gillingham programmes at auction

[lincolnredman]

the gillingham programmes at graham budds all fetched good money did anyone on here get in on the action.if i remember right some one was trying to get a group together to bid on them.
19 1930/31 progs sold for £800
20 1931/32 sold for £800
22 1932/33 sold for £1100
33 1933/34 sold for £1000
40 1934/35 sold for £950
25 1935/36 sold for £950
19 1936/37 sold for £800
27 1937/38 sold for 1000
38 1938/39 sold for £1200

[Posh1959]

thats not good money its very cheap, there was an exeter away and a bmth away in one of the lots!!!!!!!!!!!!

[treble99]

these were ridiculously cheap.
i presume the syndicate that was being formed on this forum must have got them at those prices.

[Posh1959]

dont think the syndicate happened due to lack of interest

[tcno10]

I spilt coffee down myself when I saw the bidding on the Bexleyheath v Man Utd youth cup match .

[treble99]

They must be kicking themselves then.At those prices they didn't even need a syndicate.
Watch them turn up at another auction soon.
A dealer could have bought them at those prices and made a good profit.

[mark01]

Treble - did you bid for the Man Utd v Bristol City FAC final prog?

Sold for £23,500 - new world record.

regards, Mark

[Posh1959]

if anybody knows who bought the Arsenal 46/7 near complete h and a season, i would love the blackburn v arsenal

[Wullie]

well the average cost per programme after commission would be approx. £45 which is reasonable. But of course you would have to stump up £8600(plus commission) for the lot.
And now there are 243 pre war programmes hanging around, they are hardly rare, so price is about right i think.

[treble99]

Wullie
i totally disagree.
One of those programmes is probably worth £100 minimum as a one off.
Why does 243 make it any different.
Each of the opposition club supporters will stump up,in my opinion £100 ish x one or two.
It is only on a forum like this where every collector is really a dealer that they won't.
On the open market i believe a healthy profit can be anticipated.
£45 for a pre war Gillingham is chicken feed
Prior to this auction when did you see a pre war Gillingham.
Rocking horse shit me thinks

Mark
No i didn't bid on the final.
It was too rich for my blood.
Nor did i bid on the Benfica v United programme for reasons earlier stated.
Although i consider myself as the owner of the largest Manchester United collection in private hands i don't often get sucked into auctions.
I consider the 17/20% either end too much of a handicap coupled with other auction buyers who will refuse a programme worth £1000 for £300 but will happily bid one bid over the top bid up to £3000 due to lack of knowledge.
I just don't want to get involved in that minefield.
Nothing to do with collecting or pride or the "i've got a bigger willy than you" mentality that often creeps into collecting at the highest level.
I just prefer to pay a middle and fair price than an over the top price just to prove i can.
I leave that to people with bigger ego's than mine.

[mark01]

Fair play Treble.

Can I ask you how many of these official 1909 FAC final programmes exist - I am assuming just a handfull. Then why are the W H Smith edition more plentiful than the original. You would think that the players and officials involved in the game would have kept the official copy and passed this down through generations - very strange?

Many moons ago in Bristol we used to have a football collectors club and have meetings once a month at each others houses/pubs. There were about 6 or 7 of us both City and Rovers supporters. I'm sure that one of the City collectors had an original final programme from that game - he certainly had the W H Smith one with another couple of pre 1900's official cup programmes!

regards, Mark

[Posh1959]

Have to agree with treble on this one, someone or some people have got themselves a right result

Not forgetting some of the rare aways in some of the lots, how often do you see Exeter or Bournemouth pre war even if they did have punch hles you are looking at £200 - £300 a time

[BAZZABAGGIES]

The rarer ones will sell at a good price and then you will get stuck with the rest...
Over 15 years ago I purchased over 300 Walsall homes from 1928 to 1939 including many duplicates. Walsall Pre War were very rare at the time.
The first year I sold over a 100 on average at around £140 each and they have been selling in bits and drabs since then. I have lowered the price to around £100 each and i still have around 120 that are struggling to sell.
So the Gillingham lot will go the same way the good ones will go and they will struggle with the rest..

[treble99]

when you buy at an average of £45 each and can expect to sell the good ones at £150-£200 each you can sell a third and still be left smiling and ahead on the other two thirds.
i can't believe that after all the rattling of sabres on this forum the collectors let these fall into the hands of dealers.
good luck to the dealers who will now sell them at a healthy profit to non forum members who will presumably get stubborn and refuse to pay more than £45 each.
It shows you there is still a market if worked correctly
Expect to see these as individual programmes on dealers offers lists and quality smaller auction houses.

[sharrowblade]

treble99 wrote:

i can't believe that after all the rattling of sabres on this forum the collectors let these fall into the hands of dealers.

Sorry Ray, although I agree with you, and Posh, and Bazza on the whole 'bargain' thing, you are assuming that all the collectors on this forum are for want of a better word 'loaded'.

In reality, the vast majority of collectors couldn't even afford or justify spending over a £1000 on a set of programmes, whether it's a good deal or not. Never mind £10000 on the lot of them.

There's also a huge difference between a collector spending £1000 for programmes which he intends to keep and a dealer who is looking to purchase and move on quickly for profit.

In theory, a consortium sounds like a good idea, but experience suggests there is a tendency to fall out over who gets what.
_________________
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharrowblade/sets
A Sheffield United Programme guide

[treble99]

totally agree with you on the money aspect.
it was not a challenge on the pocket or finances of anybody.

i do however disagree that in this case it would have been hard to fall out if syndicated as it was Gillingham against almost everybody they played pre war so unless you are a Gillingham collector you would have only your team to collect.
if you were a Gilligham collector then there was more than enough choice not to fall out.
what are the chances of seeing these again.i would suggest remote at best and impossible at worst.
the average prices were stupid
lot 724 average £36 each 1919 to 1926
725 Average £50 each 1930/31
726 Average £48 1931/32
727 Average £60 each 1932/33
728 Average £36 each 1933/34
729 Average £27 each 1934/35
730 Average £45 each 1935/36
731 Average £50 each 1936/37
732 Average £44 each 1937/38

all the lots were about £1000 each.
If you can't find 4 or 5 or 6 mates mates on the forum to split a lot up then i would be surprised.
If you decided to go to £1500 a lot you would only be averaging about £60 a programme.
A sixth of £1500 is £250 a head and you would get 5 programmes for that.
you can't even get pre war Spurs or Chelsea or Sheffield Wednesday for that and they are relatively easy if you know what i mean.
As i say i understand but wait until they appear on an offers list at £150 to £200 each which is in my opinion the true price at least even for the non collectable clubs.
This had seriously collectable clubs like Brighton and Millwall in them.
£1500 a go might not have got them and i suspect it wouldn't have but whoever did buy them must have had a botle of champagne last night on the strenth of them
Fascinating

[Fishy]

All interesting points above with a lot of good reasoning.
As a Millwall collector I have my own thoughts on what I would pay for them - let's just say it would be more than what they sold for in amongst the lots mentioned.

Regarding the syndicate - a good idea, but some pros and cons as mentioned above. The main one for me, in this particular case, was the necessity to be at the auction on the day. I live in Cornwall and to travel for something that may or may not come my way was totally out of the question.

That said, I can understand the initial posters concern - there are plenty of people in this world who say they will do something and then not bother - trust is a big problem where money is concerned.

I made an offer to purchase the Millwall items on the proviso that I wouldn't be there - never heard anything else so assume that the syndicate never happened. A shame, but totally understand why. If they do come up on a list somewhere then they will be looked at seriously, if not there are plenty more gaps to be filled in my collection.

I am still a youngster in terms of collecting but remember some advice given to me from my early days - I got out bidded on an item in the last few seconds of an auction, a little pissed off i mentioned to a dealer I know who said: "don't worry, another will come along". remembering those words I just sit back and wait for the right time and right price.

So whilst this may have been an opportunity missed, there will be another chance somewhere along the line.

If someone could come up with a way of sorting the finance side out it could be a way forward - but then we are talking about all sorts of possible problems again.

I'm going to stop drivelling now, I don't normally put so many words together when I am speaking let alone trying to type...........

[treble99]

Fishy
I have been told many times where there's one there's two.
It's a good theory if you don't mind losing out and clearly there are a lot of other holes in your collection so you didn't mind.
i suspect the Millwall programmes won't surface on the open market.
There are enough Millwall collectors known to the dealers to sell them quickly and privately.I would suggest that £200/£300 a programme is the price that a big collector would pay for them.
I never did understand why with the initial call for the syndicate there needed to be everybody in the auction house on the day or no syndicate.
At worst i would have asked for a deposit cheque in case to be refunded if the lot was not bought.
It seemed daft to suggest it and then worry about the mechanics later and convince yourself it would never work.
It would have been better to convince yourself first then keep quiet when it seemed like it wouldn't work.
I thought though at that price even the bedroom bandits might have tried a pop at one or two lots.

[Fishy]

Hi Treble,
Thanks for that - I totally agree.
If I ever get to the stage where I need to fight hard to get a programme I need, I will be a very happy man (providing the funds are there) 'cos it means my collection has got to that pretty complete 'ish stage. This will probably never happen in my lifetime but I'll give it a good go!
At the end of the day a lot of it is building up your contacts, being in the right place at the right time and having a bit of luck.

[Wullie]

Interesting thread. No doubt we will se in the next few months if they were a bargain buy or not, as i no doubt they will appear one by one.
If they were such an incredible bargain then why didn't people put their money up front and buy them ? If they are absolutely certain to double or treble their money then why not borrow it? I'm with BAZZABAGGIES on this one. The high number will saturate the market and bring the price down, as he explained with the Walsall situation.