Hey Mate,

I saw this print and thought about bidding. I think you probably should have tried to promote it through the forum first- I'm always more comfortable buying from forum members (both on ebay and off). I also think that the starting price (3.5k) was too high- if you'd started it at 0.01 then you would have generated a lot more interest. Finally there is the overseas/ VAT issue- which you didn't address in the listing itself. 17.5% of 3.5k makes a big difference and means that the winning bidder would pay over 4k.

Anyhow, what was the reserve? Oh, and what was the piece you just bought...

Hey, as a part-tme Melbourne resident I'd suggest that you can't go past City lights gallery. They don't have a website but are up Hosier lane in the city (opposite Fed square). They currently have an exhibition on by Ha-Ha- 'land of milk and honey' and regularly have stuff by Lister and Vexta as well. Prices for the current Ha-Ha stuff ranges from $500 -$2000 which, given that they are all one-off hand done stencils, is pretty good value too. You could also try Dickerson galleries in Richmond, they had an ehibition last year 'Kidz these dayz' which featured Ha-Ha, Vexta and Psalm- last time I went in they still had a few pieces left...

Good luck with it all

you had a reserve higher than your high start price. why start it at £3500 if you have a higher reserve? that is just stupid. If you have a reserve then start it at 1p, you know it cannot sell for less than the reserve so whats the difference, that way you get people interested in the auction instead of thinking they shouldnt bother cos the reserve will be too high. After all, you are not going to start it at £3500 and set the reserve at £4000, if you were going to do that you might as wel save the £80 reserve price fees (or however much it was) and just start it at £4000
You also failed to mention the potential of a brit getting fucked over by the inland revenue when the print arrives, and you also put some bullshit in the auction about 'please bid early cos if there are no bids with 2 days to go i will pull the auction', well there were no bids with 2 days to go and you didnt pull the auction, which leads me to believe that you were using that tactic as a pathetic attempt to get the price up very high, very early like what happens with most banksy prints. The difference between yours and theirs is that yours just oozed desperation using stupid tricks to get people to bid early. Your auction also had the air of 'you need me more than i need you' about it, as if you were saying 'come on everyone, i have something you all want, dont fall over each other trying to buy it, form an orderly queue, oh and please dont all wait till 1 minute to go to bid as i might lose £1000 that way, please bid nice and early so i can make as much as possible.

I have a large disposable income and saw your auction, i was going to bid on it but the thing that stopped me is the reserve, i just thought that having a £3500 start and a higher reserve absolutely took the piss. Now i dont care that you bought it for £500 and are selling it on to finance another piece, i wouldnt care if you were selling it to buy an ounce of crack, it is your property and your right, but you asked what you did wrong, and you did nothing right.

You assumed that because a B&W morons sold for £4750 a few weeks ago that yours would be hot shit and you could sell it without trying. I remember you offered it on here before you put it on ebay and got verbally raped for it because you assumed that your print was worth £4750 as that is what the last one sold for, so what is it worth now? well yours remained unsold at £3500, so that is what B & W morons is worth, whatever the last one sold for right? Your method for working out the value of prints has backfired on you a bit.

I sell items worth thousands of pounds on ebay every day and every single one of them starts at £4.99 and has no reserve, if you dont put reserves on items there is a genuine possibility they will get a bargain so more people watch your item and more people bid. the one that sold for £4750 had no reserve on it, look what it went for. Why not list it with no reserve? You have the right to pull it if you are not getting the price you want (although that goes againsed the spirit of ebay)

Im sure that when other forum members wake up and read your post (it is 3 40am, i prefer to work at night) there wont be many who will have sympathy with you, infact many of them will be down right happy. I missed out on a signed morons, i am buying a sepia this week for £3250, the seller is a friend and is selling below market value as he knows its going to a good home. Now i say friend, but i never met him, he is a forum member like you and he paid market value for this sepia, so he is not making much money at all when he could definatly hold out for more.
you are a forum member too, but you came on here asking for £4500 for your morons and did one of those 'i thought i would offer it to forum members first' things as if you were doing someone a favour. There are people on these forums who work their arses off in jobs that dont pay massive wages, they love art and if they had got a signed morons they would have cherished it forever, for those people it hurts like hell when someone comes along asking what is a couple of months wages (or more) for that print. Now you have lost a fortune listing the item and it will cost a fortune to list again (if you put a reserve on it again) you will forgive certain members for saying that is karma in full flow.

Now, as you are in a situation where you need to sell to pay for a canvas, maybe you will retort with a good offer for forum members to ponder? I mean, B&W morons is clearly a good investment, but because of the risk of import duty i would not offer you more than £3300 for it. If you get someone to hand deliver it i will add 17.5% to that amount. But you wont want to sell for that will you? You have seen one sell for £4750 and you dont want to sell yourself short (i dont blame you) but you might want to consider that maybe that auction did well because the seller had loads of feedback, was based in this country, had it listed with no reserve and it was the first one on for months, that auction reached £4750 because 2 people were prepared to pay £4650 and 1 of them was prepared to pay more, so the bidding got to its final figure. the person who bid on your auction may have been prepared to pay £5000, but as no one else was willing to bid anything it stayed at £3500, and that is the thing about auctions, you hardly ever get what the winner was PREPARED to pay.

Anyway, sorry for the essay, you asked what was wrong with your auction and i have told you. In a nutshell the tone was wrong and that whole 'bid early or i will pull it' thing, and then not pulling it made you look like a bit of a t**t too, you overestimated the prints value based on 1 auction, and you live in australia and the import duties take the piss and the only way to avoid them is not to insure the item, which no one will do.

If you choose to relist it, grow some balls, put it as a 7 day auction with a 1p start and no reserve and i bet you will get more than £4000 for it.

hey thomas, i was writing my essay when you posted, you saw the same shit that i did!!

are you a night owl too mate

Verbalkint: Thank you... (+1 for you) that's some very helpful feedback. I will consider my options and most likely relist it this weekend, with a number of the changes that you have recommended (ie. low start, no reserve, etc).

Leom9259: I did promote it on here, a number of times (including listing the auction number)... maybe you missed it?? Rest assured, I'll be promoting it again. Unless anyone wants to make me an offer around 4000 GBP to save on those damn eBay fees?

Krazy... unless you want to offer it direct to a forum member... PM me your price

Cheers, Mike

Whats all this VAt /Import bollocks?

This doesn't apply to artwork for personal use in the same way as alot of other goods.

I recently got a signed CND from the states, and the seller put its value on the mailing tube ($8000+) and I got a call from UPS when it came into the country.

They then asked if I could send them an email stating that it is collectable art and for my own personal use (It'll be different for galleries) and then the Import duties and that shite were only £200. I make that a tad under 5%. Buying from abroad isn't the ball ache that everyone may think it is.

www.outregallery.com/ and Monster Children sometimes have a few things woth thinking about...pretty much desolate in Australia though