GC Selling Experience
TommyType
Posts: 4,586 ✭✭✭✭✭
I’ve posted my experiences selling on Great Collections in the past. But I don’t post them as a shill for GC...I have no financial stake, and don’t gain or lose anything by convincing you to sell (or not sell) there. I also realize that there may be some coins and collections that would benefit from OTHER venues and methods.
But for pure collectors who don’t do the eBay thing, don’t want to deal with non-paying bidders, can’t do coin photography, don’t want to ship to far flung corners of the world, and don’t want to spend a day pimping “non-special” coins to dealers, I think it might be useful to hear about some “average guy, average coin” experiences selling on GC.
More than anything else, it’s a low stress, low mess venue. Ship them ONCE to GC, and they handle all of the headaches that comes with selling coins. For me, it’s well worth the service.
Anyway, I had 20 lots close yesterday. It was an attempt by me to cull the herd, and dispose of items that just don’t fit into my current focus(es) and desires.
Without detailing EACH coin, a breakdown looked something like this:
General assessment:
They weren’t anything special...any of them....though, they were all good for the grade on the holder, in my opinion. And I can safely state that none had ever been to CAC for assessment, so I won’t try to guess if they were “A” coins. Some may have been, most probably weren’t.
Services:
5 NGC
7 ANACS (small holder)
8 PCGS
Types:
3 - Small cents (1 Indian, 2 Lincoln)
2 - 2-Cent
1 - 3-Cent Silver
3 - Quarters (1 Barber, 2 Washington)
1 - Seated Half
9 - Morgans (VG-10 through MS-64, some better date, some generic)
1 - Peace Dollar (MS-64 generic)
Results looked something like this:
My Purchase Price, aggregate: $1359.25
- Does not include any shipping I paid...only price of coin, juice, tax, and any certification costs incurred
- Most were bought from 10 to 12 years ago, so I had the benefit of some price inflation on my side.
Current Wholesale value: $2209.00
- From Numismedia, the only handy source I have. Maybe not the best source, but probably not the worst either.
Current PCGS value: $2895.00
- Of course, they aren’t all PCGS coins! But you get a feel for what “high retail” might be.
Aggregate Starting Bids: $837.00
- I like starting low, and hinted that would be my preference. Get a bidder or two emotionally interested!
- Lowest starting bid: $1 on ANACS 1943-S MS67 Steel Lincoln and PCGS 1944 MS-65 Washington Quarter. (“Wrong holder” and “Totally Generic”)
- Highest starting bid: $110 on PCGS F-15 1893-O and VG-10 1895-O Morgans.
Results:
Everything sold. No re-treads inserted into later auctions!
Fact of the matter is that EVERY lot was hit for the minimum bid on Thursday, 1 June, (10 days or so before close). I can only assume that someone is using an automated “mass bidding” program/script on anything “too cheap”. It happened the last time I listed coins as well. Only one lot sold as a result of that opening bid mass bidding, however.
I don't think this "mass bidding" is a bad thing. It means anyone interested is forced to get involved in the bidding, and not assume it will be there again in 2 weeks to think about again! Motivation....
Aggregate Sale Price, (closing bids): $1683.90
Total Listing Fees ($3 or $5/lot, depending on start bid): $68.00
Total Sales Fees (5%): $84.20
Net Proceeds: $1531.71
Analysis:
Closing Bids/Wholesale: 76.2%
Closing Bids/PCGS Retail: 58.2%
Net/Price Paid: 112.7 %
- Many might balk at 76% of wholesale as being too low. I don’t know. But keeping in mind that none of these coins were “WOW” coins, and I didn’t have to WORK at selling them, I don’t have any complaints. The last time I sold, it was the “dregs” of my collection, and got bids around 63% of wholesale, so I was fairly happy. The key for me was netting 113% of my purchase price! Just turning extra items into cash.....with minimal work on my part.
- I do think that before you do this, it’s best to use the search function on GC to assess what your coins will realistically achieve. My pre-auction best guess using this method was $1646 in aggregate bids, which was very close to the achieved. (Some did much better, some far worse. But in aggregate, my prediction was pretty sound.)
Some notes:
Pleasant Surprises:
- Exceeded expectations. 1880 NGC MS-64 Morgan. My best guess was that it would get bid up to about $50, based on past auctions. Actual winning bid was $116.33, (net $107.51), for a coin with a wholesale value of $112, and I paid $75 for.
- Exceeded expectations. 1943-S ANACS MS-67 Lincoln Steel cent. Wrong holder! Figured I’d be lucky to get MS-66 money (PCGS guide $48). Ended up with a winning bid of $77 (net $70.15), or nearly exactly what I paid for it. It photographed well, and very well could be a full MS-67 on cross(?)
- Highest selling price: 1840 ANACS XF-45 Seated Half. Winning bid $215, (net $199.25), on a coin I spent $120.75 for.
- Highest price vs. Wholesale: 1880/79-O NGC AU-50 Morgan. Winning bid was $54 vs. a wholesale value of $45, and PCGS retail of $61. Someone liked it.
- Highest price vs. amount paid: 1888-S PCGS XF-45. Paid $50 for it, winning bid was $105. It started slow, but finally found an interested party, or two.
Disappointments:
- Lowest return compared to expectation: 1995 PCGS MS-66 Lincoln “double die”. Bid $22, (net $17.90), for a coin I spent $36 on. Frankly, it didn’t photograph well, and may not be worthy of MS-66 in reality. Plus, there doesn’t seem to be much interest in the variety.
- Lowest return compared to cost: 1944 PCGS MS-65 Washington. While solid for the grade, it’s Pure Generic. Too low of a grade to interest a Washington specialist. I bought during the slight “Washington Craze” following release of the States Quarters for $39.50....and netted $9.56. (Ok....I won’t go hungry because of it, but who likes losing money on a coin!
) - Lowest return compared to wholesale: 1887/6 ANACS XF-40 Morgan. Winning bid $37 compared to wholesale estimate of $85...(which is probably a myth, considering PCGS retail is $64!) Anyway, just no interest, and a strange price guide anomaly means I really don’t know what it’s “worth” anyway!
There you have it: Warts and all, my experience with Great Collections for this auction.
If your time, experience, abilities, and interest allow you to sell efficiently elsewhere, maybe you can do better. But as a “pure collector”, with limited interest in coin pimping, marketing and sales, I love the ease of sale at GC.
Comments
Nice report.
Ian runs the best online site in the business. On coins over $1000 the fees are no more than Ebay and his staff does all the work!
Excellent analysis of your sale. The results seem to reflect the real current market for those coins.
Thanks for the detailed synopsis
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb, Ricko
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
I'm assuming that you get paid approx 5% less than the hammer price (10% buyer's fees go to the house). So with 5% seller's fee and 10% buyer's, plus a couple percent listing fee, you net in the 82-84% range of what the coin sells for on GC. Do I have that right?
Thank you for the interesting discussion of your experience.
The numbers were in my original post:
So, I'm netting 91% of hammer. (= 1531.71 / 1683.90)
The buyer's fee, (10%), is tacked on to the buyer's bill.
Thanks for that detail. So 91% of hammer, means you netted 91/110 (where 110% represents FMV with a 10% BF added to hammer). You netted approx. 82.73% of what the coins sold to the buyers for. While the buyer's fee is tacked on to the buyer's invoice, it ended up coming out of your proceeds. Nearly 83% is still a pretty decent net considering most B&M's might only pay 50-75% for average stuff.
I can assure you that when I bid on a $110 coin at GC, I don't bid $110 for it......I bid $100 max....which is auction language saying I pay $110 for a $110 coin once the BF is added on. That $110 coin means $91 to you and $19 to the house. I as the buyer am not involved....except to help blur the lines of seller's/buyer's fees. By using a % of hammer to settle consignments....and placing a "buyer's fee" on the buyer's invoice, a little bit of perfectly legal sleight of hand occurs. I still think they should call them seller's fee #1 and seller's fee #2. A lot of newbies out there (and lawyers handling estates) don't understand these concepts.
Understood.
There are plenty of ways to spin and report the numbers. The ONE -I- cared about was "Net proceeds compared to net cost". The others I threw in there could probably have been stated in a more informative manner. (i.e., the hammer price I used in my calculations is probably the least informative of the bunch...but also the easiest to pick out when I threw my quick analysis together. Call me lazy.
)
Added:
So, just to correct the impression I left that coins are selling for 76.2% of wholesale, and 58.2% of PCGS price guide:
While it is true that the HAMMER price was at those levels, (apples and oranges), the real things one should compare are actually full sales price, or...
(Hammer x 1.1) / (Numismedia wholesale) = 83.9%
(Hammer x 1.1) / (PCGS price guide) = 64.0%
I feel better...or at least more accurate....now.
Lot's of details. A question, did you start them all at $1, 50%, 65% or 80% of bid? There are options with Great Collections and I'm not clear of which options work best.
Great write, I will try them. I have tried others and was very, very disappointing especially when it came to marketing... Thanks for the report!!!!
PCGS price guide for routine/common coins of reasonable demand, is basically 50% above wholesale....which means buyers who are often looking to pay 2/3 of price guide (66%). Not many can get Price Guide for common stuff. And not many will sell for price guide on truly scarce 18th and 19th century stuff. That's why I prefer not to compare to price guides as they have inaccuracies built in. Showing what % of FMV you received for that selling venue in time is about the most accurate way to compare experiences. There are auction houses that will cherry pick the most under-priced coins per CDN and then boast that they got 150-200% over CDN....because of their market "expertise." What they don't tell you is that CDN is 1/2 to 1/3 of what those coins are really worth. And an auction price of 2X to 3X CDN would be the norm.
I kind of did a hybrid, I guess. I checked the box for "All coins start at Minimum Bids set by GreatCollections (Recommended)" They state they usually go with 70% of "what we believe the coins are worth in today's market".
BUT...I also added a note at the bottom stating, "GC normal starting bid of 70% of value, at your digression, is acceptable. I trust GC and the market."
As a result, I had a couple start at $1, some start fairly low, some relatively high. (Hard for me to tell what "scale" they used as the base).
Anyway, I'm not sure what is "best" since most coins sell at what they sell at! (It is what it is). Unless you have a value you need to protect, I think $1 starting bids work just fine.
Added:
Just did the math...which still doesn't indicate what scale GC uses to set starting bids.
But if you take my (Total Hammer / Starting Bids), it comes out to exactly 50%.
As noted, some were $1 starts, some were fairly high. So, I don't know.....Shrug
Consider also the shipping/handling add on, above cost, that some venues use.
GC is amazingly inexpensive in that regard.
I agree GC is the way to go with nothing but excellent service for the seller and buyer.
I would just like to add my experience in a slightly different way. I Just sold 11 very common average cents that were all replaced with upgrades. While I knew I would nowhere come near the purchase price of these cents bought 6-8 years ago due to grade inflation, I also knew many would not even get a bid on ebay. But they all sold on GC with no fuss.
WS
Quite a detailed report. My take is the auction coin market on common stuff is worse than ever. While you are happy, those prices, for the most part, are terrible.
Agree with WaterSport. Coins do NOT get ignored at GC.
About 24 hours prior to close, every lot I had received between 18 and 96 views, and had between 4 and 14 people tracking. (Both of those jumped a great deal in the last 24 hours, but I don't have those totals handy. The views often got inflated when someone was refreshing to snipe at the last minute....which was eye candy to me.
).
As for bids, I received between 1 and 21 bids on each lot, with an average of 10.5 per lot. (Some are automatic bids based on a high bid being incremented, but you get the idea. Everything got interest).
The sole sad-sack was the one bid I got on a rather drab looking 1925 Peace Dollar. Still, a $30 bid on a $37 wholesale coin worked for me!
I had a very different result with my 14 coins that sold on GC last night. I got 19% of Price Guide, this number is skewed upward because 1 coin did well. Fees were 23% of hammer. The worst result one coin sold for $4.00, I netted$ 0.80. I still have to wait 30 days for payment. I think I will be using eBay and Webstore.
That's one take, and I won't argue with you if you come to that conclusion.
The question is whether time spent on eBay, or wondering a burse floor will do any better? Neither are for me.
I can't add anything new - just want to say thanks for a great, informative thread!
This is a great post. In this hobby hard core dollars and cents are rarely discussed and this is a great primer to many collectors who have not sold many coins. I find your numbers to be pretty representative and I am sure an eye opener to many who are somewhat inexperienced in the hobby. Kudos to you for posting your results.
Joseph J. Singleton - First Superintendent of the U.S. Branch Mint in Dahlonega Georgia
Findley Ridge Collection
About Findley Ridge
Great report. Thanks.
"If I say something in the woods and my wife isn't there to hear it.....am I still wrong?"
My Washington Quarter Registry set...in progress
I'm learning a lot here that I never knew/considered............but may be handy when I sell
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb, Ricko
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
Very interesting account of the whole process. Great read.
very informative, thanks for putting together that report/analysis
!
Selling fee is 0% at GC for coins over $1000, so that would be like getting 107.5% at HA. (edit - actually it works out to 106.8% of hammer).
GC's buyer fee is 10% vs HA's 17.5%
Is there a rule of thumb as to how many coins need to be submitted.
I KNOW it depends on the coins, but I'm just wondering
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb, Ricko
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
Coins over $1000 are NO fee to seller. Postage to them is all.
I am including the 10% buyer fee which the seller actually eats.
Glad you're happy with the results and were able to recoup your investment. 76.2% of wholesale and 58.2% of PCGS retail seems low but if you were able to recoup your costs, it's a win.
Doesn't one of the owners post here?
This was a GREAT read. Thank you for putting this analysis together. Very informative.
I occasionally see some amazing coins on GC. I'm happy to see them doing better - seems like their hard work is paying offer. Great to have them as a viable option to eBay, HA, etc.
Dave
Very informative post . . . . . . thanks!
Drunner
I have done well at GC over the years, but I have also learned how to price materials, and how to set expectations. The best guide to how you will fair for any coin is a historical average of their selling price (assuming it is a liquid coin) -- in my experience. And some do better than others, and some do worse, but they tend to average out. CAC materials are doing better than non CAC, IMO. Ian is great to work with, both on the buying and selling side.
Excellent and well detailed summation.... not being a seller, I always wondered how this was done. Thanks for the details, both price and process. Cheers, RickO