Skinner

Obviously lot 25 September 25, 2020 Fine Paintings and Sculpture auction is not a real John Emms painting but an amateur copy. Nowhere does it say that though. Nice job experts.

I only bought the wines and spirits from the Skinner auction. From my experience with those auction house, Skinner is the worst. The shipping company they chose for me, damaged my lots on the way my home. It's been almost four months, still waiting for the payment. Worst I have ever had.

I met with a representative from Skinner Inc to appraise and then auction my late uncle's estate, (roughly 75 pieces of furniture and over 100 prints). The early process went smoothly. The Skinner employee arrived on time and was courteous and informative during the initial appraisal. He mentioned Skinner would be interested in most but not all of my uncle's pieces, so we scheduled a second meeting to catalog and transport the items. Again, the Skinner employee was punctual and polite, but the truck never arrived.

The Skinner employee told me he'd email me a picture of his notes, which he would then write up as a proper catalog. He said he would then email me the catalog. He also said he would email me the direct contact information for the trucking department, so I could schedule the pickup. Then, for no reason that I can discern, all communication ceased.

The Skinner employee did not email me the information he promised, nor did he respond to my emails, nor did he respond to my phone calls. It was -- and is! -- still a mystery to me. I have since hired someone else. Short of some plausible explanation of extraordinary circumstances, I will never work with or buy from Skinner Inc.

I have been both buying and selling with Skinner since 1994. All transactions professional. Ceramics department very knowledgeable and helpful.

I am not a fan of putting a negative post about a company if you simply feel like you did not get your own way, but as a business owner myself I believe you should hold companies or individuals completely accountable when they act in less than honest way while doing business. That being said, my husband and I went to Skinner Auction in Marlborough Mass on July 12th 2018 inquiring information about liquidating our large collection of old (unclean) silver coins (well over 1000 coins) and Confederate paper money from the 1700's.

We wanted to know how Skinner auction works. We asked Skinner many questions and Skinner answered us verbally as well as in writing. Skinner told us that they would be able to get us more money than we could get if we sold on our own. WE FEEL THIS NOT TO BE TRUE AT ALL. We asked Skinner to do a detail quote on the following items, Skinner quoted verbally and in writing.

Large old silver coin collection, $3,000.00 low side - 5,000.00 high sides. Large collection of confederate bills $1,00.00 on the low side- $2,00.00 on the high side. Small group of confederate money $100.00 low side - $200.00 high side In total silver coins and paper money from the 1700's Low side estimate $4,100.00 High side $7,200.00 On October 13th approximately three months after our collection sold at auction, we received a check from Skinner in the amount of $955.39 Skinner sold our entire collection of silver and paper money for the amount of $3,840.00 minus 1.5 insurance fee and minus 30% commission.

Per Skinner contract, specifically on commission structure 30% Commission items under $2,000.00. 15% Commission items over $2,001.00 -$7,500.00 FIRST LOT - LARGE OLD SILVER COIN COLLECTION (well over 1000.00 coins) According to Skinner commission structure, we should have been billed 15% commission for our entire collection of silver coins, not the 30% Skinner helped themselves to by billing each denomination as a separate lot item.

Per Skinner Inc. Contract receipt #172785 Page 1 of 2 #6 Large collection of old silver coins estimate. Low estimate $3,000.00 - High estimate $5,000.00 SECOND LOT- Paper Money from the 1700's Per Skinner Inc. Contract receipt #172785 page 2 of 2 #8-9 We should have been billed 30% commission on low-end estimate and 15% on the High-end estimate for collection of paper money.

Low Estimated $1,100,000.00 - High estimate $2,200 Skinner convinced us to do our silver coins in one lot. Total written estimate from Skinner on silver coin collection $3,000.00- $5,000.00 qualifies for 15% commission. Total written estimate from Skinner on 1700's paper currency $1,100.00 - $2200.00 qualifies for the 30% low end and 15% commission high estimate rate per Skinner.

We questioned why skinner is holding on to $2,017 (the larger amount of course) and we were told Skinner is waiting for the buyer to make his payment. Per contract, once items sold, we would receive our money 35 days later. We told Skinner if there are any item belonging to us that have not sold, we want to take them back, they told us the entire collection was sold yet Skinner was waiting on payment from buyer, I was told that Skinner sold ALL of my coin collection as 1 lot; Skinner sent me a statement where it shows Skinner took it upon them self to list each coin denomination amount as its own lot, We told Skinner that we had already made it very clear in an e-mail that our wish was to sell coins as one lot not several, at which time Kyle from Skinner coin and currency department told me he would.

We did not want to sell each as a separate lot because it would cost us more in commission fees. Skinner wrote incorrect descriptions on my very old silver coins, (I am guessing in order to lower the value of my silver coins.) Skinner stated in the description "The coins have been cleaned" NOT TRUE AT ALL. Any one who collects coins knows the first rule is NEVER CLEAN COINS. THE COINS WERE NOT CLEANED.

You will also need to know that you will have to pay 1 1/2 % insurance per Skinner, per item in order to make sure your items are not stolen or misplaced by Skinner employees. Don't worry about hurting Skinners feelings or feel bad not trusting Skinner. In addition we also brought approximately 13 pieces of Hobnail glass from the 1800's, written quote $200.00-$300.00 for lot.

It sold for $100.00 minus insurance and commission Skinner sold them for $7.69 each. We received a check in the amount of $64.75 for the entire collection. Skinner had a total of $200.00-$300 on their written estimate. We are very disappointed with Skinner Inc. 63 Park Plaza Boston. Ma. 02116 The branch we did business with was Skinner Inc. 274 Cedar Hill street Marlborough, Ma. 01752 There does not seem to be a thing we can do to make them do what is right so we have decided to reach out to Skinner one more time for a sit down meeting or we will have no other choice than to take Skinner Inc. of Marlborough, Ma. To small claims court where the judge ca

Skinner is a terrible auction house. Skinner took my absentee bid and verified it by email, then failed to execute it, and sold it for less to an online bidder. They cheated the seller by not executing a legitimate and verified bid, and they cheated me of an item I wanted to win and had a legitimate much higher bid for. After 5 phone calls and two broken promises for call-backs, I realize Skinner is incompetent and quite possibly dishonest. The failure to execute a bid smacks of bid manipulation. The seller who was cheated: The Collection of Gail & Don Piatt Auction 3121M August 12, 2018

Skinner offered to try to make things right for the miscommunication regarding returning unsold items to us rather than sending them to the unreserved auction. As such we are changing our rating to reflect their willingness to work with us to resolve the problem.

Excellent experience. Professional, knowledgeable, and friendly. Will definitely do business again. Thank you to everyone at Skinner.

Let's start off with the fact that their cfo is an employee abuser and should be sued for his sociopathic behavior and should be put behind bars for the rest of his life for abject work place harassment and verbal abuse. But skinner lets him get away with it. They also accused their shipper of sexual harassment and banned the shipper from their locations in boston and marlboro with a letter and no evidence to back up their claim. Longstanding employees get no raises unless you beg for one.

You can't make a living making $4 over minimum wage. Most emplyoees have businesses and are seemingly there just for the fun of it. Those who are still there meeking out an existence to this day should leave and find a better paying job. There are more vps at this place than a local bank and get bonuses while the rest of the staff don't. managers are inept and walk around with their heads in the sky. Employees are given a warning that counts as 2 and then fired weeks later.

During their sales, which can be really long -like an asian sale- you get no breaks. They'll buy you lunch but they won't provide any place to eat it because they expect you to work 12 hrs with no break. Isn't that breaking the law? The place is a bastion on liberalism and as most ppl know, liberals are smug ill-informed humans, as are the employees at skinner.

Can you say "low information voter?" There are no career advancements at skinner because if you don't have a degree in some form of the arts, you're shown the door after few years. if you have this sort of degree, you can become an auctioneer or some sort of appraiser. Not exactly a job you can take with you to Corporate America or at Shaw's as a cashier.

Anyone with an actual degree just took the job to pay the bills and then left as soon as they found a real job. They don't value employees either. If you have a brain, they get rid of you. If you're a mindless drone, you're all set. Further, its just like skinner never to address complaints or issues with their service, sales, appraisals etc.

They just conveniently lose stuff like this. Its always a shocker when someone complains and its always news to them that they never got it. You can barrage them with emails and phone calls but no one ever calls you back. Its amazing they're still in business. When a website tells you they have "extaordinary sevice" - RUN - because its usually the opposite.

Go to a local antique shop to find what you're looking for. At least you won't have to pay Mass sales tax or a buyer's premium and you'll know upfront what condition your piece is in.

Karen, Nine months ago we filed a formal written complaint detailing the event with Judie O. Who in turn forwarded the complaint to a Tish K. Who we were told, was in charge of absentee bidding in marlborough. It was during a sit down meeting we subsequently had with Tish, that we were told of the policy to have absentee bidders bid against themselves because skinners has, "an obligation to the seller".

That it was the auctioneers purogative to do so. It was her, at that meeting, that gave us the take-it-or-leave-it option of paying for the $100 of illegitimate bids the auctioneer made on our behalf bidding against ourselves, or not getting the item. In 2013 we spent $20,000+ at skinner, mostly in absentee bids. We flat told Mis K that we would not be back over this and she didn't much care.

We tried everything we could to remedy this situation with Skinners and were rebuffed. The more we tried the more we realized we didn't really want anything to do with this anymore. We're happy with the items we've received, but feel Skinners betrayed our trust, and to find out it's some kind of bizarre policy was too much.

After making an appointment & driving the hour out to meet the Asian "Expert", she was deemed to be too busy to meet with me and sent an intern to look at my extensive collection of china. Her lacky in turn dimissed everything as cheap mid-20th century common stuff not worthy of Skinner's Auction House. She also look at my ivory figurines and stated they were not actually ivory and worthless.

For such an elite house, they treated me so poorly. Kaminski Auction House took the time to look & valuate my things which will go up for auction. My figurines were determined to be ivory carved in China in the late 19th century.

Be very careful if you are placing an absentee bid through Live Auctioneers. Skinner's will add damage reports and photos the night before that were not there when you placed your bid which is very clever or just very last minute of them.and there is no responsibility taken on their end as they have fine print that makes them not liable for this.

You will need to check right before the auction begins to see if damage reports have been added. I learned the hard way. Don't bother trying to talk your way out of the bid. Live Auctioneers is supposed to email you with changes.but I did not receive one.not even in my spam folder. It is time consuming to review all of your auctions with bids right before the auction.especially if you can't and that is why you placed an absentee bid.so either don't buy from Skinner's or take your precious time to check things over again.