How much do auction houses stagger consignments to take into account the state of the market?

Longacre

I doubt that auction consignments come into an auction house in a neat little package which contains representative examples of each US coin series. I assume that consignments are just an accumulation of a bunch of different coins (probably from one main consignor, and then a bunch of secondary consignors). How do the auction houses decide when and how much of a particular series to put up at auction? Or do they even make that sort of judgment call? For example, say Consignor A has a spectaular set of D mint half eagles, and then the next week, Consignor B shows up with basically a similar set of spectaular D mint half eagles. Does the auction house hold back on one of the consigments, or do they take half from each and then save the rest for the next auction? How much "market planning" takes place with the consigments?

markglicker

Good question. I have seen large clumps of identical coins in a single sale. A recent auction had 4, 1894 Morgans, in MS63. Seemed unusual.

RYK

Consignor A has a spectaular set of D mint half eagles, and then the next week, Consignor B shows up with basically a similar set of spectaular D mint half eagles.

In early 2004, this exact scenario played out. The Green Pond Dahlonega collection was being sold at the FUN show at the same time as the North Shore Gold Collection, a nearly complete collection of high-end US gold that included, of course, a complete high end set of Dahlonega. Heritage sold the Green Pond Collection at FUN, along with the North Shore Collection, with the exception of the North Shore Dahlonega coins, which were all sold at the subsequent Long Beach show.

Julian

Most auctioneers just want to sell the coins and for the most part do not hold anything back from a consignment, once they receive it.

jdcheers

With all the money auction companies spend on advertising these days, they probably just want to have as many lots as possible in any given sale and worry about the next one when the time comes.

Coinosaurus

I consigned a bunch of comic books to Heritage and they spread 'em out over a year - apparently trying to keep some variety in the auctions. Also some of the high end material was separated out into their higher profile sales.