’t look at these … they get recycled. There are higher res pics online. They often use pics from the grading services. Maybe pay a fee for it but probably cheaper than taking their own pics. These days, almost all their live auctions are held in their own facilities … much cheaper than holding them in distant hotels and convention centers like they did pre-covid. It’s ironic that much of Heritage’s success is due to early adoption of internet use. However, clinging to the old paper catalog model as well may start to cost them. Mike
I can't pretend to know what is the "main" difference in expenses but here's a major difference between GC and competitors Heritage and Stack's: Heritage and Stack's will attribute a coin that has a die marriage and a rarity in their catalog listing. This makes a major difference in the coin's marketing. They will also discuss the coin's grading attributes and often compare to others of its ilk. GC treats every coin as if it's a generic and offers no opinions regarding the coin's comparison to others. It takes staff to offer those extra services and staff costs money. Now, those extra services may not be of value to some collectors but for some it can make a difference. OTOH, an undeclared rarity might reside in a GC auction offering the diligent and prepared collector the opportunity to snag something really desirable at a good price. I suspect that Heritage is simply increasing fees because its costs have increased and it is protecting its profit margin.
This was also discussed on Collectors Universe. As I shared on there. About 20 years ago Heritage was upping it's fees from 15% to 17.5%. At the time I asked a vest pocket dealer I know what effect he thought that would have. He said little or none because most collectors are more interested in the quality of material being brought to market rather than what fees are involved. Like Brian said, "As long as they can find excellent coins they can pretty much do as they like." It really does not effect me much currently. The $29 base charge is staying the same. 90% of my current collecting interests fall at or near that baseline so any adjustments to bids I have to make only invlove a few dollars. It is true that Heritage identifies varieties while Great Collections goes with whatever is on the holders but there is a price line. I cherry picked 8 coins this year. 5 at Great Collections. 3 at Heritage. However, we are talking coins that are under the $500 dollar mark even with the variety added. Heritage doesn't care about small fish like me or the coins i collect. James
Heritage boasted at midyear that they had record first half sales … almost a billion dollars. I believe coin prices have increased due in part to increased PM prices. Hard to believe that their profit margins have gone down even if some expenses went up. Mike
Heritage no longer does the fluffy descriptions for most of the lower end coins. Something like this key date 1948 Canadian dollar currently $3720 for example (https://coins.ha.com/itm/canada/can...ge-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyTrackedLots-101116) doesn't say much of anything, whereas they used to pump it up in the description. I don't know what their costs are but it's difficult to fathom how they're not raking it in even at 20% when GC when paid by eCheck is only 10%. You do have that option with Heritage but now if paying by cc it's 25% plus higher shipping costs. GC seems to be doing quite well.
One other point, and I'm not trying to be an apologist for Heritage. GC, to my knowledge, only sells coins and paper money. Coins are only a part of Heritage's action. I don't know which parts of their business cross-subsidize other parts.
