Matthew Bullock Auction Gallery — Local services in Ottawa

The first time you deal with Matthew bullock or any similar real auction house there is a learning curve. it's not like eBay. it might be a little confusing and the process takes a couple weeks from end of auction to receiving your items. but at least you know what you are bidding on isn't fake made in China garbage. there is 20% buyers premium added to the cost, 3% for credit cards. but you just need to take that into account when bidding. I was still able to get just as good as deal or better than I would elsewhere. and for me dealing with such amazing customer service is worth paying a little extra. if you quickly scan over the terms it's pretty clear. as far as shipping just like any time you ship something personally or it's not coming from a mega corporation like Walmart or Amazon, if the items are large or super heavy shipping is gonna be fairly expensive. but if you are getting something small that fits in a small box or envelope it's not any more expensive than you'd expect. I bought 6 1 oz pieces of silver over 200$ and shipping was only 13$ including packing tracking and insurance. they respond right away addressing any issues, not some auto reply that doesn't even help or have anything to do with the email you sent, like so many other customer service depts. honestly the best CS I've dealt with in years! I wasn't expecting that. I had to change address and was worried stuff would be sent to wrong address. they replied immediately and took care of it no issues. once you know how the process works and what to expect its more fun and exciting to see a live auction, going once going twice SOLD! if you want quality and authentic merch it's better than eBay hands down. if you are just trying to get something as cheap as possible and don't care about authenticity or quality or you can't wait 2 weeks then maybe stick to eBay.

only reason I changed to 4 stars is because you should be able to get a shipping estimate ahead of time, through the website. should be able to enter my address and a rough estimate of size of box needed and weight and value and get a rough estimate of how much it will be with all fees included. that way if I decide I want to bid on other items I can get a new shipping estimate. the only possible way to get an estimate is to email shipping department with all that info which takes time and in auctions time matters. an automated shipping calculator needs to be implemented. yes they might lose out on some sales from people that don't realize what they're getting into, but would gain sales from people who are too afraid to bid without knowing first. overall sales or number of bids wouldn't change much but a huge percentage of buyers would be happier. they'd drastically reduce the amount of pissed off people leaving 1 star reviews because they didn't realize how much shipping would cost. it would add another layer of seller protection for them and make people happier. the only reason it wouldnt benefit them to have a shipping calculator is if they're intentionally relying on business from people who are not informed and being charged much more than they expect, who are all gonna be unhappy obviously.. update: I did some research and shipping saint doesn't even have the option for an estimate calculator customers can access. I guess then the question would be is there a better option than shipping saint since it seems 80% of peoples issues stem from all the costs involved with shipping. there has got to be a better option than what they're doing. in...

Consider this review another in a long line of negatives that you will read for this auction house. I tried to really like this auction house I really did but they became very deceptive and shady especially in regard to shipping (shocking, I know).

I won a 1933 Goudey Lou Gehrig in one of the auctions and got it for a great price ($3,600), including buyer's premium. The Buyer's Premium is clearly stated, and bidders need to know that most auctions do this. Any review that complains about BP should be automatically thrown out.

Now here is the part that mystifies me and makes me never want to ever utter the name Matthew Bullock again, it's the shipping procedures. I waited around for over a week thinking Bullock would send me an invoice for the sale along with the shipping costs. I finally had to reach out to them and ask them what was going on. I was told to send in my $3,600 for the card and when they were ready, they would contact me about shipping costs. I have never done this in my 30 years of auction experience until now.

Not wanting to lose the card I sent them in the $3,600 check and they cashed it immediately. I than waited around for another week when I had to again contact them about shipping my card. So far, do you see a trend here.... bad communication.

Another few days rolled around, and a befuddled shipping clerk contacted me and told me I can either pay him $55 for fast shipping service or $85 for even faster shipping service. I immediately felt this was a total cash grab, but I still wanted my card. I agreed to the $55 service (even though I thought this bordered on extortion) and I was told that it would be shipped Registered Priority Mail. In most cases that should take 2-3 days to receive from Illinois to Maryland but as of writing this, I am still waiting for it 2 weeks later and counting.

As a concerned American and in this day and age of DOGE looking for wasteful spending, I immediately contacted the Illinois State Attorney General Office about possible fraud and corruption going on at Bullock regarding shipping charges. It is very clear to me that Bullock is lining their pockets with extra money based on the pretense of shipping and shipping speed especially when they are so suspicious about not listing shipping charges beforehand.

I am sure Bullock will write a reply regarding this email, but facts are facts, and the befuddled shipping clerk let the cat out of the bag when he mentioned the two shipping costs and one getting to you a lot faster than the other one. This is all so frustrating especially when you buy a $3,600 card that is now somewhere in shipping outer space. $3,600 auction buyers in my opinion should be treated like gold instead of crud which I feel like from Matthew...

I would 100% do business with this company again, and I actually have already contacted them about some remaining high-value items. I also would recommend this for anyone who is facing an overwhelming task of trying to manage the sale of a large high-value collection.

The share of the profits that go to the auction gallery are a hell of a deal. To sell the items the gallery sold for us, we'd have had to quit our jobs to manage the cleaning, research, listing, and managing of sales. And we wouldn't have had nearly the success in researching the history of the items or their value. Without Matthew Bullock Auction Gallery, we'd have made less money from the sales and risked the items going to people who won't appreciate them.

When our parents passed away, their house was filled with years of accumulated items with historical and collector value. We were overwhelmed with where to even start on ensuring these items got into the hands of people who would know what they were and appreciate them the way our parents did.

We got lucky by getting Matthew Bullock Auction Gallery involved through an odd coincidence involving an old family friend who had ties to the gallery. They helped us get the massive amounts of stuff to them, then spent time researching and cleaning, so we needed to be patient.

The research was impeccable; some of the items were listed with levels of detail we hadn't know about or with details that we'd long forgotten until we saw them written down. Many items sold at auction for higher amounts than we (or sometimes even they) expected.

The experience was so good that someone who hadn't been all-in on us using this auction house has now expressed interest having them auction a large collection...