Recently I took Laurie to a toy auction. While Laurie has been to a good number toy shows and flea markets, she has not been to many auctions. I want to show how I handle an auction as compared to a show or flea market. At a toy show or flea market, I will look at an item and decided based on the price the dealer is asking if I will buy the item or not. At an auction, you have to decide how much you are willing to spend on an item or a lot. One thing you need to take into consideration the buyer’s premium, which nearly all auctions charge. Because you do not know what your potential opponent will spend you, you have to know when to quit and avoid a bidding war.
We got to the auction before it started and reviewed the various lots I was interested in. I showed one lot to Laurie of six inch soldiers and showed her that only thing of interested were the two Marx Gold Marx of the U.S. Army sitting firing the rifle. After registering to bid we sat with a friend and talked until the auction started.
The auctioneer quickly went through the lots not fooling around which I liked. I bid on one lot when the price dropped $2.50 and won it at that price. I was going to bid on another lot with Marx presidents and some Hubert Humphrey figures, but stopped when I heard the opening bid was $40.00. The six inch figures I mention went for $30.00. I got two lots I was interested with figures, but lost a lot that had Marx and Auburn figures in it. The bid hit my limit so I quit.
I like junk lots as I get a challenge of can I get my money back. My friend look at the junk lot that I bought for $2.50 and pulled out a figure and asked me what it was. It was a woman with a bowler hat. I immediately recognized it as the one of the figures from the Love boat playset. I later found I had forty figures from the set, which paid for the box and gave me a profit. Also in the box was a Gay Toys Fireman and two Atlantic military figures.
It was a fun time and we hope to do it again.
This coming Saturday is Joseph Saine’s annual Toy Soldier Auction, held in metropolitan Detroit, in conjunction with the Michigan Toy Soldier Show the next day. It’s the third one in a row I’ve attended, and they are definitely fun, providing you’ve got a little money to join in the excitement of bidding. Unfortunately, I’ve gotton carried away in the past on a couple of items I really wanted, because the bidding can get your competitive juices flowing. I’ve gotten a few bargains, though, and a few times I wisely dropped out when the bidding got too rich for my blood. Joseph Saine puts up his website a photo of each toy soldier lot, and if you’re interested you can google “Joseph Saine toy soldier auction Michigan” and see a nice photo of each of the three hundred lots he’s offering this year. It seems to be mostly metal this year, but in prior years had a heavy component of plastic, including Barzso and Conte playsets. The great thing about the auctions is that if you see something you really feel you have to have, you can get it, if you want it bad enough.
Don
The only plastic lots are at 165 to 168.
I stay at my limit unless I get into a spitting war. These get nasty. I try to avoid them as much as possible.