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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Publius2, post: 8149564, member: 105571&quot;]I presume you would agree with the general premise that every for-profit business has to garner a profit in order to stay in business?&nbsp; (I exclude the airlines because that is a business that seems to perennially lose money yet still stay in business.)&nbsp; I am not sure what you mean by the term &quot;consignment fee&quot; but I&#039;m assuming you mean a fee charged to the item&#039;s owner, often called a &quot;seller&#039;s fee&quot;.&nbsp; That fee is often based upon the estimated value of the owner&#039;s item.&nbsp; At most coin auction houses, the fee is non-negotiable for items below a certain value and is otherwise based upon a value table or is negotiable.&nbsp; If an item is of significant numismatic interest and/or will generate &quot;buzz&quot; for the auction house, they will often do a special deal on the seller&#039;s fees or waive them entirely.</p><p><br /></p><p>The historical model for traditional auction houses is that they take a percentage piece of the hammer price, called a &quot;buyer&#039;s premium&quot;.&nbsp; That applies to farm auctions, car auctions, estate sales, etc.&nbsp; The rationale for this is to align the auction house&#039;s interests with those of the item&#039;s owner.&nbsp; The owner&#039;s interest is to achieve the highest price and so is the auction house&#039;s-when one makes more money, so does the other.&nbsp;&nbsp; Since there has never been a legally-binding fiduciary responsibility on the part of the auction house to the item&#039;s owner, the premium has been used as a means of aligning the two parties&#039; interests.&nbsp; Note that, other than contractual/legal terms and good business sense, the auction house is under no mechanism nor obligation for aligning the buyer&#039;s interests with theirs.&nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>So, the Buyer&#039;s Premium serves to provide the auction house with the revenue needed to cover all of its expenses plus a profit.&nbsp; I fail to see why that should be in any way controversial.&nbsp; It is certainly not &quot;ripping anyone off&quot;.&nbsp; The terms and conditions of each auction house are normally well advertised, they certainly are for Heritage Auctions.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, to the OP&#039;s complaint.&nbsp; Heritage Auctions is a lousy place to buy low value coins and that is partly due to their relatively high BP, high shipping costs, and minimum BP ($29 minimum, regardless of the hammer price.).&nbsp; There are other, better venues for this part of the market.&nbsp; I think the OP just got surprised because he had not previously researched the market he decided to join and got an unexpected (to him) result.&nbsp; That happened to me a few months ago with a low value coin from Heritage where I ran into the minimum $29 BP.&nbsp; I posted on that and there was no one to blame for that surprise but me.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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