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Type of site | Online auction platform |
|---|---|
| Created by |
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| CEO | Ravi Vora |
| URL | catawiki |
Catawiki is an online auction platform for buying and selling special items and collectibles. Catawiki was founded in 2008 as an online community for collectors. Since 2011, the company has been hosting weekly online auctions, in various categories such as vintage comic books, model trains, coins, watches, art, jewellery and classic cars. [1] [2] [3]
Catawiki was founded by René Schoenmakers, a Dutch comic collector, and Marco Jansen, a Dutch developer. [4] It went online on 10 September 2008 as an online wiki-based compendium of collector's catalogues. [5] First focusing on comics, the database later covered items such as postage stamps, coins and telephone cards. [2] The name "Catawiki" is a portmanteau of the words "catalogue" and "wiki".
Since 2011 Catawiki has been hosting auctions for thousands of different objects. The site was originally in Dutch, but was made available in English in 2011, in French and German in 2012, and in Spanish, Italian and Chinese in 2015. [2] [6] [3] [7]
Catawiki has been curating weekly auctions since 2011, across a number of categories such as art, books, curiosa, model trains, stamps, wine and classic cars. Catawiki's auctions are online-only. Bids are open for all to see. Winners pay what they bid via a secure payment service to receive the object from the seller. [8] Catawiki operates a network of over 240 experts who value, authenticate and curate objects. [9] [3] The site makes money by charging a Buyer Protection Fee of 9% + €3 and the Seller Fee of 12.5% (ex VAT) of the sale price. [1] [3] [8]
Darth Vader is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. The character is the secondary antagonist of the original trilogy and, as Anakin Skywalker, is the main protagonist of the prequel trilogy. Star Wars creator George Lucas has collectively referred to the first six episodic films of the franchise as "the tragedy of Darth Vader". Darth Vader has become one of the most iconic villains in popular culture, and has been listed among the greatest villains and fictional characters ever. His masked face and helmet, in particular, is considered one of the most iconic character designs of all time.
An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition exist and are described in the section about different types. The branch of economic theory dealing with auction types and participants' behavior in auctions is called auction theory.
eBay Inc. is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that brokers customer to customer and retail sales through online marketplaces in 190 markets worldwide. Sales occur either via online auctions or "buy it now" instant sales, and the company charges commissions to sellers upon sales. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in September 1995. It has 134 million yearly active buyers worldwide and handled $74 billion in transactions in 2022, 49% of which was in the United States. In 2022, the company had a take rate of 13.25%.
Sotheby's is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and maintains a significant presence in the UK.
A Dutch auction is one of several similar types of auctions for buying or selling goods. Most commonly, it means an auction in which the auctioneer begins with a high asking price in the case of selling, and lowers it until some participant accepts the price, or it reaches a predetermined reserve price. This type of price auction is most commonly used for goods that are required to be sold quickly such as flowers, fresh produce, or tobacco. A Dutch auction has also been called a clock auction or open-outcry descending-price auction. This type of auction shows the advantage of speed since a sale never requires more than one bid. It is strategically similar to a first-price sealed-bid auction.
An online auction is an auction held over the internet and accessed by internet connected devices. Similar to in-person auctions, online auctions come in a variety of types, with different bidding and selling rules.
David Charles Prowse was an English actor, bodybuilder, strongman and weightlifter. He portrayed Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy and a manservant in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange. In 2015, he starred in two documentaries concerning his Darth Vader role, one entitled The Force's Mouth which included Prowse voicing Darth Vader's lines with studio effects applied for the first time, and the other titled I Am Your Father covering the subject of fallout between Prowse and Lucasfilm.
The Tantive IV Alderaan Diplomatic Envoy is a fictional spaceship in the Star Wars film series. Designed by the Corellian Engineering Corporation (CEC), the highly modified CR90 corvette is designed to be utilitarian, durable, modular, with its simplistic interiors featuring subtle luxury for Alderaan officials. It was used by Leia Organa in the original Star Wars film and was the first vessel audiences saw when Star Wars premiered in 1977. Other CR90 Corellian corvettes, which share the Tantive IV's design, appear in Return of the Jedi and in the Star Wars Expanded Universe's books, comics, TV series, and games.
Video game collecting is the hobby of collecting and preserving video games, video game consoles, and related memorabilia. Most video game consoles, and their games, are considered to be collectors' items years after their discontinuation due to their functional longevity and cultural significance. Collectors usually narrow their search to games holding characteristics they enjoy, such as being published for a specific video game console, being of certain genre, or featuring a specific character.
A multiunit auction is an auction in which several homogeneous items are sold. The units can be sold each at the same price or at different prices.
Heritage Auctions is an American multi-national auction house based in Dallas, Texas. Founded in 1976, Heritage is an auctioneer of numismatic collections, comics, fine art, books, luxury accessories, real estate, and memorabilia from film, music, history, and sports.
Bob Shop, formerly Bidorbuy or bidorbuy.co.za, is a South African e-commerce website based on an internet auction and online marketplace model allowing individuals and businesses to trade with each other. Transactions on bidorbuy are in South African rands.
Metropolis Collectibles, Inc is a famous rare comic book dealer of vintage American comics, primarily known for its large collection of comic books originally published in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Metropolis was founded in 1984 by Stephen Fishler, and merged companies in 1999 with Vincent Zurzolo, Jr., of Vincent's Collectibles; Zurzolo said that as he found he could not compete with Fishler's business, merging the two made sense. The company is located on Broadway in New York City, and the comic book showroom allows viewings by appointment only. Over the years, Metropolis Collectibles has grown from being a comic-book mail-order company to maintaining a major online retail presence. In addition to being comic book buyers and comic book sellers, Metropolis also gives comic book appraisals and provides comic book valuation services of rare, old out-of-print comics. Metropolis Collectibles has obtained a variety of notable classic comic book collections over the years, or "pedigrees", including the Crowley Collection, the Allentown Pedigree, the D-Copy Collection, and the Northford Collection. In August 2014, the company was able to purchase a near-mint copy of Action Comics #1 for $3.2 million in an auction on eBay.
Ahsoka Tano is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. She was introduced as the 14-year-old Togruta Jedi Padawan of Anakin Skywalker in the animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) before appearing in the subsequent animated television series ; the sequel series Star Wars Rebels (2014–2018); in the live-action film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) as a voiceover cameo; and in the miniseries Tales of the Jedi (2022), voiced by Ashley Eckstein. In 2020, Ahsoka made her live-action debut in the second season of the Disney+ series The Mandalorian, portrayed by Rosario Dawson. Dawson reprised the role in a 2022 episode of the spin-off series The Book of Boba Fett, and the 2023 series, Ahsoka.
A Star Wars Pez is a Pez candy dispenser themed after the Star Wars movies, and is one of the company's most prominent merchandising deals. Approximately 100 dispensers have been released on the market from 1997 to 2023, among the many collectibles spawned by the franchise.
A wine auction may also auction other alcoholic beverages than wine. There are two basic types of wine auctions: first hand wine auctions, where wineries sell their own wines, and second hand wine auctions, arranged by auction houses or other auctioneers to make it possible for any owners of wine to trade it. In most cases, the wines traded at wine auctions are collectible "fine wines" typically suitable for extended cellaring. Second-hand buyers may be looking for mature wines which are no longer available first-hand. In all types of auction the auctioneer charges commission to both buyers and sellers.
Paddle8 was an online auction house based in New York City selling fine art including Post-War and Contemporary art, prints & multiples, photography, street art and collectibles. Paddle8's sales focus on pieces priced between $1,000 and $100,000, all vetted by specialists for authenticity. Paddle8 had offices in New York, Los Angeles, London and Hong Kong. In 2016, Paddle8 merged with the Berlin online auction house Auctionata. In February 2017, Auctionata declared insolvency and Paddle8 became an independent company once again, before selling to Native in 2018, and then to Facebank AG in 2019. In March 2020, Paddle8 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York just one week after the non-profit New American Cinema Group filed a lawsuit against the company for allegedly misappropriating funds from a charity auction.
Star Wars is an ongoing Star Wars comic series published by Marvel Comics since January 14, 2015. Originally written by Jason Aaron with art by John Cassaday, it is set between the 1977 film Star Wars and its 1980 sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, much like the previous comic published in 2013 by Dark Horse Comics. The series features classic Star Wars characters Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and R2-D2. It was one of three new Star Wars comics by Marvel announced in July 2014, along with Darth Vader and the limited series Princess Leia.
Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra, or simply Doctor Aphra, is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. Created by writer Kieron Gillen, artist Salvador Larroca, and editors Jordan D. White and Heather Antos, she first appeared in Marvel Comics' 2015 Darth Vader comic book series. Aphra became a breakout character, and began appearing in her own ongoing spin-off comic series, Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, from 2016 to 2019, before relaunching in 2020.
Thrawn: Alliances is a 2018 Star Wars novel by Timothy Zahn, published on July 24, 2018 by Del Rey Books. It continues the chronicles of Grand Admiral Thrawn, a character that Zahn originated in his Heir to the Empire trilogy published in 1991–1993. It is the sequel to Zahn's Star Wars: Thrawn novel, the second installment of the newer Thrawn trilogy, and the ninth Thrawn novel overall.