[mechanicalman]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

With regard to commissions, many of the AHs will waive it for a good consignment or consignor. If the item is really great, some will waive it and split the BP with the consignor. You just have to call around and negotiate. If a particular AH won't budge, your consignment is probably not a desirable one for that house.

As for the phony baloney sales techniques like giving a discount and then reclaiming it with BS fees and costs, that's my point exactly: the purpose of using a hammer price + BP rather than just a single price with a commission is to confuse confusable people. Remember, 50% of the people in the bidding pool are dumber than the average of the pool and at least one of them is the dumbest one there. Just like the car sales example, the more the AH confuses them with [gasp] math, the more likely it is that someone will overbid by failing to consider the BP. FWIW I think that is also why AHs don't always use round bid increments and easily calculated BP percentages. If you gotta bid 10% compounded and then figure a 23% BP (20% if paid by check), you are doing some algebra or you are just winging it. The more difficult it is to calculate the total cost of a bid on the fly the more likely it is that some of the mathematically-challenged out there will screw up and bid that next increment over budget. If you as an AH then charge 1% of the total price for insurance even though you have a flat rate general insurance policy and tack on mega charges for 'handling' and shipping which you reduce only for the people who whine (bet they'd have demanded that '33 Lajoie too), you are making money hand over fist. And if you are really ambitious, you can even offer to finance your dealers at say a point a month collateralized by their next consignment. But I digress...

I simply can't buy your assertion that people who have the disposable income to spend hundreds and thousands on baseball cards are too stupid to do the mental math on a 20% tip.