Paul Cotto’s been with Paul E. Saperstein Auctions for over 18 years.
He’s seen it all.
And he’s sold it all.
What do you find most people don’t realize about personal property auctions?
There are so many moving parts! To properly run personal property auction, we need to pay close attention to all the aspects of the event.
The first step, of course, is to coordinate with consigners (the person’s property we are selling, the client). We set up the time, date, venue, and the list of items on auction.
Once you have that figured out, what happens next?
Cataloging the personal property auction items is an extremely detailed and time-consuming process. Each and every item must be described in exacting detail. Professional photographs from a variety of angles are important to help potential buyers get a true assessment of an item they may be interested in bidding on. This process is key to making sure that when an item ships from, say California to Massachusetts, that it arrives to the buyer exactly as the buyer anticipated. We are keenly aware that any mistake can be costly to the completion of a successful sale.
How do you promote the personal property auction items?
With over 57 years of auction experience, we consider ourselves well seasoned as to what works really well in each of the auction categories. We’ve sold just about everything you can think of. We know what works. We are consistent in placing advertising listings where they will be viewed by the buyers who are most likely to find the items of interest.
Do you have an example to share?
Sure. One example is the
classic car consignments we regularly run. We seem to see a good turn around from the Hemmings Magazine ads we invest in. That magazine has a great global reach.
For a
heavy construction auction, such as the one we will be running on October 5 in Brockton, we make it a point to make sure that each and every piece has its own listing. If there’s a guy in the midwest who has been on the lookout for an excavator or a loader, for instance, we want to make sure we’ve put an advertisement right in front of him in a construction equipment guide he’s likely to pick up.
We are committed to never leaving money on the table.
Do you ever come up with a particularly challenging project?
Oh, yes, for sure. Certain cases present challenges that are abnormal to the normal course of business. For example, we have a
full hardware store sale coming up on 10/22. It has an extraordinary amount or inventory – but the challenge is that it’s located in Martha’s Vineyard.
We’ve prioritized having our team on hand to put extra time and effort into helping buyers coordinate shipping. In this case, the location may devalue what otherwise would be a very strong asset at auction, so we want to make sure we’ve used everything in our toolkit to assure that the buyers and the sellers are taken care of.
What are some of the challenges for you as the Personal Property Auction Manager?
You can imagine….hundreds of emails land in my inbox every day. Interested buyers need to have the proper information to make a bid on items they’re interested in purchasing. I’ll answer every email individually and with proper details so potential buyers can make informed decisions.
Another challenge is making sure that we are on top of titles and other legal issues.
In your opinion, what sets PESCO apart from other auction houses?
Our personal property auction team is willing to travel outside of New England to sell any given asset for the client.
Here’s an example: We have a client with
12 City of Newark taxi medallions that need to be sold through auction for legal purposes. We are confident that we will get top dollar for all 12 of them. Back in May we sold 3 of them for $180,000 each. We’re very confident that we will attain a similar amount on October 17.
It is always – always – our intent to use our experience, our connections, our tools, and our team to make the individual client’s event a success.
How can someone be notified about future sales?
