Another Bowers and Merena Veteran leaves the force....

coinchallenged · February 10, 2003 8:55AM

Dr. Richard Bagg, veteran auction advisor and key consignment gatherer has resigned his position with Bowers and Merena/Collectors Universe. Citing his lack of excitement toward the company since witnessing Michael Haynes, CEO of Collectors Universe, dismissing Q. David Bowers from his own company.

And the hits keep on rolling.

FatMan · February 10, 2003 9:34AM

Welcome to the forum. Not a surprise. Expect more to leave as the new leadership will want their own people in key positions.

wingedliberty · February 10, 2003 9:35AM

I hope homerun hall stays.

Brina.

Russ · February 10, 2003 9:37AM

coinchallenged,

Do you have a link to a source for this info?

Russ, NCNE

kranky · February 10, 2003 9:44AM

Pardon me for being very skeptical at this point.

Bulldog · February 10, 2003 10:04AM

Melt Down!

DCAMFranklin · February 10, 2003 10:07AM

PLONK!

LucyBop · February 10, 2003 11:16PM

<< <i> hope homerun hall stays. >>

HepDaddyHall isn't going anywere!!!! He needs my permission first, and the answer is NO!

dorkkarl · February 11, 2003 1:13AM

Bagg's out too??? are they nuts? how the heck are they going to replace these folks???

K S

Conder101 · February 11, 2003 9:27PM

<< <i>I hope homerun hall stays >>

Nope he can't stay, he was never there except possibly as a customer. At least as far as I know.

RYK · February 11, 2003 10:09PM

It may be that increasingly B&M is becoming irrelevant. Heritage certainly seems to be winning in the online and live auction arena. Who even looks at the B&M website/auctions anymore?

Singapore · February 11, 2003 10:22PM

dorkkarl -

Obviously B&Ms financial performance must have been terrible for CU to make the changes they did.

While the various 'key figures' - Bowers, Bagg, etc. are certainly known and respected people in Numismatics, CU is a public company attempting to deliver EPS figures. It ain't that complicated.

The day Bowers decided to sell his company to CU for millions he 1) chose to swim with the sharks and 2) signed up to deliver financial results to CU - thats why they paid him big bucks.

If you don't deliver the results, you get eaten.

I respect QDBs and the others as numismatists, but they don't get my sympathy. If QDB never sells his company he doesn't end up in this position.

coinchallenged · February 13, 2003 8:43PM

Yeah, its pretty obvious CU wasn't happy with B&M's numbers but unfortunately its only going to hurt us. When the stockholders want more profits you can only get them one of three ways, either increase retail prices, increase auction sales or lower costs. The first one kills the hobby by increasing our prices, the second one is hit or miss and the third kills the hobby because it gets rid of people like Dave Bowers who loves the hobby more than money itself. Regardless if the numbers were wrong at B&M, CU should probably realize that not all types of businesses can fit in to a public company realm. They should have sold the company back to its employees.

Schmitz7 · February 13, 2003 8:49PM

Do you think with the big names and big $$$ gone, that they can start pricing coins at normal market levels versus multiples of what they can be had for elsewhere?

eagle7 · February 13, 2003 9:29PM

Several bad choices by B&M Division of CU hurt from the start. One has already been mentioned "the very high prices". The other was to not include NGC or ANACS coins in their auctions. Big loss of auction fees right from the get go!

oreville · February 13, 2003 10:41PM

eagle7: You are mistaken. B&M had auctions that included NGC and ANACS slabbed coins. Only the Kingswood auctions had PCGS only slabbed coins in their auctions and I can assure you that this was not a decision made by B&M division since such auctions were a joint venture between CU headquarters and B&M division.

Dave Bowers was more accepting of allowing NGC and ANACS slabbed coins in their auctions whereas David Hall is well known for his position on only selling or auctioning PCGS slabbed coins.

I have always admired Dave Bowers more global view of the coin collecting hobby as a dealer whereas David Bowers more business approach of only allowing PCGS slabbed coins may be better for the bottom line of CU. But that is only a MAYBE!

My concern is that for B&M auctions to survive and flourish that in order to obtain wonderful consignments that sometimes you have to take the nice collector/dealer owned NGC and ANACS slabbed coins along with the PCGS and raw coins.

IrishMike · February 13, 2003 10:49PM

Points well made Oreville. It seems to me that in the last Kingswood Auction, there were NGC coins for sale, I might be mistaken about that. Irregardless of the reasons for not having David Bowers associated with the company and auctions, it (his absence) diminishes the appeal of the company and their auctions in the eyes of many of us.

jom · February 13, 2003 11:28PM

<< <i>It may be that increasingly B&M is becoming irrelevant. Heritage certainly seems to be winning in the online and live auction arena. Who even looks at the B&M website/auctions anymore? >>

I do. All the time. In fact, at the Long Beach show the B&M Kingswood has ALWAYS got the best material. Well, at least you don't have to got thru tons of garbage like you do at the Heritage sale.

Irish: Yep. The Kingswood just recently added NGC coins to their sales. I think the one in January was the first....

jom

EVillageProwler · February 14, 2003 1:32AM

the high prices charged by b&m rare coin galleries isn't so high when you consider that the vast majority of their was of high quality. if you pay low, chances are that you're buying a low-end specimen.

evp

Singapore · February 14, 2003 2:26AM

EVillage -

I strongly disagree with your view that B&M prices were high but quality was superior - that may have been true years ago but it hasn't been for a while and it isn't now.

I posted here some time ago that I was looking to sell a duplicate relatively high end and expensive colonial last year that was slabbed by PCGS.

Among others, I called both Heritage and B&M to enquire about consigning the coin to them for resale (so the coin would appear on their respective websites and in Bowers Rare Coin Review).

Both asked me how much I wanted to make on the coin and then said they'd add their 'commission' and list the coin at the marked-up price. Site unseen, Heritage said they would add 15%, B&M said they'd add 25%.

Quality wasn't part of the math here. Same coins, same quality, buy it at Bowers for more money.

Thats an n of 1, as they say, but I've seen plenty of other coins on their site that were previously offered elsewhere and Bowers was substantially more expensive.

That 'more expensive but worth it' positioning works when you are actually selling better quality. When you stop doing that, your just more expensive.

dragon · February 14, 2003 2:42AM

Singapore,

Regarding Heritage's markups, I offered them an 1884-O in PCGS MS66DMPL about 2 yrs. ago. After speaking with 2 different people, they said the absolute best they could do on that piece was about $1400.00 and that it was a low end piece in their opinion, and they would probably just end up wholsaleing it out. I ended up selling them the coin,,,,,,,and low and behold it shows up on their website 1 week later listed at $2450.00 and also a JH Exceptional coin. So much for 15% markups 'eh?

dragon

Another Bowers and Merena Veteran leaves the force....

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