Is it good for ANR to team up with Stack's?

RYK

I noticed that ANR is once again teamimg up with Stack's, this time apparently allowing Stack's to use ANR's resources for online lot viewing and pre-auction bidding. I browsed the lots in my areas of interest, and there were lots and lots of dogs, and, of course, nothing is certified. I expect that such an arrangement is financially beneficial to ANR, but I am concerned that ANR is leveraging its fine reputation to the dinosaur of the coin auction industry. If it were me, I would not want to be associated with the Stack's auction. Just my opinion, but I would like to read others.

Barry

I agree with you, Robert. Stacks is an anachronism. I'd never bid on a Stacks coin, unless a dealer who sees the coin in person represents me.

wingedliberty

Can you imagine an ANR, Heritage, and Stacks triad. That would be like Bank of America, Chase, and Citigroup merging. Now that , would be fun. We can have Bowers do the descriptions, Harvey do the hammer, and Ivy and Halperin sell NCI grading guides.

oreville

I remember my first Stacks Auction (Dr Calvert L Emmons Collection) on September 19, 1969 when I was 16.

I tried to attend but they wanted me to leave since I was a minor. I pleaded with them to let me stay since I was not a bidder anyway. They relented and let me sit in the front!

I was enthralled. Stacks is an old money auction firm and I am sure Dave Bowers is respectful of the old money collectors since they are also very respectful of the prestige that Bowers has. I sure am. He got me started back in the early to mid 1960's since he was the "Boy Wonder" of Numismatics. Heck, I thought he was just a few years older than me!!!

ANR is trying to keep in touch with the New York market. New York, like Beverly Hills, California are super wealthy areas of the USA with money to burn.

Even Superior Auctions is trying to remind potential consigners of their location and access to all the millionaires that bid on their coins. (isn't anyone who owns a home in California a millionaire nowadays?????)

By the way, I must make it clear that there is more than just a couple of certified coins in this auction!

MrEureka

Can you imagine an ANR, Heritage, and Stacks triad.

No.

shylock

ANR has the technology, mass appeal and is new enough to look for an edge on its competitors. Stacks has the old client base and reputation. I guess you guys don't think that's a good match?

Coinosaurus

The question I would ask is - can Stack's operate the same way twenty years from now as they do today? I'm not sure they can. More and more collectors demand slabs, strong Internet presence, dealers with small overhead, ie. all the things that Stack's isn't. They also have this image as being very staid, formal, polite but curt kind of guys - collectors today are more informal and like to schmooze and joke around with their favorite dealers.

I don't doubt Stack's has a ton of old time clients out there to keep going for quite awhile. But I don't like their long term business model right now. I hope I'm wrong, because as a collector it is nice to have stability in the dealer base - and Stack's is nothing if not stable.

FatMan

Robert

Another thoughtful observation about the ongoings in our hobby. It is odd bedfellows, the old dinosaur and the young lion.

These are two closely held companies so we will never know for sure what is going on in the boardroom. The first thing that comes to my mind is maybe the old dinosaur put a substantial cash infusion into the young lion to help difuse the massive startup costs with this kind of joint projects in mind. What better way to bring the old dinosaur into the modern world than to let it piggy back slowly back into the game. Maybe far fetched, maybe not.

oreville

ANR needing a cash infusion with Dave Bowers around?

Come on!!!!!!!!!!!

ANR is just being smart and nimble! Wished the old Bowers & Merena were as nimble!

Stacks has the location but it is indeed a higher cost area to pay for auctioneers and internet programmers for a week or so at a time.

It makes total sense to me. Stacks is being smarter to at least try collaborating with ANR rather than incurring the cost all on its own for internet presence for the auctions.

Why reinvent the wheel?

FatMan

<< <i>ANR needing a cash infusion with Dave Bowers around? >>

Didn't he have a non-compete issue while ANR was starting up? Don't know if his cash could be used at the time.

koynekwest

Just went over there to have a look. I'm not too worried about raw stuff-if I have a good image to work with, I think I'm capable of grading on my own. Problem is, hardly anything is imaged, and of the few that are (very good quality images, I must say) I was very unimpressed with the material being offered. I looked in particular at the Buffalos and Standing Liberty quarters. Lots of very late die states; poor strikes; generally low quality with little or no eye appeal. This is not going to be a very successful auction unless they image many more items. Then again, based on what I did see, maybe there's a reason so few images are supplied.

roadrunner

When Stack's gets old time raw collections in for auction, it's a good place to be. And everyone looking for some deals is there. But it is certainly true that is not happening quite as much these days. Though Ford was a nice score for them and made perfect sense imo.
But they need to do better than getting 1 or 2 nice large-sized fresh raw collections per year.

roadrunner

mrearlygold

<< <i>Can you imagine an ANR, Heritage, and Stacks triad.

No. >>

dorkkarl

<< <i>ANR is leveraging its fine reputation to the dinosaur of the coin auction industry >>

that's ok by me, that's 1 dinosaur with 1 he11uva reputation!

i happen to like stacks auctions - A LOT.

K S

earlycoins1com

I believe it started with the Ford sale of Hard times tokens in June of this year. Stack's wanted to have simultaneous internet bidding in that auction, so they shared resources with ANR, which does a pretty good job in that area these days.

I know the principals from both firms and attend all their auctions. Reps from both firms have told me on different occasions that sharing resources has worked well financially so far.

Where it will lead -- I don't know. The cultures of the two firms (as well as their business structures) are VERY different. I suspect that they feel forced to experiment with this arrangement to counteract the 800 pound gorilla of the coin auction business -- Heritage.

MacCrimmon

The thought also comes to mind that they may also be looking to pull the early coppers stranglehold away from the left coast.

Many of the copper specialists are tied to these two firms going back many years. The same can be said for all other early series coinage which the left coast guys have little real expertise in breaking down die minutae/pedigree info, etc. save for the MG association with Superior.