[Programmes] Programmes and Other Automobilia....

[Aysedasi]

I have an acquaintance (he's more of a friend of my son, who bought an old hot rod off of him). He's a traditional old-style signwriter by trade but has had a side-line for a number of years here in the town where I live. We can loosely call it a 'shop' where he sells all kinds of antiques, from bakelite hairdriers, original dymo machines, old cameras and suchlike, but his stock includes quite a large number of old motor racing programmes - many of them F1 and sportscars. Now Terry is a complete technophobe who doesn't own a computer and....wait for it.....has never been on the internet. His work comes to him by word of mouth and his buying and selling for the shop has always been done in the same vein. After chatting a while just before Xmas, he told me that (being a bit older than me) it was time to get shot of all his stock and I volunteered to test the water for him, perhaps by selling a few programmes and maybe some of his diecasts on Ebay. I had a look at his stuff this morning. The diecasts are not huge in number and are all playworn (to a greater or lesser degree) but the programmes and magazines are mostly in very good condition. He has a large number of Goodwood programmes which he is hoping to sell as a job lot (and he has a Revival contact who he is discussing this with), but, as a GPL addict, my eye was drawn to some of the 1967 (and thereabouts) programmes. He has much older ones too, dating back to the 30's. I've attached a few photos just as an idea of some of the stuff he has. I'm really trying to see if there is a market out there - other than eBay - that could be tapped into?

[Aysedasi]

And a few more.....

[Mike Harte]

Ayse, some items such as the Ecurie Eccose transporter could be worth decent money if sold via a specialist auction.

[Aysedasi]

Yeah Mike, I see that one in particular raises serious money in top condition with box and accompanying vehicles and even a decent amount in relatively poor condition. This one is worn, but actually not at all bad.

[nicanary]

The hassle with programmes is that they fetch better money if sold seperately, but doing it that way is time-consuming and awkward from the point of packaging and posting.

The Brooklands ones will fetch good money if they're genuine and not repros, and maybe an auction would suit those. I just sold my collection at auction (c.250 programmes in A5 binders) of UK national and international meetings 1946-1966 and although the estimate was £100-150 they fetched £660.

Not big money if viewed individually, but I was happy enough.

[Aysedasi]

Not bad at all. I've got a small selection of his programmes which I'll put up separately on Ebay to test the water. He's got some pretty old ones which might raise some interest. But I've made it clear that I'm not spending hours putting up individual programmes only for them to sell at 99p - as you say, it's the hassle afterwards of packing them up and sending them out....

[nicanary]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Not bad at all. I've got a small selection of his programmes which I'll put up separately on Ebay to test the water. He's got some pretty old ones which might raise some interest. But I've made it clear that I'm not spending hours putting up individual programmes only for them to sell at 99p - as you say, it's the hassle afterwards of packing them up and sending them out....

I have never sold stuff at an auctioneers before - I phoned Bonhams who were perfectly polite but pointed out that they normally dealt with higher-end items.

They gave me some names and I used Henry Meadows at Dominic Winters in Cirencester. Very helpful people and a pleasure to do business with. Fees were 15% plus VAT. Might be worth considering putting the whole heap up as a single lot.

[VIVA GT]

I've previously sold a lot of my of car magazines on Ebay and really, it was only that I'd rather someone that wanted them had them that stopped me from just throwing them away. I found it very time consuming listing each copy, detailing the contents and scanning the cover for the picture. Then once sold there is the chore of packaging them and taking them to the Post Office (especially as the one near to where I work is now closed!) I also sold a few overseas and discovered that if \I didn't send them by airmail (expensive), they often just didn't arrive (or so the buyers claimed) meaning a full refund has to be made in order to keep my good feedback score!
I did eventually get rid of a fair percentage of them after re-listing them time & time again, but I did eventually lose interest & dump the ones that were left.
As an aside, and not something I looked into with y magazines, there used to be a company called (I think) Pooks Motor Books in Rothley, Leicestershire (again I think) who sold old documents. If they're still going they may be interested in buying a job lot to re-sell themselves?