How Do Auction Houses Pick Junk Lots?

Coinosaurus

1) Put all the cheap coins in a bucket

2) Pull them out in random handfuls

3) Assign them to the low cataloguer on the totem pole

Seriously, how do they do it?

Pistareen

Keep in mind, everything in one lot has to belong to the same consignor -- so when you see the weird lot that contains one New Jersey copper, a cleaned Standing Liberty quarter, a Columbian half with chop marks, and a Sacagawea dollar, it was probably just everything left over from that one consignment.

Some junk lots are assembled because they go together; most are assembled because they go with nothing else.