Superior auction of August 1, 2002

Ogden

I watched with interest last night the Superior auction at Ebay. I saw so many coins from the 1770's and 1780's which were MS 64/65 and one 66, even grading red!!! Where in the world did these coins come from? Were there coin collectors in the later part of the 18th century? If so, you would think over the generations that the coins would have somehow been spent into circulation. Any ideas??

shylock

There were some incredible colonials -- I loved the condition of this Bar Cent that went for over 18K. My guess is these came from one long time collection due to the uniform quality, maybe from the Bill Weber collection that also sold in their June sale. As you mention coins from this period are rarely seen this well preserved.

jmp81

How do you guys managed to place a bid from the internet? I watched the bidding last night and I was amazed at how fast the bidding occurs. I'd never get a bid in.

Ogden

I bid on a previous auction a few weeks back. All you had to do for that one was to pre-register. You could do that by just accessing the link at the item # on Ebay. I understand (and I may be wrong) that you had to provide a credit card for this one. While watching last night I only saw one internet bidder win an auction. For some reason they must give some type of preference on on floor bidders. Anyway it fun watching.

Ogden

Paul, I had never seen a "bar coin" let alone knew one existed. The bar coin was beautiful. It was quite the learning experience for me.

John

Elcontador

I faxed a max bid of $1,200 for a particular lot to them last week & they acknowledged receiving it. Looking at this lot's bid history, however, a bid for this amount appeared as a floor / internet bid. Was my bid ignored, or did they classify all bids in this manner?

I have come to the conclusion re a large auction that when you have a really nice coin, either you physically view it AND are a floor bidder (or have someone you trust on the floor bidding for you), or don't waste your time.

shylock

Jeff - I think only people who bid through Ebay are listed as internet bids, while fax/phone bids are listed as from the floor. The comments I've been told or read from people on the floor concerning this new Ebay feature are not real favorable. When they slow down enough to let the internet keep up, the auctioneer gets out of rhythm and the floor gets restless -- I read they wanted to pull the Ebay plug on one of the Heritage sessions because it was particularly slow. And from the internet side, it's still too fast paced to get more than one strong bid in and hope it sticks.

One collector wrote me concerning Superior's Pre-Long Beach sale which was strong in Indian cents:

"Live internet bidding is a bust. The pace of the auctions is too fast. I witnessed several instances at Superior where the lot was closed as online bids were still being received. Lots were reopened (1-2 lots later) by floor bidders after internet bidding was over (allegedly by confusion on the part of the bidder). One has to remember that the core clientle of the auction houses are the bidders/dealers on the floor. Finally, there is an incentive to sell to the floor (no returns on sight-seen coins). It all stacks up against the internet bidder."

John - some find the Bar Cent design too simplistic, but I love it for that reason. Very unique, and during this wave of patriotism our country's riding it's now trendy as well -- 217 years later!

keithdagen

I tried to log in to the end of the morning session because I wanted to watch a Trade Dollar that I had interest in and possibly bid on some cheaper Morgans. At the time, there were about 250 lots left. I was unable to log in, because E-Bay wanted to log me in to the afternoon session, and it wasn't available yet.

Interesting note is that for Heritage and Bowers, bids placed on their websites prior to the auctions are treated like floor bids when stacked against E-Bay live bids. If you can't bid in person, bidding prior to the auction is the best way to guarantee your max bid is recorded.

toothpuller

I did manage to win two lots as an internet bidder in Session 1 of the Superior auction. The first lot went for a very reasonable price [lot 441]. The price changed exactly as I was bidding for the second lot and I won with an overbid [IMO]. The internet bidding is an improvement in that at least today I can place a bid in absentia, whereas in the past this was impossible without hiring a dealer. I think that at least one can get a coin for less than it will later appear on a dealer's website. Obviously the kinks need to be worked out. Hopefully when I receive my coins they will be decent because I really couldn't make any sound judgement from the crappy Superior imaging for this auction [in contrast to the pre-Long Beach auction]. Just kind of got caught up in the heat of the moment and made the bids.

rays

Paul- if you liked that bar cent you should have seen the Eliasberg specimen, bought by Tony Terranova. It was superb in light brown color and no marks.

toothpuller

Keith, you could have logged in during the auction, as I did, directly through the Superior site.

keithdagen

toothpuller -- had I known that, I would have -- but it wasn't in the directions to do it that way

shylock

Rays -- that's a coin I'd love to see...

Toothpuller -- the 1895 you won was certainly a low price, just wish they'd provide a full image of all their coins -- that's a typical Ebay slab image that leaves much to the imagination. Let me know what it looks like when it arrives. What was the other lot you won?

Dog97

I just placed an absentee bid since I was away from the computer and won my lot. You didn't really have to register a credit card. I used my eBay login which isn't registered to a credit card but to my email address.