Recently a small group of mechanical bank trade cards were offered by The RSL Auction Co. in a live auction on eBay.
Nearly all trade cards are collectible to some extent, but mechanical bank trade cards are deemed by most collectors as the most desirable of all trade cards due to their rarity and exquisite graphics.
Here is what was offered along with their final selling price. You can click on the name of each card to see what each looks like. Note: the pictures are not of the actual cards sold.
- Watch Dog Safe mechanical bank trade card - sold for $6000.00
- Bad Accident mechanical bank trade card - sold for $3250.00
- American Eagle mechanical bank trade card - sold for $2800.00
- Base Ball mechanical bank trade card - $2300.00
- Circus mechanical bank trade card - $1800.00
- Jolly Nigger Toy Savings mechanical bank trade card - had no bids with a $995.00 opening bid
- Humpty Dumpty mechanical bank trading card - sold for $550.00
- Uncle Sam mechanical bank trade card - sold for $475.00
- Mason mechanical bank trade card - sold for $400.00
- Punch and Judy mechanical bank trade card - sold for $325.00
- Stump Speaker mechanical bank trade card - $300.00
- Trick Pony mechanical bank trade card - sold for $200.00
- Speaking Dog mechanical bank trade card - had no bids with an opening bid of $199.00
If you are interested, you can read A Brief History Of Trade Cards and find more information along with pictures trade cards promoting other products at The Trade Card Place.
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August 14th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Great post, I can’t believe some of the prices, but then again, the antiques market is crazy.
What really amazes me though, is how the large auction houses can get away with such high minimum bids.
I own a small New England auction co. and am a Powerseller on ebay. My forte is antiques and collectibles, I start all of my items very low with no reserve, I can assure you if I started out with high minimum bids, I’d be out of business in a week!
Great post Gary.
August 15th, 2007 at 12:11 am
I was at an auction years ago where the auctioneer started a lot at $1,000 about 20 seconds later he was tooling along pointing between two bidders and counting. 11…12…13…14…15… A guy came from outside started bidding. Now there were three people bidding. 17…18…19…20… At $25,000 the auctioneer said, “I have 25 grand who will give me 26.”
The guy who had been outside when the lot started fainted. The lot sold for 28,500.
On eBay you want to get some momentum going and it costs more to start at higher points.
At an auction house they want to go through the lots as quickly as possible. High minimum bids on well publicized auctions make the lots move faster by removing the entertainment bidders.
I’ve been to auctions where everything is locked in glass cases and the item up for bid is shown on a TV screen. You preview the week before to get close up looks at items. They sell a lot every 90 seconds.
There used to be an auctioneer in PA who played games. He’d sell a set of trains as five times the money-take all, and then sell the next set as one bid one price. Then he’d sell something as choice of items for bid amount.
People would get confused about how each lot was being sold and either ask questions and get berated by the auctioneer or make assumptions and get run off if they made the wrong one.
The guy was the slowest auctioneer I ever saw. I could have sold items faster than him. I can’t do the cadence, but I wouldn’t be fighting with everyone and causing problems.
Actually I was at an auction that was slower. The auctioneer looked each piece up in a price guide, read the description, and then started the bidding at the guide price. 95% of the lots went unsold with no bids.
Terrt