Jewelry and Timepieces - Heritage Auctions

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From Consignment to Settlement:
The journey your consignment takes at Heritage

The Journey

Step 1
Your material arrives at Heritage. Your Consignment Director or Coordinator notifies you of its arrival.

Step 2
Your Consignment Director immediately inspects and identifies your material with your name and client data.

Step 3
Our professional staff of graders review your material for appropriate venues, and identify material which needs to be certified or resubmitted to the grading services.

Step 4
Confidential information about your consignment is available to you online around the clock at MyConsignments; appropriate paperwork may also be mailed, e-mailed, or faxed to you.

Step 5
Your material is professionally described and photographed and images prepared for our award-winning website.

Step 6
The auction is now open for bidding on our website. More than registered bidder-members can view and bid on your lots for several weeks. Track the action on MyConsignments. Your catalog is mailed.

Step 7
The big day for Signature Auctions has arrived! Your consignment is offered to floor bidders competing against all of the Internet, mail, fax, and telephone bidders.

Step 8
45 days after the auction closes, your settlement check is mailed to you. Heritage has paid every consignor in full and on time since 1976.

Consignment at Heritage
Time to Sell?
Take the First Step with Professionals
Your Primary Contact
Security is Paramount in Dallas
Processing Your Consignment
The Next Step
Cataloging Staff - The Presentation Professionals
Photography
Creating the Catalog
Maximizing Demand
Join Us Online
Does the Best Come Last?

Time To Sell?
Consigning your collectible to one of Heritage's numerous auctions is a rewarding experience. Whether you are a lifelong collector, new to the hobby, or the recipient of an inheritance, the decision to auction part or all of a collection is an important step. We can help you make that decision. Thanks to the care with which we handle your items, Heritage also ensures that it is a safe and worry-free experience.

Take The First Step With Professionals
From the minute your collection arrives in our Dallas world headquarters, Heritage's staff of professionals start evaluating your collectible, and developing strategies that will maximize the prices realized at auction. Furthermore, our trained support staff safeguards your items and husbands them from one secured location to another as they move through the consignment process.

Your Primary Contact
As a consignor, the most important person that you will know at Heritage is your Consignment Director. This specialist will personally oversee every stage of your consignment, from evaluating your items when they first arrive in our office, to reviewing your prices realized at the close of the auction. Your Consignment Director kicks off the consignment process by sending an e-mail that announces the pending arrival of your items. This e-mail alerts the requisite members of the Heritage staff so that they can prepare to process your collection. Pertinent information, such as your name and identification number (for pre-existing clients), the expected date of arrival, any special cataloging instructions, and the insured value of your collection, is included in this e-mail.

Security Is Paramount In Dallas
Most auction consignments arrive at Heritage's Dallas office by either Federal Express or U.S. Registered Mail, where a bonded representative of our Shipping staff signs for them. Each package is delivered to the Auction receiving area and, specifically, to a member of the Processing staff. Once removed from their packages, your items are double-checked against your inventory to ensure that the consignment is complete, and then clearly tagged with a unique consignor number, identifying it as yours. If you haven't prepared an inventory, we will make one which is verified by a second staff member. All paperwork that accompanied your items to Dallas and all e-mails sent by your Consignment Director, are forwarded to Consignment Services, where complete copies of the documentation are made: one for your Consignment Director; one for our Cataloging Department; and one for your personal Consignor Folder. This folder serves as the central bank of information for your consignment, and Heritage staff members will refer to it at every stage of the consignment process. Your Consignor Folder also includes the completed Auction Agreement, as well as images of every item in your consignment.

Processing Your Consignment
After fully imaging your consigned items (both for security and for eventual use on the Internet), the Processing staff ensures that your items are sealed in our Auction vaults every evening, regardless of their current status in the consignment process. At this point, your Consignment Director may contact you if you wish to participate in strategy decisions for marketing your collection through our auctions, or perhaps to discuss one of our generous advances. The strengths of our Family of Auctions are weighed against one another to help us determine the proper auction venue for your collection. Our goal is the same as yours: to realize the highest prices realized on each and every item in your consignment.

The Next Step
Once all the items in your consignment have been assigned to a particular auction venue, they are hand-delivered to our Input department. They proceed to enter each lot into our computer system with a unique identification number and barcode. The Input staff then prints color-coded labels to affix to each lot in your consignment - a convenient way to determine ownership of every item moving through the remainder of the consignment process. Of course, this stage is handled with great care so that absolutely no damage is done to your material. Every single item lot in your consignment (as well as multiple-item lots) is then imaged for our web site. Once your items are input into our computer system, Consignment Services generates your initial complete Consignment Listing. When sent to you, this listing allows you to "check-in" on your collection.

Cataloging Staff - The Presentation Professionals
The hardworking Processing staff transfers your consignment from Input to Cataloging. Our staff then inspects each item in your consignment and highlights all of its positive attributes through our world-renown detailed descriptions. Of course, the catalogers must also provide exceptionally accurate descriptions for the benefit of Heritage's registered bidders. The catalogers incorporate all pertinent historical information and pedigrees in the description of your item - features that make your items even more desirable to bidders

Photography
The Photography & Imaging staff is then called upon to photograph appropriate items in your consignment. Heritage's photographer works with our Marketing department to ensure that your photographs are clear and properly rotated, so they will provide a portrayal as accurate as today's imaging technology will allow.

Creating The Catalog
Once we have received and processed all consignments for the current auction, it's time for us to create the catalog. All items are ordered and then verified against a printed version of the catalog descriptions. It is at this stage of the consignment process that our Processing staff assigns final lot numbers to your items. These are the numbers that bidders will use to identify your items on our web site, at lot viewing, and on the auction floor. A final version of your Consignment Listing is sent to you so that you will be able to identify your items in the auction. You can also easily track your lots online using our special consignor lot-tracking software.

Once all items have been verified, the catalog descriptions are sent to the Marketing department through specialized computer programs designed by Heritage's Data Processing department. These descriptions are combined with photographs of your material as well as special introductory matter to create the catalog. Once the catalog is ready for printing, Data Processing combines the printed version of the catalog with the Input department's images for posting to the Internet.

Maximizing Demand
In addition to online bids received at Heritage's web site through our Interactive Internet^TM eCommerce systems, staff members take fax and mail bids in the weeks preceding the actual auction. We also post our Signature auctions on other leading sites including iCollector and eBay. Certain Heritage clients will even fly to Dallas to view your items in person at our office prior to the auction. All of these venues generate significant bidder competition for your items before the auction even begins. If it is necessary for your collection to travel to the city where we are conducting the auction, it is packaged, insured, and shipped along with the rest of the items in the auction. Once secured on-site at the auction in a special location, your items are viewed first-hand by numerous other bidders who will then bid on the auction floor against our pre-registered online, mail, and fax pre-bidders. Bidders who qualify but cannot attend the auction in person also have the option to bid live over the telephone during the floor session via a Heritage agent. The numerous ways in which Heritage caters to and entices bidders ensures that your items sell to the collectors who are willing to pay the most money.

Join Us Online
The online version of our auction catalog allows you to follow along with the live auction to see the final realized price for each of your lots in the auction. The week after the auction, the Consignment Services department will send you a detailed report of your Consignor Prices Realized for the auction. Your Consignment Director also receives a copy of this report, so it is a good idea to contact him or her to discuss your prices realized and inquire about consigning any additional material to upcoming Heritage auctions.

Does The Best Come Last?
The entire consignment process has been easy for you, knowing that your collectibles are treated with the utmost respect by our staff in totally secure settings. Send in your consignment soon to see for yourself just how rewarding it can be to utilize all of the Heritage Advantages. At the end of the process, you will receive your payment check, on time and as promised. More than that, the images and descriptions of your collectible will be forever available free in our Permanent Auction Archive, where future generations of collectors, including yourself and your own descendants, can enjoy them and use them for research. If you are like many collectors, you might view your items in the Permanent Auction Archive more often than you did when they were in your own collection! Whether you have a few extra items to sell, or whether you wish to liquidate your entire collection, please call Heritage today.