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Railwayana buyer's premium 'excessive'

I understand there are expenses if you wish an auction house to sell something for you, likewise if something is purchased then possibly post and package costs arise, but to charge 17½ per cent on top of the bid price appears to be a money-making racket.

If in the hall a bid of £15,000 is made for a locomotive nameplate, then at even 15 per cent the auction house gets £2250 for five minutes' work.

A purchaser taking away his purchase is charged an excessive percentage for the privilege, with no costs or effort by the auctioneers for post, transport etc. I assume the seller is also charged the same percentage as the buyer – another excessive percentage added to the purchase price, totalling £4500.

This should be condemned and stopped, or such auction houses boycotted. There must be a cheaper way of selling and purchasing, where buyer or seller don’t throw money away.

Ken Gibbs
Swindon, Wilts

• Geoff Courtney, railwayana specialist for Heritage Railway, replies: Ken has highlighted a subject which has caused vexation within the movement, and is still an ongoing cause of complaint within some circles. Indeed, as a regular buyer at railwayana auctions, I often find myself paying the buyer’s premium, none more so than when I successfully bid for a steam locomotive nameplate and had £1500 added to my winning £15,000 bid – ironically at Sheffield Railwayana’s first auction after it had introduced the premium.

So it would be both easy and tempting to agree with Ken, but I don’t. I think he is being unfair to dismiss what the auction houses do as a “money-making racket” for “five minutes' work.”

They have considerable overheads before the auction even starts, such as collecting items from the vendors (the sellers), paying for their storage and insurance before the auction and transporting them to the auction, advertising, research into every lot entry in the catalogues, writing the entries, printing and posting the catalogues (which in most cases are now free), venue hire (collectors are understandably demanding better and better facilities, and these cost
big money), and  paying porters and other staff on the day of the auction. Then there is of course paying the auction house principals’ salaries, for today these auctions are a business, and rightly so. The days of them being a hobby and merely a sideline are gone.

Yes, those of us who buy may regard the premium as a pain, but
I strongly believe that if it hadn’t been introduced, we collectors would have fewer sales to attend, as some of the auction houses would at best have quit the live auction scene to concentrate on internet selling, or at worst perhaps have closed down entirely. Their overhead costs are ever increasing while many of the prices realised are either stagnant, or going down. The figures for the auction houses simply wouldn’t have added up if they had continued to rely solely on the commission paid by the vendors.