How many auction lots have you won by a fluke?

shirohniichan

There aren't many times this has happened to me, but I got notification from Heritage today that I won an auction lot I put a "wish" bid on and promptly forgot. Either I got a great deal or the coin looks much worse than the photo indicated.

How many times have you won coins you forgot to track at far below what you expected to pay?

Placid

0

RNCHSN

I won a CT National note from Lynn Knight that way a year and a half ago.

lordmarcovan

Once or twice.

I won a really cool 1950's serving tray, once, with all sorts of old coins imbedded in it, under lucite or whatever it was (I'm sure you know the type). Think my 99-cent bid got it. Hell, it cost the seller some five bucks to ship it! That was a steal.

RGL

How about, from Heritage, no less, a PCGS 1952 PR-67 CAM Jeff, and a solid one at that, for $85? Blew me away ...

shirohniichan

I got an 1876 quarter eagle net graded VF-20 for $192. I'm slowly rebuilding my centennial set with cheap coins to replace the nice one I sold.

toyonakataro

Haven't experienced such luck yet.
But I decided to place bids on every Gobrecht doller and Pan-pac 50$ after I read your post.

mozeppa

once


I put in a low bid on a 1915 matte proof ,pcgs 64 red/brown.....nobody but me wanted it!

BigD5

It just happened to me! I put a bid (reasonable, but not at a level I would expect to win the coin) on a board members coin on Ebay. Never expected to even be in the running. Lo and behold when I awake on Monday morning, there is an email from Ebay letting me know I have won the coin. I thought there must have been an Ebay outage or something.
I won a really cool toned Commem from Heritage in a similar manner. Their picture looked ok, but nothing great. I was doing backflips when the coin arrived in the mail after the auction.
It happens. I don't do a ton of bidding like that, so anyone who persistently follows the auction lots would have more results like this, I would imagine.

Russ

This one, also Heritage:



It's an MS64RB. Got it for $236, including the juice and shipping. Just about fell out of my chair when I realized I'd won.

Russ, NCNE

Placid

You all suck!

morganbarber

My best internet deal was on a collection of Washington quarters. This was not a bunch of crap that some dealer brought together and decided to sell as a "collection", but was actually some collector's collection. I decided that it had to be worth 75.00. I bid $60.00. I was the high bidder for a day or so,and then the day before the end of the auction(this was on Yahoo), the guy raised his reserve to $90.00. No one else bid. A day or so later, he contacts me saying that I was the high bidder, and that he will honor my $60 offer. When the coins arrived, they were gorgeous. The collection was actually worth more in the $100-$150 range, but because his pictures were poor, and he did'nt mention the proofs, no one would bid above his $90.00 reserve. To this day, you can tell my nice Washingtons from that collection from the ones I scraped up elsewher at a glance.

shirohniichan

It's all about who else is looking for the same coin.

I bid three times current "fair market value" on an 1876 trade dollar and ended up second highest bidder.

Trime

As it turns out about twice a day some monster coin arrives at a very inexpensive price. Whenever this happens I immediately insist that I pay more. It isn't fair to the seller and makes me very uncomfortable.