2 Jun
2012
2 Jun
'12
8:51 p.m.
I think this guy did as good a job and doesn't owe
the amount that Sotheby's
charges. ?In the computer area they don't have experts I'd pay their buyer's
premium to have.
But they do have experts in other areas of antique technology, such as
scientific instruments, guns, and clocks - the basic ideas of the
history are the same. And these experts are very well aware that they
should seek and find experts if they can not find ones in house.
?My point is I'd rather have someone hunted down
either
here or thru contacts here explaining the provenance than them.
Sure, you would rather do it that way, but the fact remains that there
is a gulf of difference between provenance an individual can establish
and provenance a big auction house establishes.
If they do it and say they did I just don't see
why that makes it any
better. ?If they handled the volume of collectable computers to have people
on staff who are as knowledgeable as this group that would be one thing, but
there is not.
This mostly does not matter. The people with the money put a lot of
weight on the value of big auction house provenance. That provenance
is as good as gold.
i'd go to one of the computer museum people here,
for instance or a serious
collector such as you and line up the experts and document it.
And this is what the people at the auction houses do - they realize
that they are not experts of everything, an will reach out to get the
information they need. Even the people at Antiques Roadshow do this.
If Sotheby's starts to demonstrate they can
regularly deliver the market to
support $100k apple 1's then they deserve the business. ?but a guy like the
one with the current listing is doing a pretty good job on his own and Ebay
is finding the market.
I do not deny this. I wish him the best of luck.
--
Will