The Auction Whisperer

Upcoming Auction – Jan. 1-3, 2013

Anne — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 07:30:39 +0000

January 1 – 9:00 AM Pacific Time, January 2 – 2:00 PM Pacific Time, January 3 – 2:00 PM Pacific Time.

Hosted by Time & Again Auction Gallery, 1416 East Linden Ave., Linden, NJ, 07036. Tel. 908-862-0200.

22% Buyer’s Premium. Online bids accepted at liveauctioneers.com and Proxibid.com, just to name two. Auction being held at the gallery.

Includes items from Commodore Perry’s estate. Also high end porcelain, art glass, pottery, paintings by listed artists, fine furniture and much more.

Upcoming Auction – January 1, 2013

Anne — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 06:56:09 +0000

5:45 AM Pacific Time

Hosted by GovernmentAuction.com, 20272 Valley Blvd., Tehachapi, CA, 93561. Tel. 661-823-1543.

15% Buyer’s Premium. Online bids accepted at liveauctioneers.com.

Sale includes high end jewelry, antiques, art, gold coins.

The Man in the Moon

Anne — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 05:49:17 +0000

When I was a little kid, I was fooled into thinking there really was a man in the moon. When I became a teenager, it was just a well worn expression – there was no man in the moon. Thirty days before I turned 21, on July 20, 1969, once again, there really was a man in the moon. His name was Neil Armstrong.

Marco Polo, Ferdinand Magellan, Vasco de Gama, Lewis & Clark and all the other famous explorers pale in comparison. Thanks, Commander Armstrong, for a spectacular ride!

Anne Benedetto 08/25/2012

Victim of a Stroke

Anne — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 02:33:10 +0000

Anyone checking our site on a regular basis will notice that I have not been posting. There’s a reason for this.

My husband, Dick, the number one most important person in my life for the last 28 years, suffered a brain hemorrhage and a stroke this past Mother’s Day. I was told by the admitting physician that they did not expect him to survive, because they were unable to control his escalating blood pressure. They were anticipating a second bleed in the same area. The doctor made it clear that a second bleed would be fatal.

Both the bleed and the stroke were caused by chronic hypertension with no underlying cause. He spent three weeks in the hospital, most of it in ICU, and is now at the end of his third week at a nearby rehabilitation center.

He is going to survive; not surviving was never an option for me. He was fortunate in that, other than a minor change in his vision, he had no outward signs of either the bleed or the stroke.

My husband is no stranger to adversity. He has had non-specific idiopathic peripheral neuropathy for 30 years. This disease attacks the nerves and, over time, causes muscle atrophy. Severe pain is always present, although Dick has never once complained. Since his ability to get around was already compromised, he needed and still needs physical therapy to get him back to where he was before.

His goal is to return to his movies, his audio books, our scooter rides that we do together in our neighborhood and his occasional cigar. As his neuropathy has worsened over the years, restricting his ability to do many of the physical things he used to enjoy, Dick has always easily adapted to doing less taxing activities that he can perform comfortably. Never once has he ever felt sorry for himself concerning the continuing frustration he experiences day in and day out just doing simple tasks.

I have never been one to use the word “hero” lightly. In my opinion, that title is reserved for our military, law enforcement, firefighters and every day citizens who will risk all to help save a perfect stranger.

I do not use that word lightly now when I say my husband is my personal hero. He has always been brave but never more than he is right now. I cannot wait to have him home again. I have spent every single day by his bedside – it pains me to be away from him even for a minute because I came so close to losing him.

His sense of humor, his strength and his love for me is evident with every painful move he makes in his therapy sessions. Even his therapists, who usually go to great lengths to remain detached, can’t help but open their hearts to Dick.

SPECIAL NOTE:

Those of you who want to purchase our $10 Guide to Selling at Auction rest assured that I check our sales every night and email the guides as quickly as possible. Thanks to all the people who have emailed me to tell me how helpful this guide has been to them.

As soon as I get the big guy home, I have lots of interesting information to post. I really appreciate your visits to our site and your understanding during this very difficult time.

6/22/2012 Written by Anne Benedetto

Enjoy Memorial Day but Remember…

Anne — Sat, 26 May 2012 23:44:09 +0000

Memorial Day

Anne — Thu, 10 May 2012 04:10:31 +0000

If you are reading this, thank a teacher. If you are reading this in English, thank a soldier.

We would like to take a moment to remember all those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of not only our great nation, the United States of America, but in defense of other countries as well. Countries that were not able to defend themselves. There are no words we can write, no deeds we can perform, to properly honor such bravery. We are definitely the land of the free, BECAUSE of the brave.

Here is the oath taken by all soldiers:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

Here is an excerpt from John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech:

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.”

That pretty much says it all for me.

GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and Audie Murphy. If you don’t know who Audie Murphy is, shame on you.

05/10/2012 Written by Anne Benedetto

The Kentucky Derby – The Run for the Roses

Anne — Sun, 06 May 2012 05:31:03 +0000

Seabiscuit

How about that niece of mine, Anne Benedetto? She actually agreed to let me ruin her wonderful auction related website. She is allowing me to write a weekly column. She’s the Secretariat of nieces and her husband Dick is the Seabiscuit of nephews. Now there was a couple of fabulous horses.

Late this afternoon, I watched the 138th Run for the Roses - the 2012 Kentucky Derby. Oh, please, please and please. It left me so lethargic I was barely able to take any nourishment at dinner. I know what you’re thinking. I’m 86 years old so how lively can I be? A heck of a lot more lively than that field of 20 carousel horses I saw at Churchill Downs today. Each lady there could have saved the price of her hat.

Not only is our beloved country in decline, (I’ll discuss that in another article), but so is horse breeding. I guess no one has a real eye anymore for good horse flesh. There may be a couple of non-stoppable horses out there but no one has had enough brains to “discover” them, like Jerry Lewis discovered Connie Stevens. Again, I know what you’re thinking but, yes, Connie Stevens has talent.

Had I been lucky enough to have a daughter, I would have named her Connie and would have called her Cricket, after Ms. Stevens’ character in the Warner Bros. classic TV show, Hawaiian Eye. So, instead, I will call all my Internet friends, “my little crickets.” I might have used “possums,” but Dame Edna beat me to it.

Well, my little crickets, back to horse racing. What was it that trainer Tom Smith saw when he first looked at Seabiscuit? What made Penny Chenery Tweedy decide to breed Bold Ruler and Somethingroyal, which produced Secretariat?

I was 12 years old when Seabiscuit humiliated War Admiral in their 1938 Match Race. I didn’t get to see the race but I did get to listen to it on the radio. I was also lucky enough to be at Belmont Park in 1973 when Secretariat humiliated every other horse in the field by beating his closest competitor by 31 lengths. An impossible feat until that day. No one can really be sure, but the experts say that the track record “Big Red” established that day during that race will never be broken. His Kentucky Derby record still stands as well.

Will we ever see horses like this again? I sure hope so but time is running out for me, my little crickets. Although I never actually saw Seabiscuit, I was still impressed by his accomplishments. Secretariat was a little different. Him I saw and a more regal looking horse never graced a track. He stole my heart that day and the hearts of everyone else in the stands. He was magnificent.

Even the Associated Press fell in love with ”Big Red” - the only non-human to make their list of the Top 100 Athletes of All Time.

05/07/2012 by Aunt Bessie

Florida Auctioneers – Summer Convention

Anne — Sun, 06 May 2012 00:12:09 +0000

ANNOUNCEMENT

The Florida Auctioneers Association’s Summer Convention is being held this June 14, 2012 and June 15, 2012. For further information and a registration form, click here. Telephone number is 321-267-8563 and fax number is 321-383-3147.

Starting an Antiques and Collectibles Auction Business: Avoiding Failure

Anne — Fri, 04 May 2012 06:02:43 +0000

The new business survival rates, as reported by the Small Business Administration, are actually more promising than what people have been telling us. Seven out of ten new businesses survive for at least two years and a little over fifty percent survive for up to five years.

If you can avoid the obvious pitfalls, the top two reasons why businesses fail, then your odds at success increase substantially. The first reason is poor management. You can’t be expected to know everything. Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses and ask for help in the areas where you fall short.

It’s easy to just go out and hire whomever you need to give you the best fighting chance, but in reality that is just not practical. You have got to watch your costs. Perhaps you have friends with management experience who would be willing to give you advice or even do some temporary consulting.

The second reason why businesses fail is lack of capital. How long should you save before you start your business? Is it five years, ten years or longer? That’s not very practical either. You have to be willing to borrow money if that’s what you need to do. Borrowing money from friends or family is not a good idea, unless there is no other option available to you.

If you do go this route, be sure to treat them as if they were a professional lending institution. Do not take advantage of the personal relationships you have with your benefactors. No late payments, no skipping payments, no whining in general.

Not only do you need enough initial capital to either buy an existing auction house or start your own, you must have enough operating expenses to keep your business going. The auction business can be especially difficult on your wallet, at least in the beginning.

Remember that most of your sales will come from consignments. You are not selling products that carry a substantial mark-up. You are operating your business on a percentage of the total sales plus a buyer’s premium. On average, you are looking at collecting roughly 30 to 40 percent of the items you sell for other people.

This percentage is not a constant. Some of your auctions will do much better than others. The total revenue take for an auction depends on whether you have a good crowd and whether you have good merchandise or mediocre merchandise. Thirty percent of a thousand dollar item is three hundred dollars. Not a bad return on a single item. However, thirty percent of a ten-dollar item is only three dollars. You won’t be paying too many bills with three dollars.

You also must consider that, in the auction business, the only time you make money is during the three or four hours when the auction is actually taking place. The rest of the time, you are doing prep work. If you have to cancel an auction due to a hurricane, for example, then you have made no money and will make no money until you have that auction. You must have enough funds set aside to pay your bills. Unfortunately, the bills keep coming whether you have an auction or not.

If you find yourself falling behind, consider changing how frequently you have auctions. Running once a week or every two weeks brings in a lot more money than just running once a month. Obviously you and your staff would have to work much harder if you increase the number of auctions but it is better than the alternative.

Every new business is a risk but one must take risks in order to reach a certain level of success. There are thousands of auction houses all across the country that have been in business for a very long time. So, be positive, start with as much money as you can and, above all else, manage wisely.

05/04/2012 by Anne Benedetto

Starting an Antiques and Collectibles Auction Business: Sole-Proprietorship

Anne — Fri, 04 May 2012 05:51:29 +0000

Choosing a business structure is important. When you decide to start a business, it is one of the first things you need to do. It will dictate how you conduct business and it will also determine how you file your federal income tax returns with the IRS.

There are roughly six different options available to you. They are: limited partnership, general partnership, sole-proprietorship, limited liability company, corporation and S corporation.

For the most part, an auction house with a single owner and a single location are almost always set-up as a sole-proprietorship. In addition to being the easiest, it eliminates the expenses associated with forming a corporation. However, every rose has its thorn.

Under this business structure, the owner has unlimited liability for all debts associated with the auction house. This means that your personal assets are not protected. Should your auction business fail, your creditors can come after not just your business assets but your personal property as well.

When filing your tax returns, your business income, along with any business losses, are reported on your individual tax return. It is added to any other earnings you may have including your spouse’s, if you are married and filing jointly.

A number of sole-proprietors in the auction industry are actually husband and wife teams. If this is going to be the case with you, you must pick either you or your spouse to be the official owner of record. The other person must be treated as an employee. The one selected to be the employee can have whatever title is necessary to show that he or she is in a position of authority.

The spouse that is the employee is paid a regular salary and therefore must have all applicable payroll taxes deducted from his or her paychecks.

The other spouse, the actual owner, cannot be paid a salary. However, this person can take a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly draw against profits. No taxes are to be deducted from such draws.

The business must make estimated tax deposits to the IRS each and every quarter. The amount of money you owe at the end of the year will be offset by these payments. It is up to you or your accountant to determine the appropriate amount to be deposited every three months. You will either owe money or be due a refund when it is time to file your tax return.

With a sole-proprietorship, you do not have the same debt protection as you would if you were a corporation, so you may want to seriously consider obtaining business liability insurance.

05/04/2012 by Anne Benedetto