George Best Signed programme

[katesdad]

Hello could anyone let me know what the price of the following could be. I have a programme from Jeff Astle's Testimonial in 1974 signed by the 1968 Albion fa cup winning team the 1974 albion team and George Best who guested for Jeff Astle's 68 side, George Best debut progamme (original not ebay reprint) slight crease, and Peterborough v West Brom 65 league cup semi final, good condition, west ham v west brom league cup 1st leg 66 final. and complete 1954 west brom cup run including a pirate copy of fa cup semi final albion v port vale, never seen this one anywhere.
Thanks

[foxes1]

If nobody on here can help you I suggest you get in touch with one of the auction houses that specialise in sports memorabilia. I have recently had something valued by Vennett-Smith and found them helpful.

[Barrett]

How much do the valuations cost mate?

[Auchinleckian]

I understand that some auction houses may charge for valuations, but for insurance purposes only - a job of work in effect. They don't charge anything for getting programmes into an auction and putting a valuation against any item, as they make their money from both the buyer's and seller's premiums from items that are sold.
Most Auction houses charge about 15% for selling and buying fees, so that's 30% on each item sold. So if they have some quality programmes in the auction, they make £30 for every £100 that passes through their hands. When you see items like some early Wembley F.A.Cup Finals selling for £1,000 plus you can see what kind of money can be generated.
Some dealers will value collections for you. They will also charge for the business, as you're paying for their time and expertise. When collections are valued it's usually on the basis of what it would take to replace the collection rather than it's actual physcial value, so you can usually expect to add between 30 and 40% of it's actual value.
Valuations are not the relatively simple process it used to be, due to ebay warping a once universally accepted pricing system. Everybody wants cheap programmes, but when they have them they want them to be worth the maximum that they could possibly get for them. The auction houses use the old dealer's brains for setting their prices. They can sometimes get items spectacularly wrong, but on the whole they're there or there about, albeit prices have been below estimate as a general rule of thumb for sales on the whole.

[foxes1]

They didn't charge me for a valuation, but I decided after they told me what it could fetch I would put it in their auction. Sellers fee is 18.8%. If you want any more details I have attached a link for their website.
Hopefully it will fetch what they have estimated as I bought it in a job lot at another auction for £45, and they have estimated it at between £300/£400.
http://www.vennett-smith.com/site/index.php

[Auchinleckian]

There are two distinct markets within football programme collecting. One is the ebay collector who wants everything cheap, and where quantity may be the dirving force of the collection rather than quality. This isn't a sign of snobbishness, as like many collectors I started off collecting bargain bundles etc until I had sufficient programmes to look at starting to specialise.
The auction houses came onto the footballing scene in the very early 1990's, and for a while escalated prices to a level previously unseen. Nowadays, they tend to attract far fewer buyers than ebay, but they are buyers with far more disposable income to spend on higher value items.
I attended a book auction in Carlisle last week for the first time, and was absolutely amazed to find (a) out of a buying audience of about 40 I appeared to be one of the youngest there! and (b) the prices the books were selling for. It certainly appears that many dealers, collectors, and even speculators are now putting large amounts of disposable income into collecting nowadays as they can guarantee much bigger returns on their capital than they can in the stock market or banking.
It is possible to play one market off against the other as the big money men, ie the speculators don't bother with the likes of ebay, and I know a lot of dealers see going on ebay as taking coals to Newcastle, and just don't do it. I'm on it every day, and certainly over the last couple of years have bid for a number of items every day, at much less than their true market value, and to my surprise have often been genuinely surprised at some of the gems that I get for peanuts. I also do the odd auction - Sportingold are excellent - and enjoy both ways of collecting.

[foxes1]

I usually attend auctions mostly around the East Midlands area, what I usually find is that bargains are there to be had, particularly in the job lots, but its like you say Ebay may be tending to kill off some auction prices, same as programme fairs, people would rather sit on there backsides and buy stuff of the internet rather than go out looking.
I wll be at the Vennett-Smith auction this week hopefully to pick up some bargains, you never know stuff may be there.
The last one I went to there most of the prices fetched were at the minimum auction price.

[katesdad]

Thanks for all the info on Auction houses, but can we get back to the original question

[Barrett]

katesdad, I think that they have already answered your question.

They have given you advice that the best way to get it valued is at an auction house as they are the only ones who could give you an approximate valuation of it's true worth.

[Auchinleckian]

What you need to remember is that there are always buying and selling prices. The prices you get from an auction house, or dealer, could be based on the cost of replacing the items you already possess. There's also selling fees if you're looking to sell. Always best to sell privately if possible, to avoid such fees, but some items do need the exposure that professional acution houses give to realise their true value.
Your WBA Cup run would probably sell well if complete, and in reasonably good condition. The final and semi final aren't difficult to get hold, but some of the earlier games may be. Pirate programmes are not my cup of tea, or many other collectors. No intrinsic value in them unless two slightly deranged people get carried away at an auction bidding for them. The George Best autograph item, if genuine, could net a few bob, but there's a lot of United and George Best stuff in particular doing the rounds at the moment.

[mancitymark]

Have you tried a carboot sale - Pretty sure it would go there
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