LV firms auction goods on the ‘Net

Monday, March 29, 1999 | 9:47 a.m.

In the new era of online auctions, Todd Axelrod wrote the book on buying and selling pieces of history.

And you might say that Gunther and Johanna Nezhoda wrote the magazine articles about it.

The three Las Vegas entrepreneurs are taking different paths in the hot e-commerce world of online auctions.

For the Nezhodas, offering a site for customers to auction their goods was a natural progression from publishing magazines about computers. Their www.vegastoday.com site is thriving with an average 55,000 hits a day. Their monthly magazines -- Computer Journal, Internet Surfer and Nevada Web Pages -- report a combined circulation of 190,000.

Their online auctioning strategy is to give consumers a place to offer what they have to the highest bidder -- a sort of classified advertisement page with the sale going to the one who offers the most money.

They compete with the acknowledged giant of online auctions, eBay.com, but they offer something eBay doesn't -- a free presence. The Nezhodas only charge for little extras like using bold headings, special category listings and banner advertising. Most of their competitors charge a fee for a listing.

"In order to participate in our auction, you have to register," said Johanna Nezhoda, who also edits the computer magazines.

Registration is done so that the company has a record of who is making the transaction and a mailing address of the successful bidder can be provided to the seller to ship the merchandise.

Once an item is listed and categorized, the seller usually sets a date for the close of the auction. That way, VegasToday can call attention to auctions that are near closing. Most items are for sale seven to 14 days.

VegasToday.com also offers a means for showing a photo of the sale item. To minimize graphic elements that create downloading delays, photos are offered through links.

Sellers can monitor the progress of bidding on their items by logging onto the site and typing in user identification codes they acquire when they register.

To exchange ideas and tweak the system, the Nezhodas have established a "cafe" site for comments on everything from items for sale to the auction process.

"We've actually gotten a few good ideas from some of the people who participate," Johanna Nezhoda said. "Most of them have been encouraging us, telling us they like the site and pleading with us to keep it free. We're planning to do that."

While all sorts of items -- cars, real estate, home furnishings -- have shown up for sale on the site, the most popular has been the collectible categories. Just as they do on eBay, Beanie Babies have overrun the VegasToday.com site. VegasToday.com won't accept ads for adult products or firearms as well.

A different type of collectibles -- and a different type of auction -- is available at another Las Vegas-based World Wide Web site.

Gallery of History Inc. recently completed the first auction in which it solicited bids on line. Unlike VegasToday.com, Gallery of History operates a more conventional auction, soliciting bids via phone, fax, mail or e-mail on sales that occur every six to seven weeks.

"We're one of Las Vegas' best-kept secrets," said Axelrod, founder, president and chief executive officer of the Gallery of History, headquartered at 3601 W. Sahara Ave.

The gallery uses its site, www.galleryofhistory.com, more as a catalogue of goods scheduled for auction, although the December sale at which the website was first advertised produced a 91 percent increase in site hits and a 31 percent increase in bidding dollars.

A January auction generated sales estimated at $283,000.

Axelrod has been a collector for more than 30 years and has 180,000 items on loan, in displays and in storage.

Axelrod took an interest in collecting historical documents and artifacts while working as a securities dealer in New York in 1968. Eventually, he decided to devote his career to his passion because he looked at historical artifacts as one of the last collectibles within reach of middle-class incomes.

"A signed document may be as close as you or I are ever going to get to Abraham Lincoln," Axelrod said.

As Axelrod's interest in collecting increased, he took time to write a guidebook for other collectors. "The Handbook of Historical Documents" is a guide to owning history and explains everything from how to protect collectibles to how to determine their authenticity.

Eventually, his interest in historical artifacts expanded into sports and entertainment memorabilia. One of the most popular pieces in a January auction was a ball signed by home run record-holder Mark McGwire. The ball was signed on an American League ball, when the slugger played with the Oakland A's, but because of McGwire's celebrated 1998 season with St. Louis, nine bidders raised the price on the ball above the $1,400 mark.

In the last year, Axelrod transformed the Gallery of History from a retail-based operation to an online presence. Earlier this year, he closed the last retail outlet, a Washington, D.C., store, in a 3 1/2-year bid to change the focus of the company.

The high price of retail space convinced him to change directions. He said he operated a 960-square-foot store in the Fashion Show mall and got out when rent increased from $50,000 a year to $200,000.

The one thing Axelrod will miss about the retail store is the public contact. However, he said people are welcome to see the memorabilia and snippets of history on display at Gallery of History's headquarters. He said the company welcomes school groups that want to see documents with a link to the past.

Axelrod's favorite piece of his collection is an original letter handwritten by notorious outlaw Jesse James, one of only three known to exist. The James letter, dated June 5, 1875, is penned to a man who accused him of horse thievery. Its estimated value: $1.5 million.

Other presidential collectibles have been auctioned by the gallery, including impeachment documents from both the Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton administrations.

In addition to a packed display room at company headquarters, now inhabited by several desktop computers, the gallery operates a framing and preservation division that mounts documents, photos and other memorabilia.