What not to put in your auction title if you want me to bid!

ASUtodd

Everytime I see an auction with the word Rare or XXXRare in it I disregard the auction. Something about the titles tells me the person is from another country and is usually from China.... Just something that I stay away from. Here are some examples. I just get that, "I'm getting ripped off" feeling when I see these. Maybe it's just me!

XXRARE German Coin Sachsen Hildburghausen 1 Heller 1811
XXRARE Old German Coin: Baden 1 Kreuzer 1846
XXRARE Old German Coin Jülich + Berg 1/4 Stüber 1785 PR

Todd

laurentyvan

ASU, I couldn't agree with you more.

But don't screw yourself...

Sometimes rare is hyperbole for scarce, in which cases knowledgeable numismatists may score.

I eschew Rare in favor of Scarce. I believe that a mintage of half a million ( IOM, etc., excluded) merits the term scarce by contrast to a world population of 6,602,224,175...

Once again, cognoscenti will know the coin, year, varieties, relative scarcity/popularity (the two are different), market value, etc.

When the word rare
really means merde,
then, collectors beware!

SYRACUSIAN

I eschew Rare in favor of Scarce. I believe that a mintage of half a million ( IOM, etc., excluded) merits the term scarce by contrast to a world population of 6,602,224,175...




Rare or scarce have nothing to do IMHO with mintage figures or age. Not even with survival rates with very few exceptions. A 19th century gold coin might have a mintage of only 37000 (ex. Greece 1876 20 drs gold) and still can be extremely easy to locate upto EF condition, to the extent I'd call it readily available upto EF-AU at about twice to three times its melt value. It becomes scarce in MS60-63 and rare (and very expensive) in 64-65. So, it is the condition of the coin that usually determines its rarity, if any.

And vice versa, coins with heavy mintages can be RR in gem BU.The millions of VFs and XFs that are again readily available have nothing to do with a pure gem that might show up once every 5 years.

(this post concerns regular business strikes and not modern NCLTs and other Mint fabricated rarities)

3Mark

Most people would call the Saxony 1917E 3 mark "Friedrich the Wise" (mintage of 100) rare, but if you have 50 or 60,000 euros you could find several with a phone call If you collect a series, then you probably know what is rare.3Mark

Ricke

I'm not really following you guys on this one so much... Not that I don't somewhat agree - I generally disregard terms like RARE, and go straight to the item itself. It isn't that I don't like that people use it, it's just that they most often use it wrong. Most collectable coins are "rare" in that you won't generally stumble across them in your pocket - so they are rare to come by, unless you specifically purchase them. But if you go forward to specifically purchase them, you will find they are not rare at all, just removed from circulation - for example, most non-collectors who stumble across a 90% silver US quarter in change will consider that quarter rare, but the truth is they are extremely common and can be readily purchased in bags of any amount for X times face value. A rare find for those who search rolled coins is most often still a common coin that can be purchased over the table at any show.

Personally, I think of rare as the coin whos demand exceeds it's supply. The more drastic the gap between those figures, the more rare the coin is - and that generally boils down to premium.

So I guess I don't think of it in terms of "this guy is ripping me off" as much as I see it as amatuer marketing.

theboz11

When your reference book uses the words Rare, Very Rare and Exceptionally RARE> What do you want me to do for my description. Ignore the fact that it is RARE!!!!

ASUtodd

My point was this, most smucks on ebay us XXRare, or XXXRare to get some unsuspecting soul to bid an ungodly amount on a coin that isn't worth it. I see a lot of Asian, or overseas dealers over using these terms. I just stay away from sellers like this because I feel that they aren't going to look out for my interest and if something goes wrong I probably will have a heck of a time getting them to make it right.
Basically, I was on a soap box this morning...stress relief through posting!

Todd

Ricke

<< <i>When your reference book uses the words Rare, Very Rare and Exceptionally RARE >>



I don't know.. most of the coins in my collection qualify as "you wish it was"-rare

ASUtodd

Most people, that will be buying a "rare" coin, will more than likely already know it is a rare coin. The only reason to spiff up the auction title with rare, scarce, xxrare, is to suck in the buyers that don't have a clue about the value of the coin. I'll play devils advocate and say that I wouldn't know the coin is rare....well.....when I go to bid on the coin and I see a high (for me over $500.00 is high) bid then I will likely assume that this coin is hard to find and is of value. It's almost like buying a new car and the salesman reminding you that the car is new, over and over..... It's just a personal annoyance that I felt like posting about to pass the time and relieve stress.... Now with that said, MERRY CHRISTMAS all you DarkSiders!!!

Todd

Daltonista

My sympathies are with you, Todd. I collect old and uncommon stuff other than coins & tokens, so I'm a bit chagrined to see eBay sellers toss around terms like "unique," "vintage," and "antique"...sometimes even "ancient"...when they're hawking common (to a collector) items from the 1970's. Oy! As a matter of fact, as the Klezmatics sing, "Oy to the World!"
Happy Holidaze to all!
Tom

coinpictures

Other red flag words and phrases:

STUNNING
AMAZING
AWESOME
LOOK
LQQK
REGISTRY
ESTATE
GOLD AND SILVER FOUND
HOARD

and the biggest one:

POWERSELLER

sumnom

I don't like the use of the word "MONSTER."

Blackhawk

I look at all the coins on Ebay, regardless of their flowery descriptions. I've gotten some very good deals from individual sellers who posted a description that was almost embarrassing - I probably would not have looked at the coins seriously if a dealer had used such a description though.

Rickc300

<< <i>I look at all the coins on Ebay, regardless of their flowery descriptions. I've gotten some very good deals from individual sellers who posted a description that was almost embarrassing - I probably would not have looked at the coins seriously if a dealer had used such a description though. >>



I agree... there is one seller in Germany who uses rare and Xrare all the way up to XXXrare all the time for lots of fairly common German Empire stuff. They may not be "rare" per se but quite often an item marked as XXXrare is indeed a less common coin that I need in my date/mint set and he usually has a decent selection going almost all the time.

I wade through tons of junk, I search by listings in coins of Germany/Europe, at almost any given time there are probably close to 5000 coins listed. I try to look at them all, I have picked up proof coins for a couple of bucks, silver 5 marks for 5 bucks etc by looking at stuff people just don't know how to list correctly.

It makes me all warm and fuzzy feeling inside when I find a really nice silver one mark and see it has only been viewed by 5 people and it has less than an hour to go on its listing...

Rick

Edited for my fat fingers hitting a couple to many keys at once