@NJCoin said:

@Alpha2814 said:
There's this, from a 2023 paper: "By incorporating limited-attention into online auctions, we explain this phenomenon by demonstrating that the soft-close ending rule may fail to eliminate the strategic advantage of sniping. However, sellers’ expected revenues are higher than in hard-close auctions, snipers’ winning probabilities are lower and winning prices are higher, indicating that soft-close ending rule does in some sense solve the problem caused by sniping." -- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4676973

As with @jmlanzaf's article, if true, your obscure Chinese researchers are far sharper than the minds behind eBay and GC. My vote still goes to those behind the highly successful platforms. Not the obscure authors publishing in the equally obscure journals.

As always, YMMV. The good news is that there is a platform for everyone.

(edited because i mis-read a statistic and have updated Ebays results based on merchandise volume, not ebays revenue)

Great Collections did annual revenue in 2023 of over 200 million. They use hard close timed auctions.

Stack Bowers in 2022 (last reported year I could find data on) was over 250 million. They are larger than GC. They use soft close auctions.

Heritage Auctions in 2023 did 1.76 Billion. They are much larger than GC. They do soft close auctions.

Ebay is over 10.1 Billion in 2023 revenue, with Gross merchandising volume of $73.2 billion. That figure includes all of their fixed price listings as well as the auctions. The info I see online (2022 data from eDesk) says 88% of their sales are buy it now fixed price. While we cant extrapolate for sure based on the % of listings because we dont know the price breakdown of those items, if we take the 12% of their sales that are auction and assume its 12% of volume, in terms of auctions, that makes them around 8.8 billion in auction revenue.

Sothebys (7.9 Billion) and Christies (6.2 Billion) are the biggest auction houses. They do soft close auctions.

So by your logic of back the format used by the largest most successful players....the larger share of the auction market seems to be soft close auctions.

Yikes, someone bought 10 of the same slabbed coin with the same ID number and all the telltale issues. Yeah, that is worse.

I remember using games like this as a kid. It was great fun too

Tom,

Would it be possible to examine your 1917 coins?
Can I show them to Roger?

Roger,

If Tom permits, would you like to examine these coins so we can draw our conclusion
based upon the coins? I agree with Mark's statements that the coins speak for themselves.

I would like both of your evaluations and conclusions for the book and for everyone else
to enjoy and learn from two of the leading experts on this era and these coins.

Thanks
Kevin

Sorry I'm late to the party today. God I love this thread and so glad it's still here this New Year. For everyone who participates in it, I think you'll agree ... it's the one "can't miss thread" every week. Happy first Saturday of 2025!

.

Anyway, coffee was hours ago, and I'm late here because I drove up to Maple Valley yesterday so I could be Super Grandpa ... and the kids could get a Date Night. I just got home about an hour ago.

And then, what do I see here, that crazy guy @Bikergeek is asking me questions regarding a two month old post where I referenced a Date Night!

So, to answer his questions ... yes, that is the back deck ... and I've affectionately named the house the Ebb Tide Retreat. There is minor musical reference in there that at least @TomB might probably pick up on, but I do live in a beach town now, after all.

The Date Night I referred to in that post was having a bunch of the girls from the Dirty Badass Bohemian Chicks over that evening. We took some pictures, had a few drinks, got a little twisted and all slept together.

.

Okay, enough of that ... here's one of the girls from that Super Group

VF-30 in my opinion, but the EF grade has been “degraded” so there is aways hope. An EF should show virtually all the design with overall light wear. An EF-40 does not need to have any mint luster.

Painted coins in the US back in the day were often "house money" used in jukeboxes, to be returned to the bartender/manager when the jukebox owner cleaned out the coinbox.

I doubt they had jukeboxes in communist Poland, but your coin could have been painted by anyone for any reason.