No discussion of collectibles auctions would be complete without mentioning Heritage Auction Galleries, who specialize in things like comic books, coins, and memorabilia. Heritage does over $40 million in annual sales and from what we can tell, has a solid reputation.

The big thing collectors rely on from an auction house is accuracy of descriptions, and checking through their impressive collection of comic books, for example, we can clearly see the expertise demonstrated in the listings.

Heritage holds both online and offline auctions, and they sometimes link the offline auctions through eBay’s live bidding, which means they bring in a lot of bidders.

Reaching critical mass is not necessarily helpful to bargain hunters because it pushes the price up, not down. People looking for collectibles tend to put acquiring the item above the need for a bargain and that is reflected in these auctions, so a popular specialty auction might not be the best place to look for items for resale. On the other hand, if you have items to sell, a specialty auction might be a great outlet for sales. We checked with Heritage about comic book auctions and their rates were competitive, but call them for details, their buyers are listed on their site (link).