Coin auctions don't become fun until passion overcomes logic.
Coinstartled
Posts: 10,135 ✭✭✭✭✭
Anyone that claims that they stick to their pre calculated bid each time is missing 90% of the rush that real auctions provide.
Agree or disagree.
7
Comments
Ended up with an extra 1894 morgan at the recent Heritage sale that way...but hey, it is a key date.
Heck, I can do that with a fixed price list.
I'm weak.
kinda ...
... always have a max price in mind .... but ....
...ebay brings up this little box when you are the under bidder asking if you want to bid xxx? ...
.... which I admit to hitting a few times ...
I do that all the time, but I don't buy stuff at auctions for an investment or for a business purpose.
I know. I know how to read eBay bid pricing so if a coin goes past my bid, I have some fun bidding the person up to their max.
Collector
91 Positive BST transactions buying and selling with 56 members and counting!
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Sure that’s exactly what seller and auction house want you to do. No thank you.
I have seen some crazy stuff at auctions do to massive infusions of testosterone.....Cheers, RickO
An equal rush can be had when you catch everyone sleeping and snag something for way under what you were prepared to bid.
Rarely happens but when it does it's awesome.
"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
Sometimes auction houses add their own dose of excitement.
Lance.
The bidding for the Porsche Type 64, built by Ferdinand Porsche in 1939, was supposed to open at $13 million but instead started at $30 million
How could you possibly know someone else's maximum bid? Sounds like a great way to over-pay for a coin.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
I am always cautious when doing this, but after bidding on eBay for a while I Learned that depending on price range the auction always goes up in the same increment. I never had to buy a coin that I won because of this.
Collector
91 Positive BST transactions buying and selling with 56 members and counting!
instagram.com/klnumismatics
The increments have always been the same depending on price range. But you can't know whether the bidder put in a $100 max or a $1000 max. All you know is the max of the underbidder.
With all due respect, even if you COULD know the high bidder's max bid, running them up would make you a villain not a hero.
who can afford their own collection today at some of the ANA auction prices
maybe time to sell!
I love true auctions. I would rather overpay in an auction than at a fixed retail price. With retail, I know I am the only dummy. With an auction, I know there was one other dummy too.
That is comforting.
When it comes time to sell that underbidder may not be there.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Wouldn't you be a hero to the seller?
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
You would, but when did coin dealers become so popular?
Who ever said they were?
I'm kidding of course. There are many good coin dealers here that share their knowledge and expertise with us.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
From a consignor's perspective, I agree. From a buyer's perspective, I disagree.
I hate auctions. I get run up so much of the time that most of the joy is driven out of them. All it takes is one person who is determined to buy something no matter what the price. and a couple weeks of planning, research and anticipation is out the window.
It happened to me again this week. The estimate on the item was $500. I bid $1,100 figuring I would get it. I was outbid by $7. My wife said to me, “Why don’t bid a little more?” I did, but it didn’t matter. The item ended up going for $1,311 plus the buyers’ fee. Every time I bid, the same person beat me with another less an incremental bid. The fun is gone for me with auctions.
The bid\buy concept is better. You can buy the item outright and probably overpay a little, but at least you get the item, and you are not totally buried which has happened to me when I went nuts in a auction a few times.
I much prefer going to a show, finding the item, dealing with seller one-on-one and buying it.
You're talking eBay right?
As the passion on other auctions kinda fades when you get the invoice and see the 20-25% Juice, now Tax, and NO Free Shipping.
No. Heritage.
This is why I say that higher buyers’ fees make auctions less fun. To some people the buyers’ fee, the shipping and the sales tax do not matter. They apparently have money to burn.
Yet I dare say you could take some of these people, sit them in front of a dealer at a show, offer them the same item for $700, and they would not buy it.
I only make it to two major shows and one regional show a year now. That’s the reason I still fool with the auctions.
And the worst part is that thing is ugly.
The juice, tax and shipping is killing me.
The dealers who say they don’t care how high the buyers’ fee is, don’t understand that the collector has a different perspective. A dealer can go to auction, pick out maybe 200 to 300 items that interest them and be prepared to buy any of them at “the right price.” If the bids get too high, they can pass. So they can sit there with their calculators and break back their bids by the buyers’ fee amount.
For collectors, myself included, there might be three or four items that interest me. The law of averages is against you. When you have such a small sample space, the chances of “getting a bargain” are considerably reduced.
The bottom line really is that auctions are the place to buy items that you often can’t find on the bourse floor. When you are buying “stuff,” it’s better to go the private treaty route.
I try to incorporate the juice (when applicable) and shipping into my max bid...but there is usually that voice inside me saying that a little more won't hurt me...too bad.
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I ingore the shipping charge because I figure that if I go to a show I have pay for the travel, and for a big show, meals and lodging as well. In that sense the shipping is "a bargain," but I don't want to give the auction houses any ideas about making it into a profit center for them.
As for the buyers' fee and taxes, yes, they figure into my thinking.
There was nothing in the ANA sale I couldn't have lived without.
Tallying up all the associated fees as I paid my invoice made me feel like I went deep sea fishing and hooked a loan shark
Good thing that the disagree option was eliminated!
So I take it you enjoy overpaying at the auctions. Would you like to send me your want list?
As a matter of business, no...not too often.
Good to let the cobwebs escape the confines of a dusty wallet from time to time.
Your wife was right when advising you to rebid on a lot that you wanted. In the end it don't matter.
This is true for a couple reasons.
There also appears to be the view that auctions are wholesale venues. I see this a lot at local auctions. And it is true that dealers buy things at auction. But, in general, auctions are retail venues.
I've seen people at local auctions buy "wholesale items" for less than I'm selling them fixed price on eBay.
I actually had someone come up last month before the auction and interrupt my conversation with the auctioneer. He said to the auctioneer, "So am I expecting wholesale prices?"
I looked at him and said: "Whenever I'm here, I guarantee every thing will START at wholesale price. I would expect retail."
I bought a few things at both Stack's and Heritage. I was happy with all the prices. I place my bids BEFORE the auction for the maximum I'm willing to pay including BP and I add $20 for shipping. Then I simply don't look till after the auction. The result was I had left 100,000+ in bids and I ended up spending $2500, but I was very happy with what I bought.
If I really want something, I will watch the auction. I then almost always end up bidding more than I wanted to pay and most of the time still don't get it. But it's the nature of auctions.
This is almost always true. Widgets and relatively inexpensive items are simply not cost effective at an auction. Especially for items under $100, the BP ends up being more than 20% because of he $19 minimum. If you had a $50 Morgan in an auction, you couldn't bid more than $15 or so at Heritage and get it for $50. Even a $100 item is hard to buy with effectively $35 in BP and shipping.
I also think some people really don't think about the BP shipping cost on inexpensive items. There was a coin at Stack's that was worth maybe $25 or $30 in a monthly auction. Someone bid to $35 which isn't a bad price, until you add the $35 in BP/shipping. They can't have loved the coin that much, they must just ignore the juice in the same way people in stores ignore sales tax.
I find it hard to get excited. Seems like most items get bid up to near retail during the pre-bidding.
Given the market bifurcation, is it items that you can't find on the bourse floor are going up and "stuff" is suffering?
Also is the "private treaty" term used for all non-auction sales? For example, are retail dealer sales on the bourse floor considered private treaty sales? Is buying of a dealer's public website a private treaty sale? I thought these two examples were regular retail sales, but perhaps they are also private treaty sales?
That's because you're not letting your passion overcome logic
This!!!
Happens to me all the time
My definition of “stuff” is quite a bit higher than the $100 limit a previous poster mentioned. I think of “stuff” as coins from $1 to several thousand dollars.
For example, I bought very nice 1864-L and 1864 Bronze Cents at the last Summer FUN show. They are part of a “cents of the Civil War” mini set that I am forming. Both were under $1,000 or well under $1,000. I would not even consider looking for those in an auction because I’d end up getting run up to the moon if I chose to bid. Most of the bidders treat the 20% buyers’ fee as a throw away as if it’s not even there.
I could count the times it's happened for me on less than one hand. I once bought a "Sam's Inn" Civil War token for a' "cover bid." Another times I bought a PCGS certified 1849 gold dollar for $500 less than Grey Sheet bid in an Ebay Auction.
Most of the time when I bid the prices fly out of the solar system. When I bid in auctions, more often than not the PCGS "Coin Facts" retail numbers seem like wholesale.
This leads to a question that I have had on my mind for quite some time now as I deal in very thin markets.
Do I mark the coin up from the actual price I won the coin at or do I mark it up from what I was willing to buy it at thinking my highest bid was low wholesale?
A lot of dealers will offer it for what they think it's worth and I think it's a legitimate service that they should get paid for. With public auction prices, it's easier to see the difference. Sometimes I pay the large difference and sometimes I don't, but I appreciate knowing it because it's the amount one should be prepared to lose when selling, especially for thinly traded items.
For many dates of the midgrade nice original Barber Half's PCGS price guide is sub-wholesale for me! There are so many dates I get ecstatic about when I am able to buy nice original coins anywhere around PCGS price guide!
Fair market pricing is not always tethered to acquisition cost. There is no obligation to pass along a bargain. Retail the coin for what you believe it is worth. You can always discount from there.
They should. It is a retail environment.
The $100 was not meant as a limit on the definition of "stuff" but an example of the transaction costs associated with lower priced material.
Now that is discipline. You would never put together a matched set of anything with a strategy like that, but it would make you a very profitable dealer.
I thinki you could put together a matched st of many things. Tod just have to be very, very patient
i love auctions. there is the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat," but that's what makes it fun.
when i get outbid, i console myself by reaffirming a couple of things:
have fun bidding, even when you are outbid!