Golden Oak Online Auctions LLC

Our History

Golden Oak Online Auctions began as Golden Oak Philatelic Mail Sales in 1991. It was founded by Michael K. Johnson, in partnership with Heritage Auctions, which provided generous initial support, financial and otherwise. It held numerous very successful mail sales in the 1990's and early 2000's. These sales also served as a testing ground for MKJ Associates, our associated company, which was then building Catalog Master, an enterprise-level software suite to run auction companies. Catalog Master is now used by many public auction houses on 3 continents, and is one of the most powerful general-purpose software commercially available to manage auctions. In the 2000's Michael focused on developing and improving that software, and providing deep support to the auction houses using it.

In 2017 Michael began shifting focus from mail sales and public auctions, and began work on an internet-only auction, in essence repositioning Golden Oak.

Michael began his auction career in 1977 with Wolffers Auctions in San Francisco, eventually becoming President and Chief Operating Officer. He later served as Vice-President of Robert A. Siegel Auctions in New York, before returning to California and beginning Golden Oak Mail Sales. Michael's background included a degree in mathematics, and extensive studies in computer science as well as history.

In 2019 Michael reached out to Tracy Carey and invited her to join him as his partner in the new Golden Oak Online, which she did in October, as co-director. Tracy had started her career at Steve Ivy Philatelic Auctions, a division of Heritage Auctions, in 1988. In 1993, she and Charles Shreve founded Shreve's Philatelic Galleries, where she remained until the company was acquired by Spink and Son in 2007. While with Shreve's, Tracy worked with many notable collections, including the William H. Gross Collection, widely recognized for its extraordinary depth in U.S. philately. She subsequently spent five years as Chief Operating Officer of Spink USA. Her later career included serving as President and Chief Operating Officer of Daniel F. Kelleher Auctions, a client of Michael's software firm. Tracy's background included a degree in psychology and a master's degree in family counseling, and she had (and still has) her own family counseling business, alongside her auction work.

Golden Oak held its first auction in the new online format in February 2020. Michael served as the principal philatelist, numismatist and web manager, with Tracy as administrative manager, auctioneer and client relations chief. Michael and Tracy's original business plan envisioned Golden Oak Online as something like an online continuation of Golden Oak Mail Sales, in essence competing with eBay. The years that followed have resulted in considerable modifications to that vision, as Golden Oak Online responded to deep changes in the stamp market. The sale of collection lots online is now a major part of our business, and we have had many sales of gem quality material, sometimes with individual realizations well into the thousands of dollars, far beyond our original vision.

There has been an enormous amount of work to maintain Golden Oak Online, and much of it has been done by Michael and Tracy themselves, operating with a small staff or none. In September 2026 Tracy, more than a little worn out, retired from active participation in Golden Oak Online, and returned to Heritage Auctions, accepting a position in their newly rejuvenated stamp division, along with her former business partner Charles Shreve.

Golden Oak Online continues. We are pleased with the support of our many friends and very pleased at the amount of material pending for our upcoming sales. No better statement of our ongoing business philosophy can be made than the original statement written by Tracy in 2020, which we reproduce here.

"Golden Oak Online Auctions was created in response to what we perceive to be the growing online auction market. We are fusing our extensive auction experience with state of the art technology to create an easy to use online auction platform for stamps, coins, currency, art, antiques, autographs and much more. We aim to provide a global community of collectors and dealers with an effortless experience where they can browse, bid and buy, or sell and ship with ease".