New auction, ancient & early coins, 494 lots, no buyer fee

fsrcoin

Hi,

Auction 110 will close October 29 — 494 lots of ancient and early coins, mostly good stuff, with truly LOW starting bids. Includes group lots, literature, and some fixed price specials. NO BUYER FEE.

Catalog, with photos, starting at: www.fsrcoin.com/t.html

Bid simply by e-mailing me; or fax, phone, or snail mail. (Also through Emax.Bid and bidder.ch)

Note world coin price list, updated to remove sold items, at www.fsrcoin.com/132.htm

Commentary: There's a great proliferation of various online auctions and auction platforms. I spend a lot of time bidding on them myself, trying to get stuff for my own sales. But it's a pretty thankless endeavor, because often they're glutted with low quality coins with inflated starting bids. On some, everything starts at like 40 Euros, which means $80 when you add the buyer fee and usually 20+ Euros to ship even one measly coin. I work these auctions because I have nothing better to do with my life — but you probably do.

The way I look at it, quality is key in this game. Trying to get a good coin at a good price — it's a challenge because those tend to be mutually exclusive. If a coin is really desirable, it's likely to get bid up. I am often stunned at what I see coins selling for in auctions. Those realizations, that I quote in my own listings, may be outliers in a sense — of course I look for high ones to cite — yet the fact is I have no trouble finding such datums because coins do so often sell for what might seem crazy prices. But if such prices do indeed routinely occur, then are they crazy, or rather reflective of a market reality? By definition, what coins actually sell for is what they're worth.

A guy I’ve never dealt with just e-mailed me, truculently asking why some of my listings lack date ranges; don’t I know them? I politely replied that dates for Roman emperors would be unnecessary clutter for most bidders. He responded that he’d refuse to bid with me, because I “do not care about provenance or complete descriptions,” so he’ll stick with firms that “provide complete service to customers,” naming several. My own experience with their customer service differs. But I guess this episode shows you can’t please everyone.

Anyhow — I do try to fill my own sales with a good variety of mostly good desirable coins, with starting prices really attractively modest (and no buyer fee). But because I'm a pipsqueak operator, without the savvy (or too cheap) to really promote my sales, I get a lot fewer bidders than the Big Boys. Yet I'm proud of the fact that the vast majority of coins in my auctions do sell, so I must be doing something right. And meantime, the absence of hordes of competing bidders means that you have a better chance at that holy grail — a good coin at a good price.

Best regards,

Frank S. Robinson