Ebay to further subdivide some coin categories at the end of April

kranky

Ebay will be instituting new, narrower categories for some items under US Coins at the end of April.

For example, Kennedy halves will have separate categories for 1964-70, 1971-91, 1992-present, and Mixed Lots. Similar divisions will happen to Indian Head cents, Jeffersons, Mercs, State Quarters (one for each year!), WL halves, modern commems and proof sets.

A listing of all the changes is here.

The sellers seem upset over this, but I don't understand why it has an effect.

keets

hey jim

i've been noticing "Mixed Lots" as the last category in some of my searches lately and couldn't figure out what the heck it was or how it got there. i guess it's already in effect and shouldn't be much of an interference in sales for anyone. Worded searches will still find a buyer what they're looking for.

al h.

wayneherndon

The move is great for buyers and will help finding specific items. It is not so good for sellers since a lot of people make unplanned bids while window shopping. The narrower categories will mean less traffic per category. All-in-all, it's like everything else eBay does. One just has to accept it and adjust.

WH

ms70

Some of the category divisions make no sense at all. Why split Mercury dimes from '16 to '31 then '34 to '45? Walking Libs from '16 to '40 then '41 to '47? The runs were not all that long, and correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no sub-types related to those dates that I know of that would warrant splitting them. Why split Jeffersons at 1969? Wouldn't it have made more sense to split them at 1967 so the three years of San Francisco business strikes ('68, '69, '70) would be in the same category?

jeffnpcb

The only division they need is real or fake!

wayneherndon

My guess is they are making the divisions along volume lines to evenly separate the same number of auctions into each category based on historical listing levels. There are natural divisions that would make more sense, like the short set of Walkers, for example.

WH

CarlWohlforth

The switch over is painful. Existing auctions got lumped into Mixed lots so people browsing in the new catagories will miss many offerings. It should be OK in a week or two.

ms70

Are they going to dump the mixed lot category?

ClausUrch

I, for one, don't like the subdividing of categories. I think it is a way for E-Bay to increase their bottom line. You will have to list your coin in "Mixed Lots" and then add the second catagory increasing E-Bays listing fees. Modern Commemoratives are Modern Commemoratives 1982 to present; no need to subdivide. How about Franklin Halves? Will this series also be divided into 1948 to 1955 and 1956 to 1963??? If this happens, we will definitely know that someone at Corporate Headquarters was burning the midnight oil.

keets

...........much ado about nothing. next topic, please.

al h.

bizzarri

They aren't going to dump the "mixed lot" category - on the contrary, if you have an auction running at the time they change categories,
YOUR AUCTION gets dumped into the "mixed lot" category. I found this out the hard way.

Another wonderful feature - if you use Andale as your eBay auction interface, it takes about three days for the new categories to show up.
I also found this out the hard way - I had to edit by hand all of my auctions and put them into the right category.

Charming.

Dog97

Another drop down menu for chosing catagories will be a real pain. That seemed to be the slowest part of uploading a listing last time I was a seller.
I find most of my stuff with key word searches but sometimes I just hit a catagory and just look at everything listed.
It will cut down on drive by bidders like wayneherndon said. More catagories will narrow down my looking and keep me from finding so much stuff on accident.

ms71

As some have mentioned, it's generally a favorable development for buyers with specialized wants. The last round of changes, a month or so ago, saw US gold split into denomination-based categories. I liked it, it saved me rolling through seemingly endless "modern" gold bullion coins while looking for pre-1934 stuff. However, depending on how you search, you can miss some interesting stuff you wouldn't find in your normal search process.

mrdq

you hit it right on the head. It's a revenue generator for EBAY to get you to pay for listing in seperate categories. ebay NEVER DOES ANYTHING TO HELP YOU it's always to increase the $.05 per transaction on 1,000,000,000 transactions per month.

Russ

<< <i>For example, Kennedy halves will have separate categories for 1964-70, 1971-91, 1992-present, and Mixed Lots. >>



Actually, eBay did that a couple weeks ago. It was a headache for a week or so because a lot of stuff wasn't showing up in searches, but it's fine now.

Russ, NCNE