@Bob1951 said:
Could be speculation or a promotion of some kind to drive up the price or some kind of collusion or who knows what.
Quite a few years ago now I went to a Bowers and Merena auction in pursuit of a 1799 large cent. There were three of them in the auction at low grades all around g condition. I was hoping to get one of them. They should have sold for $1,000 each. I bid just over $1000 on each one. The same dealer bought all of them for the next bid. A few months later 1799 large cents in g condition were selling for over $3000 each. It took me quite a few years to get one after that. The prices never came back down, not even a little. I think I paid $4,000 for one.
There are never more than a few 1799 large cents on the market at the same time. The same is true for the 1877 twenty cent piece. Coins that only have a few on the market at one time are always candidates for a speculative run-up.
I once saw a pure auction manipulation scheme up close.
Many years ago, circa 1980, before there was an Internet, I attended an auction secession, run by a then major firm, that was held on a Saturday morning. There were very few people attending the auction, and with no Internet the only other bids had to be “on the book.” The lots were all California fractional gold pieces.
The bidding in the front of room was at levels like $400 or $500 and then this guy in the back popped up with a jump bid, “$5,000!!!” or “$6,000!!”. He did this repeatedly, at least 40 times, and the way he said it led me to believe that he was just pulling these high numbers out of the air.
Now it is possible that he was an auction representative who had two or more clients who had given him bids. I’ve seen the hammer drop than have the winner say, “Make that a higher amount of X dollars” because he had had a “mini auction” among his clients.
BUT this guy didn’t have any notes, so he either had a great memory, or he was a shill …
A few weeks later this same firm put out a retail list of California fractional gold pieces at the high-level prices. The game? Establish a public auction record that these items had “sold” for that kind of money to justify the retail offering.
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
I opted out of the "make an offer" option because I kept getting bugged to sell the 1878 Twenty Cent Piece I have, which I don't care to sell at this time. Unlike the 1877 I had, that piece is quite nice and is "a keeper."
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
In terms of old rare gold...what I think is happening is that the prices are going up...especially for higher quality in-demand dates like your 1839-C $2.50...and dealers are having trouble finding inventory...and they are competing with collectors at auction for the nicer coins (like the 1839-C that you bid on)...
Real-world example:
The 1839-C half eagle (PCGS EF-40) that I recently purchased was sold at the Stacks Bowers March 2017 auction for $4230 to the world's foremost expert on old gold...while the price paid was below the PCGS price guide of $5200...it was the highest auction price ever paid (granted not many current) for an EF-40...
His plan was to send the coin to CAC and sell it for price guide plus with a green sticker...unfortunately it did not pass with JA and he "dumped" it for a 10% "profit"....probably zero profit if you factor in his time, shipping, grading expenses etc.
Even at his price of $4650 he received a dozen calls within the first few hours after it hit his inventory list...
My Conclusions:
Despite all of the negative talk about the coin market and CAC...the demand for old gold coins in popular dates in PCGS/CAC (anything with an obverse mint mark, first year eagle) has never been higher...
As demand has dried up the very limited supply of high quality examples of these scarce dates...you are now competing against dealers in the Heritage/SB auctions for the best coins (in my experience "make an offer" often times means a dealer)...
An 1877 20c at 14K is a really pretty 66 or 66CAM, so poke me in the eye with a sharp stick.
Not an issue worth hoarding. No need for the date as a type coin, and no one collects the series because of the '76-CC.
Sold off six of this date in 65 for a friend in 2010. All white, none CAC. Couldn't get 10K for any of them.
Looking at the images/prices of the two HA coins, all I can think of is the term "house coin", but the prices are so out whack I don't think any of the HA (internal) buyers would have set those numbers for their "free buy-back" /"make-an-offer" racket.
So ends another futile analysis of high-flying fugliness.
"Weird scenes inside the gold mine"
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." - Geo. Orwell
@BillJones said:
I just got an email from Heritage on the results of the auction. Both of the people who bought the Twenty Cent Pieces now have “Make an offer to the owner” signs up. If there was a Los Vegas for coin collectors, these two guys could be stand-up comedians.
Bill, the 'make offer to owner' is automatic. Owner does nothing and it comes up. Owner has to do something to turn it off.
I've paid multiples of MV for truly special coins in lower grades, it is just possible that after seeing in hand that these 1877 20 cent pieces are in that category?
@roadrunner said:
Bill, you could always make an offer on that PCGS PF63 at $10K or less (your original limit) and see if it gets accepted.
I have looked at the pictures of that one long and hard, and it's get a lot of hairlines in the right obverse field that could be something more than just hairlines. I know in your world that hairlines and marks are okay for PR-65 coins now. The old PR-64 is now the new PR-65. So far as I’m concerned “Gradeflation + much higher bids = THE SHAFT for coin buyers. It’s not fair to get caught in the middle of a double whammy. That’s the way it used to be with unethical dealers, over grade and over price, before third party grading came along.
The guys who are selling this stuff on the "make an offer" program are holding all of the cards. You can't see the coin ahead time, and you have got to pay them and Heritage a big premium over what the coin brought at auction on close to a blind bid basis. They are not going to be like me and tell a prospective buyer that the coin has three laminations on the obverse. It's hard to offer upwards of $10,000 for something with limited return privileges, especially when the $10,000 level is new and suspect.
I know that I have a similar situation with an on-line auction, but I can get a quick review from Heritage about the coins. They described the piece that sold for $14,100 as “a pleasant surprise” with only a minor impairment of the Proof mirrors because of toning. in other words, a nice PR-63 coin. They were less upbeat on the 1839-C quarter eagle which they pretty much characterized as “run of the mill.” In other words I just bought a hole filler, which all I expect to get.
No, I'll have wait until I see one at a bourse or spot one in a auction that seems viable. My wife is big believer in the concept that "things happen if they are met to be." I have come to the some conclusion. Perhaps it is met to be that I will never find an 1877 Twenty Cent Piece that pleases me and is farily priced.
That's the way it has always been for me with 1796 half dimes. I don't care much for any of the three pieces I have, which includes one in an NGC AU-58 holder with a CAC sticker. I've never been in the right place at the right time to get a really good one. It's just not met to be.
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
Setting the marker at the price that I am willing to pay has worked for me in the past. Once you get to a certain price level, the bidding increments become "real money." If you end up on the wrong side of the bidding back and forth, it can cost you.
For example years ago I wanted a scarce item for which my top bid was $50,000. The increment is $5,000 at that level. Even a cut bid of $2,500 is "real money," at least for me. I put the $50,000 bid up on the Internet. As it so happen there was a representative at that auction whose client had authorized him to bid $50,000. My book bid took precedence, and I got the lot. This was not the only time this strategy has worked for me.
Second, I am on the east coast and the auction was in California. The time difference does matter. I would have had to have stayed up very late to have bid in the 1839-C quarter eagle. One time an auction ran until past 3AM. I had not made an Internet bid on a lot that interested me, I simply ended up not being able to bid on it.
Fair enough. But setting the market price a few days before the auction gives other serious players a fair amount of time before the auction to increase their maximum price. I don't think it would have made any difference with the twenty cent pieces. But with the quarter eagle you may have been able to get it cheaper if you would have bought it live without running up the price earlier.
The auction started at 6:00 PM in Long Beach and was over by 9 PM. If you don't want to follow it on Heritage Live or you don't trust the software make arrangements with Heritage and they will happily call you before every lot your interested in and you bid via telephone.
eBay and Heritage are similar and very different but most bidders on EBay don't win the auction on the first day.
Why get yourself all worked up over an auction when you could easily pay a dealer who attends the show circuit their profit to find you a nice example at a more reasonable price?
eBay and Heritage are similar and very different but most bidders on EBay don't win the auction on the first day.
I bid $10 early on as a place holder on each lot. I don't bid again a few hours before the sale. You can talk about live bidding live, but doesn't seem to make much difference to me. i've done it both ways and been successful.
LIke I said with the $50,000 bid that was my limit. Why not get your maximum bid on the book? If I bid $45,000 and the next guy bids $50,000, I have to bid at least $2,500 more to get back in, and he’s still got the $55,000 bid to trump me.
The auctions that large houses run are retail operations anyway. There are few bargains for collectors in them, and I usually get run up to numbers beyond the published retail levels. The only guys who have a good chance of picking something off in an auction are dealers who are open to buying anything. For collector who usually has a much smaller list, the chances of getting a bargain are slim.
I know that because it was fun to buy at auction when I was dealer. As a collector, not so much. That's why I avoid auctions if I can. The results from them are usually disappointing for me.
I checked the auction slightly after 11PM and saw that the auction was still 200 lots away from the 1839-C $2.50 where I already had an Internet bid. It was useless to stay up for that.
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
@tradedollarnut said:
Why get yourself all worked up over an auction when you could easily pay a dealer who attends the show circuit their profit to find you a nice example at a more reasonable price?
Of late there have been no nice 1877 Twenty Cent Pieces at a reasonable price since I sold the piece I had with the lamination issues. Your Legend Auction is going sell off a very nice one. I think that it is a PR-66, CAC, but that's more coin than I want. Given the way things are going, it will probably set a world record price for the issue.
As for hiring a dealer, I tried that when I was shopping for the 1796 No Stars Quarter Eagle. The dealer kept indicating that none of the coins worked. Finally I just went to a Baltimore auction when one was offered and bid on it myself live. You can judge how I made out. It's in an NCG MS-62 holder. My grade is MS-61. It was in an NGC MS-61 holder at one time. The extra point didn't really increase the price. Stacks' and Heritage have slightly different bidding increments.
Pogue's coin is also graded MS-62 but by PCGS. His coin is nicer than mine, but but it sold for over $850,000, which more than three times what I paid.
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
@jonruns said:
For a collector, IMHO the best source of good coins is from other collectors.
When you can get them to sell something. My experience, which dates from the mid to late 1960s, those opportunities are rare.
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
It's a new era. PF65 coins can and will have hairlines, sometimes numerous ones....and even field friction. That's one of the reasons that if I buy proofs, they usually end up being 66/67. I can rarely find PF65's that are hairline-free enough for me. Graded as PCGS PF63, that one appears to have upside potential to me.
You just laid out the case why the time has come for me to withdraw from spending any more big money on this hobby. It explains why I can't find anything decent to buy at the shows. Your "This new era phrase" lays out the reason why this hobby is headed for a serious crossroads. Perhaps I can survive financially with the really good coins I have, but buying more expensive coins in a market like this is financial suicide.
Thank you for your honesty. I am glad that I am finished as an active dealer and a high ticket buyer. If I ever find an 1877 Twenty Cent piece that is priced within a shouting distance of reasonable, I will buy it. One of my economics professors in undergraduate schoool called that "a consumption act." That means you are spending money with no hope of ever having a financial return. You do it for pleasure. The pleasure is gone when you spend almost $20 thousand for a coin that is worth $5,500, with a tail wind, because two or three speculators have driven the price to insane levels.
Don't worry. Give it time. With grade inflation, the prices will eventually tank and those with accurately graded coins better hope their coins are beneficiaries of grade inflation to keep their investments afloat. The other Seated series have taken hits, and I see no reason that double dimes will be immune. No one wins... except the TPGS.
Also @BillJones, do you bid online or in person? Have you ruled out the possibility of shills or someone bidding it up because of your reputation for buying nice coins?
Comments
I once saw a pure auction manipulation scheme up close.
Many years ago, circa 1980, before there was an Internet, I attended an auction secession, run by a then major firm, that was held on a Saturday morning. There were very few people attending the auction, and with no Internet the only other bids had to be “on the book.” The lots were all California fractional gold pieces.
The bidding in the front of room was at levels like $400 or $500 and then this guy in the back popped up with a jump bid, “$5,000!!!” or “$6,000!!”. He did this repeatedly, at least 40 times, and the way he said it led me to believe that he was just pulling these high numbers out of the air.
Now it is possible that he was an auction representative who had two or more clients who had given him bids. I’ve seen the hammer drop than have the winner say, “Make that a higher amount of X dollars” because he had had a “mini auction” among his clients.
BUT this guy didn’t have any notes, so he either had a great memory, or he was a shill …
A few weeks later this same firm put out a retail list of California fractional gold pieces at the high-level prices. The game? Establish a public auction record that these items had “sold” for that kind of money to justify the retail offering.
I opted out of the "make an offer" option because I kept getting bugged to sell the 1878 Twenty Cent Piece I have, which I don't care to sell at this time. Unlike the 1877 I had, that piece is quite nice and is "a keeper."
In terms of old rare gold...what I think is happening is that the prices are going up...especially for higher quality in-demand dates like your 1839-C $2.50...and dealers are having trouble finding inventory...and they are competing with collectors at auction for the nicer coins (like the 1839-C that you bid on)...
Real-world example:
The 1839-C half eagle (PCGS EF-40) that I recently purchased was sold at the Stacks Bowers March 2017 auction for $4230 to the world's foremost expert on old gold...while the price paid was below the PCGS price guide of $5200...it was the highest auction price ever paid (granted not many current) for an EF-40...
His plan was to send the coin to CAC and sell it for price guide plus with a green sticker...unfortunately it did not pass with JA and he "dumped" it for a 10% "profit"....probably zero profit if you factor in his time, shipping, grading expenses etc.
Even at his price of $4650 he received a dozen calls within the first few hours after it hit his inventory list...
My Conclusions:
Despite all of the negative talk about the coin market and CAC...the demand for old gold coins in popular dates in PCGS/CAC (anything with an obverse mint mark, first year eagle) has never been higher...
As demand has dried up the very limited supply of high quality examples of these scarce dates...you are now competing against dealers in the Heritage/SB auctions for the best coins (in my experience "make an offer" often times means a dealer)...
An 1877 20c at 14K is a really pretty 66 or 66CAM, so poke me in the eye with a sharp stick.
Not an issue worth hoarding. No need for the date as a type coin, and no one collects the series because of the '76-CC.
Sold off six of this date in 65 for a friend in 2010. All white, none CAC. Couldn't get 10K for any of them.
Looking at the images/prices of the two HA coins, all I can think of is the term "house coin", but the prices are so out whack I don't think any of the HA (internal) buyers would have set those numbers for their "free buy-back" /"make-an-offer" racket.
So ends another futile analysis of high-flying fugliness.
"Weird scenes inside the gold mine"
Bill, the 'make offer to owner' is automatic. Owner does nothing and it comes up. Owner has to do something to turn it off.
Best, SH
I've paid multiples of MV for truly special coins in lower grades, it is just possible that after seeing in hand that these 1877 20 cent pieces are in that category?
Best, SH
Bill, you could always make an offer on that PCGS PF63 at $10K or less (your original limit) and see if it gets accepted.
I have looked at the pictures of that one long and hard, and it's get a lot of hairlines in the right obverse field that could be something more than just hairlines. I know in your world that hairlines and marks are okay for PR-65 coins now. The old PR-64 is now the new PR-65. So far as I’m concerned “Gradeflation + much higher bids = THE SHAFT for coin buyers. It’s not fair to get caught in the middle of a double whammy. That’s the way it used to be with unethical dealers, over grade and over price, before third party grading came along.
The guys who are selling this stuff on the "make an offer" program are holding all of the cards. You can't see the coin ahead time, and you have got to pay them and Heritage a big premium over what the coin brought at auction on close to a blind bid basis. They are not going to be like me and tell a prospective buyer that the coin has three laminations on the obverse. It's hard to offer upwards of $10,000 for something with limited return privileges, especially when the $10,000 level is new and suspect.
I know that I have a similar situation with an on-line auction, but I can get a quick review from Heritage about the coins. They described the piece that sold for $14,100 as “a pleasant surprise” with only a minor impairment of the Proof mirrors because of toning. in other words, a nice PR-63 coin. They were less upbeat on the 1839-C quarter eagle which they pretty much characterized as “run of the mill.” In other words I just bought a hole filler, which all I expect to get.
No, I'll have wait until I see one at a bourse or spot one in a auction that seems viable. My wife is big believer in the concept that "things happen if they are met to be." I have come to the some conclusion. Perhaps it is met to be that I will never find an 1877 Twenty Cent Piece that pleases me and is farily priced.
That's the way it has always been for me with 1796 half dimes. I don't care much for any of the three pieces I have, which includes one in an NGC AU-58 holder with a CAC sticker. I've never been in the right place at the right time to get a really good one. It's just not met to be.
Fair enough. But setting the market price a few days before the auction gives other serious players a fair amount of time before the auction to increase their maximum price. I don't think it would have made any difference with the twenty cent pieces. But with the quarter eagle you may have been able to get it cheaper if you would have bought it live without running up the price earlier.
The auction started at 6:00 PM in Long Beach and was over by 9 PM. If you don't want to follow it on Heritage Live or you don't trust the software make arrangements with Heritage and they will happily call you before every lot your interested in and you bid via telephone.
eBay and Heritage are similar and very different but most bidders on EBay don't win the auction on the first day.
Why get yourself all worked up over an auction when you could easily pay a dealer who attends the show circuit their profit to find you a nice example at a more reasonable price?
I bid $10 early on as a place holder on each lot. I don't bid again a few hours before the sale. You can talk about live bidding live, but doesn't seem to make much difference to me. i've done it both ways and been successful.
LIke I said with the $50,000 bid that was my limit. Why not get your maximum bid on the book? If I bid $45,000 and the next guy bids $50,000, I have to bid at least $2,500 more to get back in, and he’s still got the $55,000 bid to trump me.
The auctions that large houses run are retail operations anyway. There are few bargains for collectors in them, and I usually get run up to numbers beyond the published retail levels. The only guys who have a good chance of picking something off in an auction are dealers who are open to buying anything. For collector who usually has a much smaller list, the chances of getting a bargain are slim.
I know that because it was fun to buy at auction when I was dealer. As a collector, not so much. That's why I avoid auctions if I can. The results from them are usually disappointing for me.
I checked the auction slightly after 11PM and saw that the auction was still 200 lots away from the 1839-C $2.50 where I already had an Internet bid. It was useless to stay up for that.
Of late there have been no nice 1877 Twenty Cent Pieces at a reasonable price since I sold the piece I had with the lamination issues. Your Legend Auction is going sell off a very nice one. I think that it is a PR-66, CAC, but that's more coin than I want. Given the way things are going, it will probably set a world record price for the issue.
As for hiring a dealer, I tried that when I was shopping for the 1796 No Stars Quarter Eagle. The dealer kept indicating that none of the coins worked. Finally I just went to a Baltimore auction when one was offered and bid on it myself live. You can judge how I made out. It's in an NCG MS-62 holder. My grade is MS-61. It was in an NGC MS-61 holder at one time. The extra point didn't really increase the price. Stacks' and Heritage have slightly different bidding increments.
Pogue's coin is also graded MS-62 but by PCGS. His coin is nicer than mine, but but it sold for over $850,000, which more than three times what I paid.
For a collector, IMHO the best source of good coins is from other collectors.
When you can get them to sell something. My experience, which dates from the mid to late 1960s, those opportunities are rare.
Don't worry. Give it time. With grade inflation, the prices will eventually tank and those with accurately graded coins better hope their coins are beneficiaries of grade inflation to keep their investments afloat. The other Seated series have taken hits, and I see no reason that double dimes will be immune. No one wins... except the TPGS.
Also @BillJones, do you bid online or in person? Have you ruled out the possibility of shills or someone bidding it up because of your reputation for buying nice coins?