Terms & Conditions

All of our autographs are guaranteed authentic, without limit.

Terms

Net cash upon receipt of material ordered. We accept credit cards and Paypal payments through our website. We also accept cash, check, wire, and money orders with prior arrangement. Phone and Email orders welcomed:

www.schubertiademusic.com
schubertiademusic@gmail.com
617-308-4019
NY customers add 8.875% sales tax.

Common Abbreviations Used on this Site:

SP
Signed Photo
Spc
Signed Postcard
ALS
Autograph Letter Signed
LS
Letter Signed
ANS
Autograph Note Signed
AQS
Autograph Quotation Signed
AM(us)QS
Autograph Musical Quotation Signed.
DS
Document Signed
TMsS
Typed Manuscript Signed


Returns:

As members of PADA, ABAA and ILAB, we guarantee that all items we sell are authentic and as represented and described. But our guarantee is more than that: as lovers and purveyors of rare books and documents that speak to us across time, this is a fundamental value of our business. We do not offer for sale any items which we do not believe in 100% as to do otherwise would be a betrayal of our values. We strive for accurate descriptions of all items and display photographs of everything we offer and are happy to provide further images on request by email and to answer any detailed questions about condition by phone or email prior to purchase. In the very rare instance where we may have overlooked a significant condition issue, we are always willing to accept a return within 3 days of receipt of an item. But we also sell all items - through our website and through direct negotiation by phone or email - subject to the following stipulation:

Unless sold "on approval" by advance agreement in writing, should a client at any point have authenticity concerns about an item purchased from us, we require any return request to be accompanied by THREE written opinions against the authenticity of the item in question. These opinions must be from recognized specialist dealers/authenticators in the relevant field of autographs/manuscripts, art, or books/music. If the claim is in regards to an autograph, at least one opinion must be from a member of the Professional Autograph Dealers Association (a guide by specialization is posted on the PADA website). We do not accept returns under any other circumstances. All purchases made from Schubertiade Music & Arts LLC (through the website, by phone or email, or through any other sales outlet) constitute the purchaser's consent to these terms.

In some circumstances by mutual agreement we may agree to accept back an item for other reasons, subject to a restocking fee of 25%


Installments:

For larger orders and on an individual basis by private and prior arrangement, Schubertiade occasionally accept payments by installment. All payments made by this method constitute sequential NON-REFUNDABLE deposits toward an agreed purchase. Should payment not be completed within the agreed time period of payment, Schubertiade reserves the right to retain all payments made up to that time and to re-offer the item(s) for sale. Any payment by installments constitutes your acceptance of these terms.


Shipping & Postage Rates:

Up to $150
$12.00
$151-400
$15.00
$401-2000
$22.00
$2001+
$35.00
International Surcharge:
add $32
Large Item Surcharge:
add $22 for domestic, $80 for international orders
Extra Large Item Surcharge:
add $50 for domestic, $250 for international orders

Most items are shipped within 3-5 business days from receipt of payment.

WE SHIP ONLY BY FEDEX. UNLESS YOU HAVE CONFIRMED WITH YOUR POST OFFICE THAT THEY WILL ACCEPT A FEDEX SHIPMENT, PLEASE DO NOT PUT A P.O. ADDRESS IN YOUR ORDER.

Additional surcharges may apply to framed items or larger printed scores and books. Please inquire.
All shipping and orders are subject to review and final approval.



Selling to Schubertiade


If you have autographs or printed music to sell, Schubertiade is always buying - individual pieces and entire collections. We pay top dollar for good material and also regularly take significant pieces on consignment. Schubertiade Music does not quote specific prices for merchandise offered to us by email or scans. Because of the volume of offers we receive, if you would like to inquire if we are interested in an item you may wish to sell, please adhere to the following simple process:

  1. Please offer your item or items to us with an image, including a closeup of the signed area(s) by email, together with general measurements (for photographs or artworks) and your best price for the item. You can also ask us for a "range estimate." This will be along the lines of $100 - $1000 or "$5k - $10k" etc. We do this for the simple reason that if you are thinking something for which we might offer, for example, at the most $5k, was going to be your retirement plan, we all want to know this before we spend any more time on a given transaction possibility. The figures at this point will be very general, but enough of an idea to know if we all want to proceed.

  2. Once we review your image and give you a range estimate or you give us a price you'd like to get, if we all want to move forward, we will ask you you ship your item or items to us by signature-required mail to review them for condition and authenticity. After examining them in person, we can reply to you - generally within 3 business days - with a firm offer by phone. That offer is valid while we are on the telephone with you and if you accept, we will send you a written email confirmation and will pay you promptly by check or paypal, whatever you prefer. If you would like to have your items returned to you, we will quote you the cost of return shipping and ask that you kindly pay us that amount by credit card, paypal or check in advance of return shipment, which we will do immediately on receipt of payment.

    Before giving us a price or sending anything to us, we encourage you to poke around and see what others are charging for similar materials. But you should know a few things in order to interpret what you find:

    • The only thing that matters are confirmed sale prices. Anyone can put anything up at any price online and hope some sucker comes along. There are folks out there "selling" examples of the same signed images we have on our website at many, many multiples of the going price across the market. Last year, at a major book fair, we saw one dealer selling a signed photograph of Charlie Chaplin (not even as the tramp, which is the most desirable format) for $140,000, about 50 times the going price at most dealers! You'll see all types of prices for all types of things and should know that many of these are not "real" prices.

    • Auction prices are a very unreliable way to understand pricing, since the same thing might sell one day for $1k and then next for $10k, depending on who is in the room (as they say, "it only takes 2 fools!"). Also, usually the published price includes the Buyer's and Seller's premiums as well as, at many auction houses, imaging fees and insurance fees, which means that the consignor of a given item probably netted between 55-60% of that published price in the end. Also, in most sales, about 40% of the pieces at auction go unsold. Sellers at auction may give up their item for 6-8 months, only to find themselves back at square one.

    • Typical wholesale (you!) to retail (us!) markups are significant and are based on a variety of factors. Not everyone can sell the same thing for the same price and building access to the specific customers for specific types of material is a large part of the cost involved in selling something. Then there are the costs of research, insurance, renting booths at shows, traveling to buy and sell materials, buying archival storage materials etc. etc. etc. When we pay for an item, we factor all of this in to what we are paying and weigh it against what we know others are paying for similar material, both wholesale and retail. Sometimes one dealer will have a customer for something to whom he/she can sell it the next day. If it's easy and fast and very few of these other costs come into play, there may be a smaller spread between what they are willing to pay and what price they will then achieve with a sale. Sometimes even very desirable material may take a long time to sell - so the spread between what we can pay for something and the price we hope to eventually get, is larger. We don't mind telling you all of this, because we want our customers to know that we aren't making prices up out of thin air and to trust that we are offering competitive prices based on solid market factors.

    We operate in good faith and expect our clients to do so as well. If you are interested in having an appraisal (fair market value, insurance, tax purposes), we charge competitive rates for that service, so please inquire. But please do not use the pretense of offering material for sale in order to get a free appraisal and then use that as a springboard to sell to someone else or turn around and put your item on eBay. That sort of routine is dishonest, a waste of our time, and you are better than that! Thanks for your understanding and we look forward to being in touch about your items!

Provenance

Except where it is relevant and interesting to the item itself and meaningfully adds to the history of the item (for example, the chain of ownership of a lock of hair; or the auction history of a Ballets Russes costume which was sold in a historic Sotheby's sale in the 1970s), we rarely discuss provenance of items. If there is ever a well-founded concern of sourcing, we welcome specific inquiries towards a specific item. But, unlike with artwork, with printed books and autographs, we have found it is just generally irrelevant information. Pieces typically have no 'provenance' except to say they came either from a private collection or an institutional consignment or an auction or another dealer etc., none of which have any bearing on the piece itself except in those cases where there is some integral historical fact that is revealed by such, in which case we mention it in the listing. But there is always Google, and for those for whom it is important to know how much we have paid for a specific item, if that information is publicly available, we applaud your searching capabilities! Thank you for your understanding.