Local Auction House No Longer Accepting Consignments Of Glass, Pottery, & Furniture

A local auction house in my area is turning away consignments of glass, pottery, and furniture since according to the owner the market for these items is depressed and they don't want to waste time and space with them. This is not a high end auction house, just a run of the mill place that sells cheap antiques and collectables in weekly sales.

While I fully agree that the market for brown furniture, glassware, and pottery is not the healthiest; it seems a bit drastic to stop accepting these items since they make up such a large percentage of what the typical auction house sells in the normal course of business.

Your thoughts? Is this a good call to avoid low demand items or a poor business decision that will be reversed quickly? This auctioneer is know to be a bit impulsive and a few years back tried to ditch his live sales for online only but failed to gain traction.

 

My thought: this is sad but not surprising.

 

Can't see wholesale rejection but maybe some selectivity. At our consignment shop, we reject 90% of the glass and china that people want to consign. We take maybe 50% of the pottery and most of the furniture (condition may cause some to be rejected). There is a market at retail for some of this. Could see why, at auction, some of what we take and sell might not be worth selling on a monetary/time basis.

 

I think he is cutting off his nose to spite his face.

I go to the same type of auction house & Bill routinely laments that he does not get what he use to a few years back. However, if he cut out all glass, pottery & furniture his auctions would last about 30 minutes at best.

He has always taken whole estates which routinely includes plenty of the above items. He does make sure the family or the person consigning the items understands that some items that would have sold extremely well now just barely sell. However if he did not sell everything he wouldn't have anyone in attendance either to buy the really cool jewelry, sterling, coins art work, furniture, etc. that they also consign.

 

Ack. What's he going to sell, video games? There may be a low rate of return on those items, factoring in overhead, but at most places that's 75% of your business.

 

Just sounds to me like maybe he's getting ready for retirement..

 

I get his thinking.....he's looking to up the item value per lot......but.....well.....it's his house !