Vintage postcards, an antique car and a collection of books are on sale now and will go to the highest online bidder.
The Waltham Museum has enlisted the help of auctionPAL, a locally based company that auctions off items. The museum is cleaning house, to make room for items that are historically significant to the city.
"We are self supporting. Someone gave us a French painting of a Dutch woman. We have no use for them," said museum Director Albert Arena. "We sell them off to buy Waltham stuff and maintain the museum and pay electrical bills."
The Waltham-based site offers support in pricing, packaging and then selling the unwanted items through an eBay auction.
According to Arena, the museum staff wants to expand the displays within it's location at 25 Lexington St.
"We haven't used the second floor yet. We are just locked in on the first floor and we have so much more to show," Arena said. "We have uniforms from men wounded during World War II that we would like to put up. We don't have the room. ... We haven't even started on the school system exhibits. We are a museum on the history of Waltham and we have to show it."
A museum employee recently came across an article about auctionPAL and the idea to start an online auction blossomed.
"We got a car. A 1950 Ford that has nothing to do with Waltham. They will be auctioning that of for us," Arena said. "Last week we auctioned some 1948 Buicks. We didn't do a very good job. That's why we are leaning toward the professionals."
The site works by providing sellers different levels of service to auction off items. Users can photograph their items for sale, list and price them themselves or they can speak to an auctionPAL agent over the phone for support. Another method of selling items involves an auctionPAL agent visiting the seller and personally helping to price, photograph, list and sell items.
The Web site takes a percentage of the sale after the items are sold.
"Today we work mostly with eBay. If you are selling an old broken laptop, you answer some questions and our auction experts create a listing and we would manage the sale," said auctionPAL CEO Maureen Ellenberger. "We actually have a great chart for this. To list something on eBay there's about 17 steps. In our method, if you are using the online approach, there's three steps and we do all the rest of the work for you."
The company, comprised of about 18 people, moved its online business from Charlestown to Waltham in May and are located at 200 West St.
AuctionPAL was founded by two brothers, Drew and T.D. "Colby" West.
"We have two young guys that are the founders of the company. The first is Drew West. When he was in high school and college he would sell skis out of his room for the other students," Ellenberger said. "What he realized was there was an opportunity to help do these things for people that are too busy or technophobes."
Ellenberger said the brothers grew up in upstate New York.
For more information visit www.auctionpal.com
Jeff Gilbride can be reached at 781-398-8005 or at jgilbrid@cnc.com.
