Pook & Pook, Inc., Auctioneers and Appraisers in 463 East Lancaster Avenue

Customer Reviews about Pook & Pook, Inc., Auctioneers and Appraisers:

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  Awful and ignorant customer service. Untrustworthy, avoid.
  By Stephen Reinhold, July 13, 2017
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  This has been gnawing at me for years now, and each time I see a Pook & Pook auction, it just irritates an already festering pustule in my brain. The protagonist, Deirdre Pook Margarelli, who from now on I will refer to as Kaiser Soze (if not familiar with the name, Google "The Usual Suspects.") This is just my impression of her after speaking with her via telephone, and numerous email correspondences. It pays, and probably pays well to have family ties to the business. Anyone care for a steaming bowl of nepotism? About 6 years ago a friend called me regarding a lamp being offered in a Pook & Pook auction. It was a Moe Bridges reverse painted lamp with exotic birds. Not a common lamp, often selling for between $4,000-$6,000, or more, due to its rarity. My friend knew I had been in the antique and collectible markets for years, and I've bid at most major Auction Houses in the U.S., so he asked me to bid on his behalf. I agreed to set him up for a phone bid because I was going to be attending another Auction out of state, the day of this sale. He won the lamp for I think $1,500. He called me in a state of flux. Why did I win it so cheaply he opined? He asked me to call them and get some more details, because he is not a lucky guy, and he felt there must be something left undisclosed about the lamp that made it sell so cheaply. Did all of the previous Owners while having this lamp in their home meet a mysterious and untimely death? Well, no, not so melodramatic as that, but if that were the case, it probably would have never been disclosed anyway. I found out within the first minute of my phone call, which told me instantly that the issue with the lamp was annotated in the Pook and Pook description available to the employees, and they all knew it, but did not disclosed it to the prospective bidders. Not on Liveauctioneers website, not on the Pook and Pook website. It had a hideous crack from the top of the shade to the bottom of the shade. I had the unsavory job of telling my friend the bad news. Feeling bad about the unfortunate event, I offered, and did, call Pook and Pook to try to explain the situation. I was transferred to Deirdre Pook Magarelli aka KS, who would soon become my BFF (sarcasm). We had a lengthy somewhat tense back and forth conversation where she very clearly told me that she instructed the photographer to face the cracked part of the shade to the front of the picture. For reasons known only to Deirdre and the photographer, this was not done (I believe I know the reason why.) I put out there, to Deirdre, a very cogent question. Why not add one simple tell all sentence to the description of the lamp? Not even a full sentence, but "shade cracked top to bottom." Oh, lest I forget, the description of the lamp was simply what it was, a reverse painted lamp. As if someone might look at it and mistake it for a Mercedes or something. The conversation took an ugly turn for the worse when I spewed out one simple, teeny little buzz word......"ethical." My bad, because this caused an obvious visceral response from Deirdre. The tone and tenor of the conversation changed immediately. In conclusion, I was banned from bidding with Pook & Pook, despite never participating in this sale, and simply put, just helping a friend and steering a little business to P&P. I had a very good bidding/buying track record at P&P, and prompt payments, for years leading up to this. Wait, it gets better, much better. Deirdre threatens my friend with a Small Claims lawsuit if he does not pay the full amount for the ass crack lamp. I tell my friend to not pay, they won't do anything. Well, boy howdy, did I misjudge KS. They indeed filed. I begged my friend, please, please, go to court, I will go with you. He ultimately caved to their threats/demands and paid them the Buyers Premium. No record of the two sales of this lamp exists on Liveauctioneers. The second time they sold it, showing the crack, it sold for $150. Why no record when there are pictures back to 1999 for practically everything sold on Liveauctioneer. Tell ya anything?
  By Timothy Skaggs, September 29, 2016

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About Pook & Pook, Inc., Auctioneers and Appraisers in Downingtown