Mastro Invoice Shipping?

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Posted By: chris

I just got an invoice from Mastro for two cards I won totalling just over $6,200. They want to charge me $49.06. That is ridiculous...I am sick of their shipping charges and have sent an email to them....sorry for the vent.

chris

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Posted By: barrysloate

My invoice was 13K and the shipping was $104.49. Does sound a bit steep.

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Posted By: Blach

Is insurance included in those shipping charges? If so the amounts look reasonable to me.

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Posted By: Rick

How are they shipping it? Registered Priority Mail for $6200 in coverage would be $19.70. They can't use USPS Insured Mail because the insurance coverage stops at $5000. Express Mail coverage only goes up to $5000. Certainly their "handling" charge for two cards can't be $30 in addition to the postage.
Rick

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Posted By: leon

I don't think that charge is too bad. The USPS would charge more for straight insurance. The package I got yesterday, from USPS, weighing about 1 lb, with 5k in insurance, was $70.25 (overnight Saturday delivery).....and it had been stamped from the PO....that was the actual cost to the person I bought the card from. I know it can be done for a little less depending on how shipped (registered is probably cheapest and best for higher value items)...but under $50 for you shipment doesn't sound that bad to me....regards

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Posted By: jackgoodman

I didn't check their catalog so were their shipping/handling charges disclosed in there? If they weren't, all good questions. If they were, well.................

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Posted By: joe

priority mail with insurance for $6200.00 is $57.80.

Joe

Ty Cobb, Spikes flying!

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Posted By: barrysloate

I can ship two cards registered mail and insured for $6200 and it would cost me maybe $18. I can send the package I won valued at 13K and including a few dozen cards for under $30. It might take a few extra days but it is safe and look at the difference in cost.

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Posted By: scott brockelman

on all of their inventory and purchases and it covers all of the shipping as well. You are just paying their policy.

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Posted By: bruce Dorskind

Many world class auctioneers charge a premium for shipping and handling.
The labor required to pack countless items of varying sizes is expensive,
to say the least.

If one studies the mastro catalog, there is never any mention that shipping
and handling will be invoiced at cost. Again most auction houses and
many antique dealers use this as a profit center. Certainly the costs to
Mastro are well beyond those that they are invoiced by UPS or Fed Ex.

Also note their new policy (from their web site)

New Shipping Info:

Mastro Auctions will no longer utilize the U.S. Post Office for delivery of our auction merchandise due to concerns about the reliability of service. UPS or Federal Express will now handle all shipping. Winning bidders must provide us with a STREET ADDRESS and PHONE NUMBER in order to receive their auction merchandise. Registered bidders can check to make sure their information is current or update it by logging in and clicking the Account button at the top of the page.


Bruce

America's Toughest Want List

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Posted By: Patrick McHugh

Well worth the shipping cost. I have purchased many items from mastonet. Your item will arrive well packed very fast and fully insured. When you think about it people have no problem insuring there 20k car and spending 1k or more year after year. No different with a baseball card which only goes up in value not down. When shipping an item or buying an item to me insurance is money well spent.

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Posted By: chris

Mastro uses UPS, so USPS is not an option. Scott is correct - Mastro uses a private insurance company for their items which covers inbound/outbound shipments. For a package that weighs one pound, $15 for ground or $25-$30 for 2nd day would be more than enough to cover actualy costs(considering they get a discount from UPS) with a healthy 30-50% 'handling' charge. My point is this, assuming the cards are sent 2nd day, the actual 2nd day charge is about $16-$17 their cost. I am getting charged 200% (or $30+) for 'handling'. Furthermore, I spent about 10K with Mile Hile earlier this year on multiple items totaling 2-3 pounds in weight. I was charged $30 for overnight shipping via FedEx. REA in April, same thing, about 7K spent, $25 for 2nd day service.

At some point it starts to near a boiling point...asinine shipping charges, 20% premium, and average consignment rates...

Again, sorry for the rant...its just a little frustrating. I don't mind them making 10...20...percent, make it 30 even on handling charges assisting them offset outside insurance costs, employment, etc...but 200% is excessive.

chris

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Posted By: Cobby33

As if 35% of a $1+ Million auction doesn't cover that?

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Posted By: Matthew

I have only won 2 items in the past couple years but the packaging is not worth the cost charged. The last item I won a couple months back came in with several cards loose in the package with the rest in plastic sleeves or toploaders

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

1. I bet Mastro has a contract with someone for insurance on all of their UPS shipping. So they don't buy individual insurance on your shipments. They pocket that money.

2. Maybe I'm missing my calling, for the bucks that you guys are talking about, I should retire and start a card courier service... I'll get me a pistol and a tank of gas and drive those cards to their new homes.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Guys, with all respect, you know when dealing with Mastro that if they can grab a nickel out of your pocket they're going to grab a dime instead. Maybe two dimes. It's not like with the $75 catalogue, the bait and switch on the BP, etc. that you should be shocked by a more than market shipping costs. Mastro has the best stuff and you just have to suck it up (as I did) when dealing with them or just sit it out.

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Posted By: HarryWallace

I punched in two day shipping with $6,200 insurance. the total fee came to $47.50. $14.80 for shipping, $31.00 for insurance and $1.70 for a fedex fuel surcharge.

Sounds like they base their fees off of fedex's rate. Seems reasonable.

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Posted By: chris

this is true Jeff... this time they took three dimes instead of the usual two...what greed.

Harry, they have outside insurance, no need to pay ups insurance fees...and believe me, outside insurance is not that expensive, probably equates to less than $1 per catalog item.

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Posted By: HarryWallace

Chris. How do you know what their outside insurance charges. $1 per item? Come on? No insurance company is going to take those chances. If the average item in their auction goes for $5,000, there is much more than a 1 in 5,000 change that fedex is going to lose it.

I just think that their if their rates fall in line with fedex then it is not a big deal.

Have you ever won something from Sotheby's? The probably would have charged you more than $100!

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Posted By: scott brockelman

They'd charge $100 just to get it to the shipper! I won a single PSA card one time and it was going to be outrageous to get it shipped to me. The lady on the phone ackowledged I would be much better picking it up. I had a third party do so.

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Posted By: bruce Dorskind

In nearly niche market, one or two competitors invest significant sums
of money so they can build a brand. Generally that brand commands
a large share of the market. The organization that owns the brand
is able to command a premium price for all of its services.

Whilst it is nice to think of baseball cards (and memorabilia) as a hobby,
it is for the dealers and auctioneers and other suppliers a business; one
that is no different than selling stocks, cars or coins and stamps.

In the baseball memorabilia auction business, one could argue that
there are 10 important dealers (seven of whom generate in excess of $2
million a year in auction sales)- the others are niche dealers- who have
wonderful offerings but their sales are relatively small.

If one totals up the prices realized (with the buyer's premiums) for all of the
sports only auctions, the total auction sales is a bit under $80 million

The Mastro total from their six auctions represents 62% of the toal
value of the sports auction market. Of course, that total does not include
a cadre of smaller auctioneers, none-specialist companies who auction
baseball items, and the king of all auctionners, EBAY.

Building and maintaining a brand which "owns" a market is expensive.
Furthermore, Mastro has private equity investors who expect a substantial
return on their initial investment.

Therefore, while it might feel good to complain about the high
auction premiums, the charges for the catalog, or the sevice fees
for shipping and handling, it is all a moot point.

It is unlikely than anyone else in the hobby has the resouces to
take any real market share from Mastro. They are more likely
to continue to raise fees than to lower them. They have the collectors,
they have the brand, and they are determined to make as large a
profit as possible...which, as far as we can tell, is what Christie's (private)
Sotheby's, E Bay and nearly every for profit organization attempts to do.

The only way Mastro will ever lower its fees is if they face competition
from the market which forces them to do so.

Of course, one can avoid the whole issue by providing Mastro with your
company or personal Federal Express account number.,..which is why
we have never paid a dime in shipping fees to Mastro.


Best,


Bruce
America's Toughest Want List

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Posted By: chris

yes i did win an item from sotheby's...they scalp you as well..interestingly, heritage is not that bad even with their high buyers prem...$4300 order and they charged me $21 for overnight...basically, mastro and scp are the only ones that rip you off...every other auction house is on par with appropriate shipping charges...i.e. heritage, rea, mile high, madec, verkman, hunt, goodwin, etc.

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Posted By: chris

Bruce,

Thank you for the thought of using my ups/fedex acct...i will email mastro...

chris

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Posted By: Brett

If I had $6200 to blow on baseball cards just like that, I don't think an extra $49 would be the end of the world.... but thats just me

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Posted By: James Feagin

For reference, my $1250 Mastro wins from their October auction cost me around $40 in shipping. It was about 20 PSA graded cards worth or weight.

James

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Posted By: chris

Brett,

I didn't "blow" 6200....I buy to resell for the most part. If this was my only purchase from them, I wouldn't know better. With better explanation, taking into account all the overages this year from them on shipping, I could have bought a dinner with my wife for Ruth's Chris.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Bruce -- but you still paid Fed Ex for the shipping. Did they insist upon insuring your package with your fed ex number?

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Posted By: chris

If you have outside insurance yourself, they shouldn't...I've emailed them with my UPS acct #..

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

I don't want to sound like I'm defending any auction house or their practices but:

A) They probably have an arrangement where they are responsible for charging the appropriate rate on the insurance and then reimburse the insurance company

B) They self insure the items and they calculate how much of a hit they take on lost or damaged items. I would venture to guess that this doesn't happen often and the result is that they make a little off of this but in the end could you imagine if someone had a $50K item that was lost or damaged? It would take a lot of that self insurance money to cover it.

• $6.2K ($49.06 or about .8% of total value)
  
• $13K ($104.49 or about .8% of total value).
  

You have to figure that they have base shipping charges and the rest of the money would be considered insurance.

Judging by the charges mentioned in the two early posts it appears that the s/h is also based on final value and yes, it seems like the "excess" charge is probably for insuring the package. I would fully expect that if my package was damaged or didn't arrive that the auction house would be responsible for the auction lot item.

Lets figure about .55% for insurance. That would be about $550 to insure $1,000,000 in auction items. I would want to be covered and the $550 for having it insured would seem minimal if you're spending $1M.

Does any of that make sense or should I go back to drinking beer and watching the football game?

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Posted By: bruce Dorskind

Whenever our Fed Ex account is provided to an auctioneer
(including Memory Lane, RLA and Hunt as well as Mastro)
we then request a tracking number and e-mail our insurance
company. The insurance company adds the items to the policy.

They are on our policy as soon as they are picked up by Fed Ex

Generally, we add 15-20% above the winning bid (including premium
and sales tax -where relavent -i.e. NY) so that our deductible is
covered if the item(s) are lost.

We have a small contract with Fed Ex so we enjoybale favorable
rates. We have insured the collection with Chubb since 1977
and enjoy a much better rate than one could obtain for high
end baseball collectibles from a company like Chubb today.

In 20+ years of shipping with Fed Ex, only one item was lost.
It was recovered two weeks later. The auctioneer sent it
to the correct address but the wrong zip code and used his
city rather than NYC

Our rule of thumb then is:

a) Use our Fed Ex account
b) Ask the auctioneer for the tracking number
c) Add the items to our policy - add 20% to the value (assuming they are valuable)
d) Always require that someone sign for the package

Hope this helps

Bruce
America's Toughest Want List

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Posted By: JimB

I agree with Brett. If I am buying a $6200 baseball card, I have other things to worry about than whether Mastro charges $30 or $49 shipping. Sure, they are making a few extra bucks on shipping. Every business that does mail order makes money on shipping. Ebay for baseball cards is the exception, not the rule, in mail order sales.
JimB

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Unless Mastro uses slave labor who do the packaging in Doug Allen's living room, the cost of shipping for Mastro is higher than the postage cost printed on the package.

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Posted By: Cobby33

Nevermind.

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Posted By: chris

Fred,

makes sense...I still believe there is too much overage..

Over the course of a year's time, the additional monies charged is signifcant to me. For example, $100 to me is a lot more than it may be to most on this board I suppose..

thanks for the discussion and as a result I hope to use my own ups or fedex acct for shipment as I have outside insurance coverage...

take care

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Fed Ex does NOT insure cards. The exclusion is written right into their policies. They will take your $$ for insurance but will not pay if the item is lost.

Private insurance for businesses costs a fraction of the cost of USPS or UPS insurance. It is based on the value of the inventory to be insured and the loss history.

If you have private insurance on your collection, odds are that it covers you for losses in transit from auctioneers, dealers and so on provided it is sent with tracking and signature on delivery.

USPS registered will insure cards to a very high limit and is cheap. I sent a $5,000 card across the country for $17.90 insured to value.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

the same rules as FedEx and DHL.....collectibles are a very dicey game. Established pricing is important and on some of the stuff we collect that's one of a kind, it's difficult to really establish price or get replacement value cause they're the only ones. An outside policy or rider on stuff you're both receiving and shipping is the best way to do it. I know the big houses do that.