Tarisio Auctions - General Question not specific to any specific listings

[jacklinks]

Who are the primary customers buying at auctions like Tarisio (both the Fine Instruments listings and the T2 listings)?  Are these primarily broker/dealers looking to sell to shops who in turn sell to customers; shops purchasing to sell directly to their customers; individuals looking to flip them for a small profit; and/or individuals looking to buy directly hoping to get a good deal even if they do not have the opportunity to play them in advance. 

I suppose the answer is all of the above, but which group are the majority of the buyers in?

Many of the bidders seem to bid on a lot of listings and actively participate in every auction. 

[germain]

Anyone really... Yes many dealers and collectors but also last weekend for example there were parents looking at violins for their kids, a group of college students from Curtis, a teacher looking for instruments for her student... just a few examples. 

[Landolfi]

Or someone like me!

[Guido]

From what I gather auctions used to be a 'wholesale' market where dealers and shops got part of their stock. The general rule of thumb was that retail prices would be about double the auction prices.

Over the last couple of decades the online auctions have really started to appeal to what would formerly have been retail clients. Obviously, this strategy promised higher prices and premiums for the auction houses and still lower prices for the customers. Cut out the middle man.

These days you would have a $12,000 violin in the shop and a customer tell you that it's overpriced because he has seen one of these at auction for $8,000, or worse still, seen the actual violin at auction for $8,000, completely ignoring the premium, shipping, import duties and possibly repairs/ set-up work before the instrument was offered in the shop.

Looks like Amber Violins want to appeal to dealers and shops by removing any trace of the instruments from the internet immediately after the auction to avoid the above scenario.

Now the information asymmetry bites the other way as many customers don't understand the value that a shop adds.

 

[jacklinks]

Thank you for the responses. It seems that some of the Tarisio prices end up at or above what might be retail in some cases. But I could be wrong on that.

[Brad Dorsey]

On ‎11‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 9:35 PM, jacklinks said:

Who are the primary customers buying at auctions like Tarisio...?... 

I don't know who they are, but a friend who is a regular T2 consignor told me that they told him that 90% of their buyers do not view the sales -- i.e., they go solely by the pictures on the website -- and many of them are east Asian.

[Dwight Brown]

I am a player/collector of very little importance.  I have used Tarisio to buy violas and bows.  In a few cases there have been instruments that I thought were undervalued that I bought and have been quite pleased with. I can say that all of my dealings with Tarisio have been positive.  They have always treated me as if I actually mattered and have gone out of their way to help.

 

DLB

[deans]

My experience mirrors Dwight's. Maybe a couple cases of buyers remorse out of a dozen or so purchases. But it was no fault of the auction house. And these were offset by some very happy outcomes.

[jacklinks]

4 hours ago, Dwight Brown said:

I am a player/collector of very little importance.  I have used Tarisio to buy violas and bows.  In a few cases there have been instruments that I thought were undervalued that I bought and have been quite pleased with. I can say that all of my dealings with Tarisio have been positive.  They have always treated me as if I actually mattered and have gone out of their way to help.

 

DLB

 

4 hours ago, deans said:

My experience mirrors Dwight's. Maybe a couple cases of buyers remorse out of a dozen or so purchases. But it was no fault of the auction house. And these were offset by some very happy outcomes.

 

Thank you both for the comments. Have you found more success/failure on regular Tarisio or T2? I mean success/failure in the sense of the value you got vs what you expected?  Obviously the regular Tarisio instruments are better condition and higher value, but expectations compared to that higher value could still be lower or higher.

[deans]

Most of my purchases came before T2, when it was just Tarisio. Now that I am thinking I can only come up with one T2 purchase, an old German violin that is kind of hard to value, something you wouldn't find in a shop.

Several of my older purchases were large violas, which are also hard to value, again things that are hard to find in shops. That's usually why I look. But some mainstream violins include a 1920s Roth, an nice 19th century M-walder, another nice 1920s Markie all of which were very good purchases value-wise. Roths are getting harder though, getting close to retail. The Roth I bought was in the very early days of Tarisio, before Rothmania, I ended up selling it.

One dud was a nice looking bow, but not a great player, purchased from pics. I really need to try bows. One of my large violas has a neck issue (short) which puts it in the buyers remorse category, although I believe it will be a player if I get it remedied, so maybe that's still on the fence. Dimension issues around the neck (length, angle, thickness) are things I worry about when buying unseen as they aren't listed in condition reports. Ask them questions if unsure.

[Dwight Brown]

All of mine have been good and a few really good.  None of them seemed a big mistake.

DLB

[Felefar]

I bought my daughter’s little old viola on T2, and had it shipped to a friend in the USA so we could pick it up from him a few months later. Without that option I don’t think I would have done that.

Then I bought a Garimberti viola and a strange old violin from Amati - very happy with all three purchases.

[ruprecht]

I bought something from the recent T2 auction for the first time. In general, how long does it take them to ship things out? I wonder if this will be impacted by the current public health crisis?

[Three13]

They're generally great about shipping, but given the current state of NYC and London, I'd  expect unavoidable delays.