icollector.com shows strong Live Auction
results for January
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA - February 14th 2002 - As the restructuring of icollector.com reaches its final stages, Ableauctions.comTM, Inc. (AMEX: AAC) announced today strong results for Live Auctions held through its icollector division and eBay Live Auctions in January.
Despite January being one of the quietest months in the auction calendar, icollector.com facilitated the broadcast of 17 Live Auctions under its alliance with eBay Live Auctions. Crossing a broad spectrum of the fine art, antiques and collectibles sector, inventory listed and sold included stamps, coins, pictures, books, maps and Asian art.
On December 22nd 2001, in association with Berenice Denton Estate Sales, 100 lots from the collection of Bill Monroe, the 'Father of Bluegrass music', were sold in Nashville, Tennessee resulting in 48% of the lots offered being sold to internet buyers. Highlights of the sale included the sale to internet bidders of James Monroe's 1982 Zimmer for $20,000 and Bill Monroe's Presentation mandolin for $32,000.
Berenice Denton said that this auction was "one of the most successful events I have ever been connected with, we were contacted by people and auction houses all over the country asking how we did it - we gave all the credit to icollector and eBay, thank you for making this event such a huge success."
At the sale of the 'Ann Weston Estate & Edward Weston Collection' held in association with Clark Cierlak Fine Arts of Sherman Oaks, California on January 12th, over 291 of the 600 lots offered sold to internet bidders with internet activity being very heavy across the entire sale.
icollector.com also announces that it has signed Sloan's as a client, with Sloan's listing their inaugural auction on icollector.com and eBay Live Auctions on January 27th where numerous pieces of furniture were sold to internet bidders. Founded in 1853 and with salerooms in Washington and Miami, Sloan's is one of America's oldest auction houses and specialises in fine art, furniture, decorative arts, silver, rugs, books and fine jewelry. Commenting on the alliance, Lora Krizelman, Director of Auction Administration & Operations, said, "Sloan's was delighted with the results from our first real-time auction held through icollector. By adding another bidding mechanism, the interest level among new Internet bidders boosted an already successful sale". Julian Ellison, Business Development Director at icollector.com said, "These are exciting times, the beginning of the year has got off to a flying start with some wonderful sales - the internet is playing an important and credible role in bringing more bids and new bidders to salerooms and with more and more auction houses joining every day, this year looks set to be a busy one!"
Sloan's joins icollector.com's impressive global list of over 75 auction house clients who use eBay Live Auctions and closely follows the announcement of a strategic alliance between eBay and Sotheby's. The alliance will introduce Sothebys.com online auctions into the eBay marketplace and calls for Sotheby's to adopt eBay's Live Auctions technology in a significant number of live auctions being held at Sotheby's New York and London.
Further validating the Live Auctions product in this industry, this alliance will serve to bring extra traffic and awareness to the eBay Live Auctions site, bringing added benefits to icollector.com clients and all sellers who use this leading platform.
About Ableauctions.com
Ableauctions.com is a high-tech business-to-business and consumer auctioneer that conducts auctions live and simultaneously broadcasts them over the Internet. The Company liquidates a broad range of products including computers, electronics, office equipment, furniture and industrial equipment that are acquired through bankruptcies, insolvencies and defaults. This release and prior releases are available on the Company's Internet Auction web site located at www.ableauctions.com.
About icollector.com
icollector.com is the independent connection to the world's auction houses. Founded in 1994, it was the first company dedicated to trading antiques, fine art and premium collectibles on the Internet. Today icollector.com represents more than 350 of the world's leading auction houses. Hundreds of thousands of collectors use icollector.com daily to search its global client base of auction houses and place bids, with the support of its extensive catalog archive. Since January 2001, its alliance with eBay Live Auctions has resulted in hundreds of Live Auctions being broadcast in real-time, direct to the saleroom as the auction happens, selling tens of thousands of lots to many thousands of users online. With offices in Europe, the U.S.A and Canada, its unparalleled understanding and expertise in this sector can help you to maximise your opportunities to find, buy or sell art, antiques and collectibles online.