Baldwins and St James Unite

[mhcoins 95]

Bit of news, Baldwins and St James auctions are merging. New joint venture named Baldwins of St. James. First auction will be in February. 

[1949threepence 3,367]

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

Neil Paisley shaking things up a bit? 

 

Edited January 13, 2017 by 1949threepence

[Rob 3,152]

Don't know. From my perspective the weak partner is Stanley Gibbons. £40m assets but only £3m of stamp sales in the past year. Most of their 'value' is intangibles, i.e. goodwill from the purchase of Baldwins, but all the staff they were buying have buggered off, so in theory that would require writing down, but it might make the company insolvent. A year ago they had to restate profits after one sale (only) failed to go through. That's a business built on sand.

Fenton has relatively few overheads and should be the stronger of the two at first glance, but I've not seen any figures.

[azda 979]

Sounds like trouble somewhere. I liked the St James auctions better, they also don't charge a fee on consignments over 1k, i wonder if that's about to change and who is top dog in the partnership. I was actually looking to see when St James next auction was

[Rob 3,152]

Baldwins lost the plot by setting low estimate at 20% below market price. Add in the 25% juice and you are at market value, i.e.you only get competitive bidding if two people want something badly. Many lots are won at opening bid or passed. I also think that St. James's estimates are too high.

[azda 979]

6 hours ago, Rob said:

Baldwins lost the plot by setting low estimate at 20% below market price. Add in the 25% juice and you are at market value, i.e.you only get competitive bidding if two people want something badly. Many lots are won at opening bid or passed. I also think that St. James's estimates are too high.

I mentioned their prices previously. They Are quite expensive for what seems average material, i think they were trying to be the British Heritage in that respect. I'm mostly put Off by the Size of their commission fees, another 1/4 on top of the Hammer price is far too much, couple that by whatever they charge in selling fees the. I can guess it's around 50% for them just to sell a coin which is way OTT

[VickySilver 830]

Without being able to be specific, it just seems that St. James have slipped also - compare their last catalogue or two to the original five or so auctions....They have become a bit of a dumping ground on some things and will see for example slabbed coins from America that have been on offer there and not sold.

[Rob 3,152]

Who was the vendor in the US?

[jaggy 528]

I don't know much about St. James but every time I look at the Baldwins site I come away disappointed. The site is hard to use, the prices are through the roof and Baldwins simply does not appear to be customer friendly.

[azda 979]

46 minutes ago, VickySilver said:

Without being able to be specific, it just seems that St. James have slipped also - compare their last catalogue or two to the original five or so auctions....They have become a bit of a dumping ground on some things and will see for example slabbed coins from America that have been on offer there and not sold.

That is more than likely the vendor adding huge premiums to a slabbed coin thinking that the British public really are into those. I spoke to Rob the other day about a Ryal that was sold as part of the Lord Stewartby collection through Spink, it sold for £6200 hammer and is now on the CNG site for $15,000, no reason given why it's price doubled in the 2  months since it sold other than a wrong spink number, 1 digit out.

Sellers are just chancing their lot that buyers at this price level are hopefully idiots who don't pay attention. The St James offerings have been better than Baldwins IMO

[Colin88 54]

This is not a new JV...Baldwins and Fenton have already been and already were in an established partnership from 2004 until they divorced in 2012.

Personally I'm with Jaggy on this one, I've always found Baldwins incredibly arrogant and of the 'me expert, you dickead' school of customer interfacing.

Again, personally I dont see how NP joining as MD is a great move,with what must be a conflict of interest?.

Whatever the current arrangement is between Baldwins and St James's I'm sure that one or other will be looking to be top dog and eat the weaker one ....my money would be on Fenton as top dog.

Has anyone dealt with Sovereign Rareties yet?

 

 

 

 

 

[Colin88 54]

18 hours ago, Rob said:

Don't know. From my perspective the weak partner is Stanley Gibbons. £40m assets but only £3m of stamp sales in the past year. Most of their 'value' is intangibles, i.e. goodwill from the purchase of Baldwins, but all the staff they were buying have buggered off, so in theory that would require writing down, but it might make the company insolvent. A year ago they had to restate profits after one sale (only) failed to go through. That's a business built on sand.

Fenton has relatively few overheads and should be the stronger of the two at first glance, but I've not seen any figures.

The £40m is assets Rob was mostly what they valued their stock at based on their own SG book values....which as we know the actual true market value of most stamps is about 10-20% of the SG book value....as opposed to it being any sort of remotely true reflection of market value ..unlike the Coins of England which more or less in most cases gives you a good indication of market value.

[Rob 3,152]

I'm not sure why Baldwins and St. James's split in the first place unless it was at the behest of SG's board who saw a conflict in working with SF. I do know that after it happened, SF was busily trying to rebuild a mailing list because the info wasn't forthcoming from Baldwins (who had previously done the cataloguing and arranged for mailing).

There's a moral there for anyone thinking of business joint ventures - rely on nobody.

[mhcoins 95]

The old agreement from my understanding was based on Baldwins cataloging, photographing and handling the auction inventory. I believe a falling out over a few we'l known sales and where they eventually offered may have been something to do with it. 

[azda 979]

So, i don't get it, if one party was seriously bitten by the other then why try again? Doesn't make any sense right now, i wonder if they are seeing some form of challenges by other companies such as sovereign rarities where a few old Baldwins staff have ended up at

[Rob 3,152]

The latter comprises a significant number of the former. Certainly all the key players have moved, but then, this group might have been one of the original warring parties at the split, so a resumption of the old arrangement could once again be possible. I guess if you really want to know you will have to ask them to their faces.