Patience my grasshoppers. Envelope stamp positioning and leaving a space for your address is very time consuming.
Something's comin, I don't know what it is but it is gonna be greaaaaat!

@Cougar1978 said:
Everybody knows Online auc / retail not a sight seen transaction like a show. I don’t think it’s professional for someone to run a mail order business and then not have a return privledge.

Then instead of "generally avoiding" them why don't you make a personal policy to always avoid them?

....or melted green wax.

@humanssuck said:

@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.

Yup. But take a look at exactly what they are auctioning. The more valuable the material, the less likely people are to place nuclear proxy bids, and the more you want to give the auction time to play out.

The auctions of the most valuable merchandise tend to be live. And, as I said at the outset, they do not lend themselves to hard stops. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Your numbers are interesting, but shed no light.

How do you want to measure "larger share"? By average hammer price of individual lots? Clearly that would be one of the prestige auction houses. In our world, SB or HA. By number of lots auctioned? Again, in our world, that would be eBay by a mile.

At the end of the day, Christie's does what makes sense for Christie's, and GC does what makes sense for GC. As I also said before, there is a platform for everyone.

And that's why I'm confused..

I don't have a lot of any one TPG'er slabs. I have ANACS new (plus old soap bars), ICG, CAC, SEGS, NGC, VSS and PCGS.

I like this generic box because they all fit.

@You said:

@PeakRarities said:

@You said:

@PeakRarities said:
OK ready? The Grades assigned by PCGS are.......

1. 50
2. 50
3. 55
4. 55
5. 55
6. 55
7. 61
8. 61

I put them in order from lowest to highest, but you would never be able to tell. Guess which one is my coin?

2-

In that particular Stack's auction, it was late on a weeknight and the auctioneer was ripping through lots, about 4 per minute. I graded the coin a solid 55, so I thought I got a screaming hot deal at the price I paid.

It's got some wear on the highest points, specifically the top half of the miter, but in my opinion the luster seems more than adequate for this issue to be called choice AU. I have 3/6 of the mormon issues, and I've seen the rest of them in hand. They just don't come cartwheel luster, and when the texture of the fields matches the texture inside the letters and protected areas, that indicates, to me at least, that this one didn't see all that much circulation.

You have all heard me express that pioneer grading is all over the place, and I don’t think that point could be better illustrated than it can here with this issue. Here’s a link to all APR’s recorded by PCGS, and some of you may draw your own conclusions . For me, I’m thinking the glove is looking awfully tight .

https://www.pcgs.com/auctionprices/details/1849-mormon-ms-2-50/10259

It’s really the surface quality and not so much the technical wear that brings that coin down. I wrote 53, but I don’t see it as higher than that. The fields are quite beat up.

Yes and no, there's a few things to consider there, . I guess if you want to be super strictly technical, but that's not how these have always been graded,

1. Planchet quality & strike - unstuck planchet observed on the other AU55 examples has that same roughness and texture.

2. Condition of the dies- Look at the surface texture inside the letters and the protected areas, these coins were not created equal all with uniform appearance. As the dies aged and got rustier, the coins had more pitting.

3. It's a little quarter eagle the size of a dime, and I took super close ups that are blown up to the size of a dinner plate. Mine also has the highest resolution photos, and none of the other ones have current true views to compare to.

I hate to argue, but that is not all unstruck planchet or die roughness. There are plenty of legitimate rough hits, and the slight shine to the surfaces is from an old cleaning. All coins are graded with surface quality in consideration, and this is no exception.

While I acknowledge there are some small scratches and abrasions near the date area and some other abrasions, the ONLY 55 that looks to have better surfaces is the last one, and if you look inside the letters and protected areas, its smooth and glossy. You can even see die polish lines, indicating an earlier die state. That coin simply looked much nicer when it came off the press.

I disagree, all four 55s have better surfaces. They simply have weaker strikes. They’re flat, but not mottled with (as many) hits. The first 55 looks the most free of marks. The last 55 actually has worse surfaces than at least a couple of the others, the reverse has some fairly significant lines and chatter in the fields (those are not die polish lines). The strike and color is nicer than the others through.

Ignoring strike and wear, the 8th coin looks to have the worst surfaces (borderline cleaned) of the bunch. The first coin looks very dipped out at best as well. The other five don’t seem that bad, all things considered.

And If we're going to punish a coin for as-struck characteristics like surface texture, then why not punish a weak strike? At that rate, shouldn't the other 50 and top 3 AU55s be held back to XF? The 1850 Moffat $5 is a good example of this, you can have two 58s that look completely different from eachother because of the surface texture and the die rust.

I am not saying that coins should be punished for as-struck characteristics, because the surface texture I am describing is not as struck. And regarding strike, that’s just not how grading on the modern Sheldon scale works. Weak strikes and die rust don’t matter, the grade is intended to be a measurement of wear. One of the reasons for that is that there is no way to consistently or objectively rank strike quality, or even to arrive at a consensus for an ideal strike. Grading based on wear and surface quality allows for some foundation of consistency, although of course there is the matter of human error and differing standards. Of course, then you can end up with a pancake AU58 and a well-struck XF45 on some series, but at that point it is up the collector to make a decision on what they want - they can easily judge the amount of visible detail for themselves.

The main issue arises when it seems that these coins were graded on a curve, or "market graded" for decades (the Worst example is in the OGH as a 50), but later on they tighten the screws and start adhering to technical standards. I don't mind if we hold mine to 53, but I want the same standards applied to all of them. Regardless of whatever number we land on, I don't think anyone can dispute the fact that it falls somewhere in the middle of the pack as the 4th or 5th best coin, not tied for last.

Yes, there have definitely been issues with grading Pioneer gold very loosely, as well as standards changing over time as graders and approaches change, as well as inconsistency on a human level. I can see myself disputing that though, if I could see all the coins in hand. It placed as #5 in my guesses, but if we adjust for two of the coins having weak strikes rather than the wear that I read them as having, then it could very well be #7.

Simply put, I want an "EQUAL amount of blueberries in EACH muffin".

That simply won’t happen, but I understand where you’re coming from.

This just doesn't make any sense to me. The surface quality of that 55 is on par with the 61s, and it certainly isn't poor. It's simply lovely. And that is without it having an incredible strike.

Personally, this coin is #2 for me, behind one of the 61s. I find it hard to place it elsewhere.

@seanq said:
Not that anyone asked, but here is my current example from my date set, it was cracked out of an ANACS soapbox holder over 25 years ago and graded VG8.

Sean Reynolds

Good! I suspect everyone here was wondering if you had one.

@TheGoonies1985 said:

@OAKSTAR said:

@TheGoonies1985 said:

@dcarr said:

@OAKSTAR said:
I don't let my coins air dry after acetone. I pull them out of the acetone and immediately wipe them dry with a fiber cloth.

.

I hope you actually mean "pat dry" and not literally "wipe dry"
Any type of wiping is bad.

.

Just put the coin on paper towel and let it dry on its own. Flip the coin from time to time to a dry part of the towel.

Now a paper towel scares me! A paper towel can be more coarse then some sandpaper! Put that coin on a fiber cloth and let it dry.

Will buy one. A lot of my coins are authentic and not numerical grade. That is the way it is with many Latin American coins (minus Mexico). But I understand what you mean and will buy one. Many of my coins are holed.

Would any house cloth work? Like the ones we use for cleaning?

Or to have one you can suggest from Amazon. If so please post it and I will buy myself a few.

This is a fiber cloth but any old "SOFT COTTON" clean face cloth would be fine.