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Bottled Ship Builder

Flop!


Shipbuilder

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Here is one of my many "flops," the British four-masted barque Marion Lightbody.     I sent it to a London auction where it sold for £150.   After commission, I got £100.35.      It cost £25 to send it there, reducing the profit to £75.35, of which income tax took £15.07, reducing it further to £60.28.   It took 57 hours to build, giving a result of  £1.05 per hour!

Bob

 

Marion Lightbody 1 150 dpi.JPG

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Alan,

They don't take 30%, but they add 15% to the hammer price that the buyer has to pay, and they take 15% off the hammer price from the seller, so although they get an extra 30%, it is divided between buyer and seller.     But they do load on extra charges for the seller.     The latest one being £150 non-returnable payment to be made by the seller to just enter a model in a sale!:o       Consequently, there will not be a next time, because I no longer send them to auctions!:)        The Wairoa and the Minnie, that you saw last week, are being collected personally on Sunday.

Bob

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  • 2 years later...
On 11/22/2016 at 8:54 AM, exwafoo said:

Bob,

Someone got a bargain. 

Do they really take almost 30% commission? Dick Turpin is alive and well and running an auction house!

As they say on these antique shows on TV, 'You need the right person at the right sale'

Better luck next time.

Alan

Art Galleries regularly charge 50 to 60 percent. It's expensive, I know. Yet they might be in another country, and might have clients salivating for your work 

 

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It's extremely difficult to sell ship models in today's market.  So many things can be mass produced and sold cheap these days.  There's also a disconnect for the general public in regards to sailing ships.  A lot of people have never seen a tall ship and they see rigging as a spider web of ropes. So they are ok with folk art models or art that show just a depiction of what a tall ship is.  In order to sell a highly accurate model, for the time and effort that goes into that style you have to find the right demographic and that's very hard to do.  I've heard the market exists but it's small and you need to know people.   

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  • 2 weeks later...

Daniel is correct that it is tough to sell model ships these days.  One problem is the size for many home owners.  Smaller is better.  Museums are often interested, yet most do not have the finances to pay one for actual time & expenses.  Have recently sold some to museums and was glad to do so since they will be viewed by the public.  Donating pieces for museum fundraisers is good for the museums and gets one exposure... though with tax deductions of created art, one can only take off the materials  (a different rant altogether ).  We make models for personal challenges and enjoyment.  Having an actual sale of our work is a  bonus.

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  • 1 year later...

I'm new to the site and this may be inappropriate but........can you initially offer beautiful models like yours to forum members? I know I would get in line to purchase one and pay the postage.  I know that 99.9999% of we builders don't build to get rich but it seems like a crime to net $60 +- for your efforts. Stay Safe...Moab

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Thats a good question Moab and just so it's clear, I'm totally for forum members supporting other forum members.  Lets just not make this an advertising site.  If you see another members work that appeals to you, send them a PM and ask if you can buy.  If you want to put an etsy shop web address or other website in a signature line below posts, thats fine. I'd rather not see threads advertising models for sale though.  I'd like to keep this as an educational site and not a seller site.   

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