County Philatelic Auctions

Bidding Guide

 

5000+ lots of GB and Foreign stamps every 2-3 months

Realistic prices – accurate descriptions – efficient service

Backed by 40 years of integrity and fair dealing

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Guide to successful bidding - losing by one bid step can be very disappointing.

 

·                Bid that little bit more - bidding more does not automatically mean paying more.  With County you can bid £20 on a £10 lot and still get it at around £10 or less.   However, we recommend you do not bid more than you really want to pay in case another bidder also puts in a high bid to make sure he gets the item too.  (Some browsers do not display the UK Pounds currency symbol correctly so whatever you see as ‘£’ means UK Pounds).

 

·                Bid early  - If we get 2 equal bids on a lot, the first one received wins.

 

·                Bid on many lots - The more you bid on, the greater your chance of success. 

 

To avoid spending too much and keep within a budget, you can specify a total limit (excluding postage/handling/card charges).  We simply stop buying for you when you reach your limit.    If requested we attempt to allocate your limit to lots in the order you listed your bids.

 

·                Use our ‘+’ option   A ‘+’ placed by a bid, increases it by one step (5-10%) (++ means by 2 steps).  We use this option only if you would otherwise not get the item.  

·                Example:  If we get two bids at £10 and £10+, the + is used and the second bid is increased by one bid step to £10.50 to beat the £10 bid received earlier.

·                Example:  If these same bids are received in the reverse order, £10+ & £10; the first wins at £10  (‘+’ not used this time as the first £10 wins anyway).

 

·                Bid at realistic levels - we estimate at the price we expect the lot to fetch.   Over the last year the sum of all our realised prices and the sum of the corresponding estimates agreed within 2%.   While individual lots may sell for more or less than our estimate it indicates that overall we are estimating accurately.   

 

Some auction companies have a different pricing policy.  Some might estimate a lot at £120 and then sell it at £80.  With the County pricing structure we would probably estimate that same lot at around £85-£90 but still not expect to sell it below £80.   Consequently bids much below our estimate are not accepted (indeed, except the clearance section, the computer automatically rejects bids less than 80% of the estimated price – bids below that waste our time and yours).

 

Other auction houses may estimate very low with the intention of attracting bidders to their sale room.   A low estimate does not mean a low price.   Recently a public auction advertised a mint PUC £1 estimated at £80.  They got many bidders to the sale but it still fetched over £350.  In County we would simply have estimated it at £350 in the first place.

 

·                NO buyer’s premium – please allow for it - many auction houses charge a buyer’s premium and an £80 hammer price has 15%+VAT added.  On top of that there may be postage, packing, VAT, insurance or other charges which could bring the final amount to £95 or more.   The County equivalent price is £80 + post/packing =£81.34 (this assumes a small sized lot and UK 1st class postage).    This means you can bid 10%-15% more with County than in many other auctions and still pay less.

 

With County you can bid with confidence.

 

Over 95% of our customers rely on our descriptions and estimates.  However all lots can be viewed at the Basingstoke Stamp Fair on the Saturday before the Sale.

 

Right Material - Right price - Write now - Right!