Everyone has their own views on this; here are mine.
1. If you have a unique, important item consign it to the auction house that will have the most people see it. That means one of the big ones with a fancy catalog and a huge mailing list.
2. If you have good items but ones that will already be plentiful in the big auction catalogs consign it to a still solid but smaller auction house. Why add another mid-grade Aaron rookie to a catalog that will probably already have ten?
3. Consign lower value items to smaller auction houses, perhaps even those without catalogs. They will have smaller bidding pools but be realistic--small items are not worth the big boys time and you will not get the best service for these.The owners of these small auctions consign their own cards to the big auctions which should tell you all you need to know.
4. For good or great items not only should you not be paying a seller's premium, you should be getting back a portion if the buyer's premium. How much? That depends on what you have and the deal you can negotiate.
5. Read the contracts the auction houses send and if there are clauses you find troublesome try to get them eliminated. Those contracts are starting points, those words are not carved in stone.
6. Find an auction house whose staff you like and trust. Ask yourself, if my consignment is lost or damaged do I think the auction house will compensate me fairly. This last item pares the list down quite a bit for me.
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