Must divest - best way?

[analoguey]

I have mostly been a buyer on ebay but I'd agree with mark and Alan above - I have seen 1$ bid start items go for higher prices than buy-it-now items of the same make n model. Bidding wars seem to happen right from $1. Again, item has to be reasonably popular also. (ex 7 year digital SLRs are going at quite a decent rate on the bay - surprisingly)
Also -something I have noticed, there seems to be a glut of items at one point in the year, when they dont sell for as much and on the opposite end a dearth at one point where they get marked up -seen it over the couple of years across sellers from geographies. So using that might help you sell better :-)

[peter ramm]

Jac, I have no idea what you are holding but here is my experience with divesting and doesn't much matter whether it is photo equipment or a collection of celebrity underwear. It depends first upon value (I think over $20K is needed to interest a major auction house) and second upon how much energy you can devote to it.

If you have the value and the energy, identify a well known auction house that places your category into their catalogs. For example, Skinner Auctions in Boston handles scientific instruments and that is where photo stuff would usually go. Sotheby's and Christies have done photo lots in the past but not sure of their current interest. Would require an email or phone call to each house and they can give you instructions. They do it all the time.

If there is real value in individual items you could just give an itemized list to the auction house, preferably with snapshots, and they will respond with estimated values. Examples would be rare lenses or cameras that have sold for some thousands in the past. There needs to be some sort of history for this type of item for the appraiser to work from.

If you have really rare (valuable) items you can often get an auction house to have an appraiser come to you, but that would be pretty unusual with camera stuff. Let's say you have a set of Leica lens prototypes - that sort of thing would work. A set of Petzvals, not so much.

If the value is in the lot as opposed to individual items (a whole bunch of stuff each item of which might be worth less than a few hundred dollars), the auction house would probably want you to bring it in to an appraisal office. Sounds like this would be more trouble than it is worth to you - or to them. Perhaps you have a friend who can do it for a percentage.

A local estate auctioneer will come to you but you may find any estimates they give rather inaccurate and they are unlikely to have the exposure to sell unusual items for their real value. As others have pointed out, you never know who will show up and it only takes a couple of collectors seeing a local announcement to make for a good sale.

This all works, but it is much easier to just identify a single specialist - retailer or individual - and pay him to move the collection for you.

Just my 2 cents