What Happened to the Bargains?!
Aotearoa
Posts: 1,564 ✭✭✭✭✭
My collection - Draped Bust Large Cents - is sourced pretty much exclusively from Great Collections, Heritage and eBay. With patience, I've managed to acquire quite a few nice coins at reasonable prices ($150-300ish range). Lately, however, it seems there are no bargains to be had. I placed 23 snipe bids in the last Heritage auction and only two of them came through - and those two were not high priorities. eBay these days is especially ridiculous. The silly BIN prices are one thing but to see what people are (over)paying in auctions is a shocker. My point is that this seems to be a recent trend. A few months ago, I was scoring the occasional auction deal on eBay. Not even close lately. GC, by the way, is still OK but not much to choose from recently.
Anyone else seeing this?
Smitten with DBLCs.
Comments
Agreed !!!
Everyone raise your hand if you want to sell at bargain prices!
EAC 6024
How do you place snipe bids on Heritage?
Bargains? There are bargains? I have not seen bargains at auctions in quite a while.... of course, I no longer watch them as closely as in the past....Cheers, RickO
When you sell they may be bargains, if you are in a hurry.
I guess it depends on what you are looking for. They are there if you are patient...and lucky.
I arrived at the age where I remember what things used to cost, dag nab it!
I've seldom seen bargains in early large cents unless there are 'issues', or they are common dates.
Among the draped bust series you mentioned, I can't imagine finding nice coins from '96 through '00 in the price range you indicated ($150-300ish range) except maybe a lower grade '98. Then the '04 to 06 run is also tough. Perhaps you have been extremely lucky in the past?
You nabbed two some don't get any not bad if I say so.
Hoard the keys.
GavelSnipe. Of course, that only gets you through the internet auction. You can still be outbid during the live auction (which often happens, in my case).
Smitten with DBLCs.
You and I are clearly traveling in different orbits. I have a number of G4 coins that I consider "nice". I'm also perfectly open to coins that are in details holders (or would end up there if submitted) as long as they have eye appeal and meet my own standards. I don't mind a bit of fine porosity, for instance, but I'll almost alway avoid a coin with rim bumps. (I'm currently working on '98 and '00 die varieties and '01 die states.)
I used the term "bargain" in a relative way. Let's put it this way: over the past couple of months, I find that I am winning fewer auctions. My strategies haven't changed; it just seems that prices have been pushed higher recently - to illogical levels in a lot of cases (especially on eBay).
Smitten with DBLCs.
Ok - thanks for the clarification....certainly lower grades and minor porosity can help keep the prices down to the levels mentioned.
And interesting observation that even these coins seem to be eagerly sought now.
Most early copper seems to fairly steadily increase in value....I made the huge mistake of deciding >25 years ago to go after high grade middle date cents. I would have been far better off buying the earlier coins in lesser grades, from a price and profit perspective.