Group splitting by sellers

[JimZ]

One can talk of medal groups. One can also talk of militaria groups.

Back from my days as a kid when "if it was militaria, it was collectible" I have amassed a great many number of items and militaria groups. Most notably, and I shall use this to illustrate the argument is a group belonging to my uncle's father. Having served in the Austrian Army before the war, he found himself in the ranks of the wermacht following the Anshluss up to the end of the war when he was a POW of the Americans. At 80 years, old 'papa' decided to pass on to me his tunic, field coat and some other badges of his. Some years following his passing, his son passed on another batch of items including his medals and other insignia. Whereas I will one day post the full militaria group on the forum (its currently between 2 countries!) One could question the ethics of splitting up any part of the group.... from the uniform insignia to the medals, to the stick pins, cap badges etc etc. Strictly speaking they are a collectable group which I can attribute to one man. But then again, it probably only means so much to me. Some might argue that the medals and uniform might want to stay together but the rest can be sold off seperately!

As I see it, the full group belongs together and should never be split! Even if I am not into Austiran or German militaria, I treasure these items and would never dream of splitting them up. IF they ever had to change hands, then I would only sell them off as a full group. Of course, when old 'papa' passed on 5 % of his remaining items to his direct nephew and the remaining 95% to me (on the quiet) I find myself in the uncomfortable position of not being able to ask for the remaining 5% to re-unite all the items. Nor did 'papa' feel he was doing anything wrong when he split his old items that had lain in the cellar for over 50 years!

Just to throw some light and tackle this discussion from yet another angle.

Jim

[Luftwaffe Rules]

I cant stand it when someone(a seller)(, I believe a vet or original owner have the right to split it up amongst family AS LONG AS IT STAYS IN THE FAMILY) splits up a grouping. I was quite happy to have saved such a grouping of Luftwaffe Wedding Photos, the seller had all 4 individually listed so I placed my bid on all of them early hoping that people would see what I was doing and sure enough no one else touched them, I was very happy to preserve the couples happy memories. I feel as if Ive rescued something, when I am able to keep a grouping together, if I cant afford all of it I dont bother and hope that someone else can keep it all together. All the best, Jon

Edited April 25, 2007 by Luftwaffe Rules

[JimZ]

Hiya Jon.

Glad that your rescue attempt worked. The idea of group splitting is one of basic greed - the seller wants more and is savvy of the fact that more often than not collectors are after groups. In this manner he knows that if by selling 4 group items seperately, he will manage to get 2 people interested in at least one item, then he may get better value for the group by splitting it. Alternatively, he is hoping that "knights in shining armour" come along and place high bids to secure all items. Again, all he needs is one rookie buyer who splits the group and what the seller than hopes for is more "knights in shining armour" to join the "rescue operation" still pushing the price up.

On the one hand its worth trying to rescue the group. On the other hand, its playing into the seller's hands. I occasionally did try to rescue groups and on these few attempts, I have been reasonable and have decided to know my limits and then, if it all goes to hell, to back out and not cause any more damage! Hence if I lose the first item I will not place bids on the next ones. More often than not I have seen some buyers acting with sense and not competing further for items that belong to the group.

As one who does not look at medals for their investment value, I think the most important thing is to know your limits and to invest your money wisely as opposed to risking paying through your nose for items that may after all never be a complete group if someone out bids you. After all money does not grow on trees!

Blacklisting the seller does not really work either. There's a hundred hungry dogs to each bone.

On those days when one hears a rescue attempt went according to plan, one cannot but share in the happiness. But on bad days .... groups are split .... even to the point of going to 4 or 5 different buyers.

Jim

[hhbooker2]

I knew two young women who split their father's collection of medals after he and their mother died, they simply wanted the money from the sales and ignored his last will and testament to donate groups of medals to famous naval admirals and captains intended for the Naval History Society at the Washington Navy Yard - in other words, your own family members could easily break up the sets of awards you have for a quick profit or even donate it to a SALVATION ARMY thrift store to be sold individual to some teenager to wear on their shirt or jacket like a trophy?

[new world]

About the question of groups preservation and keeping them intact.

Don't you hate it when seller splits the groups and lists each item individually?

I just went through terrible experience when seller put for sale bunch of items from various groups. I placed my bets and here's what happened:

- I convinced the seller to keep ONE group intact and sell it outside the auction (luckily this is the most interesting one - to important historical figure, although it cost me heavy premium, about twice of what I would have paid on the auction),

- I won ALL items from ONE group,

- I won SOME items from FIVE other groups (I was outbid on the rest).

I am so pi**ed of at this point : the groups survived through over 60 years of turbullent history and now they are split between multiple winners.

I'd like to keep the groups together if possible at this point. How to re-unite the items ready to go aover several countries?

What would you do in my situation?

William

Just wanted to give you update on what happened with split groups from my initial post.

Month and a half later and some negotiations with the winners, I can proudly say that several groups have been saved.

Here are the results for five split groups:

1) Group 1 - contained 4 items, there were 3 winners. Result - re-united with one person (not me).

2) Group 2 - contained 3 items, there were 2 winners. Result - remains split.

3) Group 3 - contained 7 items, there were 5 winners. Result - 3 items re-united with me, other 4 remain split.

4) Group 4 - contained 8 items, there were 4 winners. Result - 4 items re-united with me, other 4 remain split.

5) Group 5 - contained 4 items, there were 3 winners. Result - re-united with me.

In addition, I managed to buy 12 more groups from the seller before he split them and put for sale.

William

Edited April 26, 2007 by new world

[JimZ]

Guess its a good way of making some new friends William Well done on the groups you did manage to save!!

To recapituale:

Out of 17 groups you have 13 full ones ..... and one other person has another 1. Only 3 groups remain partially split.

It could be worse than that so congratulations are in order. But you should really try to educate this seller into keeping the groups together. The reality is that there is probably more value for him in the long run.

Jim

[NavyFCO]

Splitting groups is definately an interesting topic.

Playing devil's advocate here, when you think of it, any way you look at it, all groups are split up. Even if they come from the original veteran, and it was everything that he had with regard to medals, uniforms, documents, etc., it is still split apart from other items from the family. For example, I have had many Soviet groups with large amounts of civilian documents. Were I to split the group into two parts on eBay - one part civilian documents, and one part military - I would be looked at as splitting the group. But what if I had turned down buying the civilian documents from the veteran in the first place? Would I then not be just as guilty???

Another thought is the complexity of many large groups, with regard to many different kinds of items. A typical group will have medals, documents and uniforms. It is rare to find a collector who will collect all three items, and particularly for a large (or valuable) group, the actual value of the group may be well out of reach of the vast majority of buyers if left combined. Thus, many people split off the uniforms, and sell them to uniform collectors; split the medals and sell them to medal collectors and so on. That is surely splitting a group, but if the person can't afford to keep it (say the person paid the veteran well for it initially) and the chances of finding a single buyer are very very slim, what other course of action do they have?

What angers me is when someone attempts to keep a group together, but the seller insists in splitting it. For example, a large group of uniforms, medals and photos sold on eBay to a notable dealer. I would have loved to have bought it, but it was way, way, way out of my price range. About two months later, the same dealer had one of the two uniforms with the group listed up on his website. I contacted him and asked if he was selling just that uniform or if he was selling any other items from the veteran. He told me that he had just listed the uniform up on eBay, but the other uniform of the two was also available. He was keeping the medals for himself, and had sold a pile of loose insignia. I was angered a little, but still was okay because I could at least afford the uniforms, and couldn't have afforded the entire group.

So, I worked a deal with him for both uniforms, and we agreed to a price. Just as I was about to tell him that payment was enroute, he told me that the uniform on eBay had gotten a bid on it, and because of that he couldn't take it off the auction. Now mind you it was about two days into a seven day auction, and the opening bid was about 10% of the actual value of the uniform! I told him that he could still take it off eBay by cancelling the bid that was placed on it, but he refused. And with that our deal fell through.

It's that sort of thing that really peeves me because I tried to keep together at least what I could from the group, but he completely disregarded my efforts in doing so, only hoping to get the maximum amount of money for the uniform on eBay. (Ironically, I won the eBay uniform, at a value of 40% of the price we had agreed on during our previous negotiations!!!)

Just my thoughts...

Dave

[Kris D]

I have a nice vaulted Iron Cross 1st Class to an Austro-Hungarian artillery officer. I do not have his medal bar. Bidding ended for the medal bar about 5 minutes after the EK1. Having won the cross, I went to protect my bid on the bar. I was outbid by a sniper who had never placed a bid until the last minute (this is a practice that peeves me. If you are interested in an item, let other potential buyers know by placing at least a minimum bid so they can gauge how much interest there is). Fine. He wanted the bar enough to bid alot for it and it was the seller who split the group to begin with; I could live with losing. When I received the winning bid notice, I contacted the seller and told her to offer the EK1 to the winner of the medal bar. He wasn't interested. All he wanted, apparently, was his pretty little medal bar and he didn't care about the history, the man, behind it.

Well, now I have a pretty little EK1, but it is severed from the man and the history behind it.

I agree about not splitting groups. Disagree about sniper software. I always snipe my bids, this avoids entering a bidding "war" and subsequent increase in final price. What is the point in letting other bidders know of your interest if the only outcome is paying more for a piece and possibly losing it ?

[PKeating]

Absolutely agree! I never place a bid before the last minute or so when I want something. I'll come in and place twice the item's value in the last 45 seconds. It's a surer way than sniper software but demands a certain sang froid. As you say, the problem with placing bids earlier is that it drives the price up and also alerts the sheep to the fact that something might be worth having. As for group splitters, I would happily take a baseball bat to them. I don't care about the excuses and reasons wherefore. There's a guy in Germany who has an RV with two broken finger joints for breaking up and selling off a photo album that was part of a group for which I paid more than ?15,000.00. He knows I'm going to do it and he keeps a low profile as a result. And I bet he thinks twice when he gets his greedy little vulture claws on dead men's thing now. But it won't save him from digital dislocation when I finally encounter him.

PK

Edited April 25, 2008 by PKeating

[Brian Wolfe]

Absolutely agree! I never place a bid before the last minute or so when I want something. I'll come in and place twice the item's value in the last 45 seconds. It's a surer way than sniper software but demands a certain sang froid. As you say, the problem with placing bids earlier is that it drives the price up and also alerts the sheep to the fact that something might be worth having. As for group splitters, I would happily take a baseball bat to them. I don't care about the excuses and reasons wherefore. There's a guy in Germany who has an RV with two broken finger joints for breaking up and selling off a photo album that was part of a group for which I paid more than ?15,000.00. He knows I'm going to do it and he keeps a low profile as a result. And I bet he thinks twice when he gets his greedy little vulture claws on dead men's thing now. But it won't save him from digital dislocation when I finally encounter him.

PK

Hello PK

I'm a little upset with your attitude regading this fellows digets , you could have at least asked me to hold him down for you.

It is very upsetting to hear of the breaking up of sets of medals and documents. It is like ripping pages from a history book or selling parts of a sculpture, an arm here a leg there, I'm thinking of ancient artifacts. The damage to the historic value of an intact group is almost criminal.

I too like my snipe bid program and use it if I will be away from home when the item closes. I still like to place a last second bid manually if I am going to be home. I like the excitement of actually sitting here, watch in hand, counting down the seconds then entering my bid. Ok, I need to get out more.

I totally agree with you that a snipe program will save you money, I am on vacation today and a medal is closing at 3:00 PM and I'm here to place a bid in person. There will be no bargains for Brian today!

Cheers

Brian

[PKeating]

You got de feever, man! Youse sweatin'! I'm on something nice at 4am.

P

[Stogieman]

Well, this is always an interesting and passionate topic. I spent years and thousands of dollars trying to keep WW1 Aviation groups, especially photo albums intact. The first time I encountered this, the seller had an album with over 300 photos. Each one meticulously annoted in the album. He was ripping the pictures out, cutting up pages when he couldn't and throwing away all the rest........ need I say more?

[PKeating]

Some of them do it just to piss people off.

PK

[Paul C]

I do agree that splitting of groups in completely incorrect. The only power we have over this is not to buy the items. I completely DISAGREE with the BS that I am not the legitimate owner of items in my collection. I did not steal, I bought them. In some cases I was even given them. This is just my opinion. I really wish that when people make very strong statements like "we are not the legitimate owners of our items in our collection" that they would state that it is their opinion or maybe provide information as to the statues and laws!!!!!

[Eric K.]

I'm in a strange predicament here, I absolutely hate people who split groups..............but I do it all the time with my stuff? I have my uniforms all over the place and I'll still give them to certain people, same with some badges and awards so technically I am doing a dreadful deed here? My Docs. I will never split but awards etc... they're pieces of metal to me. and I bet a lot of the older vets thought the same way so they give/sell their stuff to whoever wanted them. should I keep dozens of uniforms,boots helmets ( the list goes forever!!!!!) just to keep the"grouping" together?? my stuff is nowhere near in value as the WW1&2 items but maybe one day?????

So I agree that if you are the ORIGINAL owner do what you want but if your the NEW owner you better keep it together and never ever split a grouping.

Eric

[MattGibbs]

Interesting viewpoints on all aspects of this

Just say for example, you have a gallantry medal, and later find that a collector has a WW1 trio to the same person, how do you go about valuing the trio..? Is it worth a lot more because the guy also had a higher award, or is it just worth what an average trio might fetch. If both collectors wanted to feel good and Re-unite it then what?

How about someone like Bill Stump who had all Ribbentrops awards, and split them to sell. Who would be able to afford to unite that grouping?

I can see all sides of this. I just bought a WW2 and post war Chaplains grouping, including unifoms, hats and badges. It includes duplicates of some badges, should I split them off? How about the post war versus wartime uniform. Most collectors specialise in a period, someone might want all the WW2 stuff, but not give a monkeys about the Post war gear.

ttfn.

[Kev in Deva]

Interesting viewpoints on all aspects of this

Just say for example, you have a gallantry medal, and later find that a collector has a WW1 trio to the same person, how do you go about valuing the trio..? Is it worth a lot more because the guy also had a higher award, or is it just worth what an average trio might fetch. If both collectors wanted to feel good and Re-unite it then what?

How about someone like Bill Stump who had all Ribbentrops awards, and split them to sell. Who would be able to afford to unite that grouping?

I can see all sides of this. I just bought a WW2 and post war Chaplains grouping, including unifoms, hats and badges. It includes duplicates of some badges, should I split them off? How about the post war versus wartime uniform. Most collectors specialise in a period, someone might want all the WW2 stuff, but not give a monkeys about the Post war gear.

ttfn.

Hallo MattGibbs,

Probably one of the many newly rich Russians, who are cleaning the shelves of anything TR connected,

I believe they were out in full force at Reichtershoffen (sp) Militaria Fair in September 2008.

Kevin in Deva

[paddywhack]

iv a nice ss group to a kid who joined the ss in sep of 44 and it has pics and his award docs as well as his soldbuch!the seller(who is a friend) was getting very very disheartened that he had tried to sel(as he did need the money)l the group but people only wanted bits of it! im not really into SS stuff but i did like the set so i spent 6 months paying for it and im really really really chuffed i have this group and the fact the seller(may mate) let me pay in stages otherwise i wouldn't have been able to afford it!! just thought you might like to hear a story of a group that stayed to together!!!!! oh and iv no intention of selling it for a long time either!! so good story DO happen! :beer:

[Kev in Deva]

iv a nice ss group to a kid who joined the ss in sep of 44 and it has pics and his award docs as well as his soldbuch!the seller(who is a friend) was getting very very disheartened that he had tried to sel(as he did need the money)l the group but people only wanted bits of it! im not really into SS stuff but i did like the set so i spent 6 months paying for it and im really really really chuffed i have this group and the fact the seller(may mate) let me pay in stages otherwise i wouldn't have been able to afford it!! just thought you might like to hear a story of a group that stayed to together!!!!! oh and iv no intention of selling it for a long time either!! so good story DO happen!

Feel free to post pictures in the relevant section :jumping:

Kevin in Deva

[paddywhack]

il see what i ca do!! ;)

[Gordon Williamson]

I suspect that with the current economic situation, fewer and fewer people will be able to afford to buy the more expensive groupings and that more and more sellers, (and we are talking collectors here too, not just dealers) unable to move these groupings will be forced to split them. Hard to condemn them in the circumstances. Let's face it if you need the cash to pay the mortgage and put food on the table, you ain't going to make keeping a group together your top priority.

[Guest Rick Research]

Not to go all philosophical (it's hard-- I went to school for too many years ) BUT

and I know many of you think I am an escaped lunatic BECAUSE of this

BUT

"investing" in this... clutter simply doesn't make rational SENSE.

To have OVER-EXTENDED oneself in the past buying beyond one's means hoping for a happy Future Profiteering Episode and then be "forced" to sell off items to pay for

life as it happens

is the wrong reason to be doing this.

As I will insist until my dying breath. (Yes, that IS an angelic choir you hear softly in the background....)

Far, far better to have "invested" in gubamint bonds or LAND or even... kept the cash in a jar buried in the back yard than to expect to be ABLE to transform our martial detritus into Ready Pelf at the spur of some awkward, unanticipated moment.

Cash is good. Cash is our friend. Cash doesn't NEED to be turned into... cash.

I don't buy split groups. Being odd (as some of you continue to point out as if I do not already KNOW this)... I really WOULD rather that somebody else have a complete group than I have shredded crumbs.

So don't split up your beyond-means groups for ME...

because I ain'ta gonna BUY!

:cat:

[paddywhack]

well another group just got split over on WAF!!! :banger: