Interesting auction history of a coin I sent to Great Collections
gtstang
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I'm not going to get into the specific coin itself but only the recent auction history that I find baffling and fascinating.
I sent in 21 coins to be auctioned that arrived at GC on Dec 9 and 13 went to auction soon after including this specific coin listed for two weeks. I had the start price set at $350 which was less than other similar examples sold recently. It did not sell, so it stayed at $350 for another 2 weeks and did not sell. It did have, if I remember correctly 14 or so watchers.
I then had GC reduce the price to $300 start bid and same exact thing, no bids for 4 weeks.
I was a bit frustrated but at this point I decided to email GC and have them start the auction at $1 and run it for 4 weeks.
Of course it got bids and they were pretty low up until the Saturday before auction date when it jumped up to $500 and finally ended just under $700 with bp included. Also for those curious, it was a PCGS coin and the PCGS price guide is currently shown as $1300.
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Who came up with the $350 number? Was that you or greatcollections?
Pcgs priceguide must be wildly overvalued for this coin at $1300, because with the $350 starting reserve price it garnered no action, and even on open bid it brought only $700.
Instinct tells me this is a coin you were lucky to sell.
That is an interesting story. I'd like to know what coin it was. I've heard of things like that happening before but it never has happened to me. Congratulations on selling your coin, I think.
As a general rule coins with no reserve perform better than coins that have a starting bid price. Coins that are active with bids, even when such bids start at $1 seem to attract more attention. Your experience is not that unusual.
I don’t find that series of events particularly surprising.
As I’ve told many consignors, after having been asked about reserves:
“We typically discourage reserves, as we’ve found that they tend to reduce bidder interest and enthusiasm, which can result in lower (rather than higher) bids and prices realized.”
Some potential bidders automatically assume that if a coin’s reserved, the reserve price is higher than the market value of the coin and they just move on to another lot. So, rather than serve as a floor for a bidding level, a reserve can instead end up being a cap on the price.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
not surprising here either. bidders are turned off by min bids and reserves
What is CDN Bid / CPG for it? Do you have photo of the coin? What is denom, date, MM. Why the numbers game lol? Do you know how to lookup CPG? If not give denom, date, Mm.
Auctions - ymmv. If auc during a major show like FUN…. Show us the coin.
Congrats on the result!
As others have mentioned, there is a “stigma” at times with high starting bids and people avoid the coin. There is also some psychological factors of seeing multiple bids and wanting to jump in compared to seeing none and avoiding the auction.
I’ve watched a few coins on GC that had high starting bids repeat for multiple cycles with no bids and then sell with that same starting bid or even a few bids. I’ve also won a few coins from GC by being the only one to bid the “high” starting bid (which I thought was a fair number).
Does anyone think the coin would have sold for more than $700 if the opening bid was $1 initially?
I don’t know about anyone else but it’s hard for me to have an opinion without knowing what the coin was.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
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I don't think so. I try to keep up with the market somewhat.
I submitted this coin to pcgs so I know exactly what I have financial into it. I really thought it would get multiple bids with the original listing stated. It was the only one currently out there for auction, although multiple others are sitting and sitting on ebay at pcgs guide or close to it.
Here's a screenshot of sales on gc from highest to lowest since 2019. Highest sold is cac also.
finally ended just under $700 with bp included. Also for those curious, it was a PCGS coin and the PCGS price guide is currently shown as $1300.
Based on your price history screen shot, I believe you did well. A positive was the fact your coin had few appearances at auction. Without a CAC, coins seem to go for half of PCGS prices. Eye appeal is a huge factor which affects both CAC and non-CAC coins..
Unfortunately, GC does not post greysheet prices like HA and SB which makes it difficult to tell what to normally expect.
I'm on the other side once again. I would NEVER start the bid at $1 for a $1300. coin. That's so foolish, you put yourself at the mercy of bidders. Too many things can happen during an auction, and to think that one bid for a dollar would win a $1300 coin is crazy.
In the past I set my starting bid at 80% of market value which would still make me a profit if it sold at that starting bid.
I haven't sold in a long time now but my philosophy would still be the same.
If the coin is a good looking coin with no problems it should get bids, and if it doesn't sell it will be relisted and the auction will start once again.
I never shied away from bidding on a coin because it had a starting reserve that was in line with the price of the coin.
Some would want YOU to take the chance of starting the coin at $1 to get more bids, the problem is you don't get paid for the amount of bids, you get paid for the final price.
JMO
Mike
My Indians
Dansco Set
I think that there are enough dealers with eyeballs on GC that US coins don’t slip through the cracks at a fraction of the current value.
I always start at $1 because it guarantees bids which seems to draw attention. I think a lot of bidders want to see other bids as it gives them confidence they aren’t overpaying. Auction fever and “winning” also play a role. Not saying that is a good mentality as a buyer, but I think it’s prevalent.
I always check the box to let GC decide where to start. I assumed in the beginning that would always be $1. I was wrong about that.
I figure they know better than me. I’ve never had a coin not sell in the first go.
I could be auctions a coin that's 250k and I'll let it rip @ $1.00. Imo there's far too many collectors who choose the 80% option, but their interpretation of "market value" is PCGS Price guide, when the reality is that the 80% of guide is already the market price, and a strong one at that. There's an army of vultures like us scanning these auction sites who aren't going to let someone else make a 20% margin on an easily liquid coin. As others said, I might just skip over the listings that have 0 bids and target the listings with heavy bidding activity. Not directed at anyone in this thread, but the number of 0 bid listings each week speaks for itself.
Also, my opinion is that heavily marketed heritage auctions and GC auctions don't necessarily represent the market health as a whole, especially when the coins are low-mid 4 figures. The weakness starts at the top and trickles down. A lot of better date gold, nice proof type, gem bust halves, High grade 20th century type, seeing some uninspiring auction results. There's always going to be a supply demand imbalance for coins in the Chelsea collection. Those price guides were so far behind to begin with, it doesn't matter that the CPG is $1800 for a circulated better date with CAC that hasn't shown up in a decade, does the collector want to wait another decade or just put a nuke in and take the coin home for 4400? Chances are, they didn't "overpay" at all, and they'll likely make money when it comes time to sell, who cares if they spend a total of 10k over guide to secure a few unobtanium dates to aka progress with their set. For may personal collection, even though it stung at the time and others might have thought it was was crazy, I don't look back and think that I "overpaid" at all. When buying inventory for resale, or opportunistically buying something as a quasi investment, I'm working with an entirely different mindset.
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To add to my original comment above just to clarify.
The way I establish the market value for my coins is by using past sales from current auctions, ebay, and other venues. I don't just use the PCGS price guild and CAC price guilds which are so outdated which some have suggested.
Starting the bid at 80% ensures that you will at least not lose all if any profits. It's protecting your assets or better put CYA.
You never know who or how many bidders will show up on any given day to bid.
Again, everybody has their choice to set the opening bid to where ever they want, starting the bid at $1 is very risky and it's not a chance I'm willing to take in this ever changing market.
Mike
My Indians
Dansco Set
@alaura22
Allow me to clarify as well, Mike. I completely understand and you owe me no explanation, we all have our reasoning and experience that shaped our current habits. If your coins are regularly getting bids, that would indicate you are indeed starting them below market value.
My views aside, I do sometimes feel annoyed with the amount of 0 bid listings because the opening bid of "80%" is already 10% higher than any recent comps. Essentially, many "sellers" have found a way to game to system at the expense of everyone else. Say, for instance, a coin has consistent APRs at $1500 despite a price guide of $2000. Rather than mark the "value" on the form at $1500 or $1600, these consignors will list the market value as the PCGS price guide (which carries plausible deniability I suppose), so the 80% starting bid will end up as $1600 before the 10% juice.
The listing fee is only $10 the first week, and GC will re list that coin up to 5 times without charging another listing fee. If the coins don't sell, you can request they be sent back. I don't know if they charge shipping to return them, but my guess would be no.
One could send 5 coins with a declared value of 2k each, and all 5 coins can be listed 5 times each and not one of them sell. They're only out a total of $50 and their consignment got the same attention to detail, customer service, man hours, photography, and likely (but not positive) free return shipping.
Meanwhile, I send two 5k coins that actually sell for a total of 10k the first go around, and GC nets a bit north of $1000, with the buyer paying for the return shipping. So while my consignment only required but a small fraction of the resources that the fishing consignment did, the revenue generated from my consignment is exponentially more. Perhaps even, without all of these pretend auction coins in the pipeline, Phil would be able to do "Greatphotos" for all of the coins we send to consign, and not just the toned ones.
The way I see it, they're taking advantage of the policy to go on a wishful fishing expedition that's subsidized by the rest of us. I'm sure that the $50 they had to pay ended up costing GC considerably more than $50 with all resources considered, adding up expenses on the balance sheet, all the while taking up space and cluttering the listing pages with their overpriced coins that they're evidently not that motivated to sell. This provides a substantial amount of visibility, and allows them to avoid having to do the work necessary to market the coins themselves on a venue like eBay or even the BST, or enlist the services of a dealer who would likely not allow unreasonable ask prices. As I write this post, there are 930 listings for silver dollars ending next Sunday. 288 of them currently have no bids, and I'll try to remember to check again on Sunday, but I wouldn't be surprised if that number doesn't change all that much.
The implication is that 30% of GC's workload might be in vain, and those wasted resources could have been better spent on the coins that actually will sell and generate revenue. I commend Ian's generosity, and I also don't expect GC to vet all the pricing since pricing is arguably the most time consuming part of this business. I think it's meant to function more along the lines of an honor system, of which it appears some are abusing.
As an aside, I would just note that because of this, I sometimes will filter out the ) bid coins when I do my Sunday inventory scan. I'm not searching for anything specific, and even if I might be inadvertantly ignoring coins that may not be unreasonably priced, my assumption is that 95% of those coins will end with 0 bids. I could be wrong, and I'll try to test this on Sunday, but I was just pointing out that you may or may not be losing some eyeballs if any of your coins are still no bids by Sunday evening. Like you mentioned, 1 bidder can make quite a difference, butI don't doubt your ability to price coins appropriately where your starting bids are actually .8 of MV, and not 1.1 of MV in disguise.
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The listing fee is only $10 the first week, and GC will re list that coin up to 5 times without charging another listing fee. If the coins don't sell, you can request they be sent back. I don't know if they charge shipping to return them, but my guess would be no.
They do charge you for return shipping. I found this out recently because I had GC send one coin back over 4 years ago. I thought they didn't charge either since I had several thousand in sales then. They actually recently charged me over $9 for sending the one coin back first class.
I did inquire about why first class cost that much for a less than $50 coin. They only charge $5 for auction wins in that range but got no response to that inquiry. And yes I was petty about them waiting 4 years to charge me like that...
I also don't expect GC to vet all the pricing since pricing is arguably the most time consuming part of this business. I think it's meant to function more along the lines of an honor system, of which it appears some are abusing.
Very well said!
Hold it...I think I understand but I can be dense sometimes so want to clearly understand...
Are you saying that, 4 years ago you had a coin sent back and you weren't charged until recently? Like, a surprise charge that should have happened 4 years ago waited until now?
I've been told I tolerate fools poorly...that may explain things if I have a problem with you. Current ebay items - Nothing at the moment
Correct. When I received my payout from GC, there was a $9.50 vendor deduction so I inquired on what that was. I was told it was for shipping the one coin back in 2020. I didn't know there would be a charge and was not told there would be one in 2020. I certainly wouldn't have been upset in 2020 if I was told then, but over 4 years...There was nothing in my account that I could see when I won auctions since that even showed anything was sitting there that I owed either.
I am in the same group as @slowhand . I have always let Great Collections select the starting amount. I have also always had all my coins sell. I don't know why some times they start my coins at $100 or more while others start at $1. I just know the magic works so Ithat is one les thing to worry about. James
I start everything at $1 whether it’s a one hundred dollar coin or a five figure coin and overall I’m very happy with my results. I have a large enough sample size to make these conclusions. Some coins do much better than expected while some don’t do quite as well. Most of my coins are CAC which definitely helps. I have had my share of home runs.
I have no idea why GC lists a coin five times at a high reserve for $10. I don’t think GC wants to become an eBay. They should consider have a listing fee every time they relist a coin or consider a seller fees when they relist a coin multiple times. I tend to ignore coins that have high reserves that are set close to retail.