KenDorney

Thats a pretty insane price.  Some of these have hammered for a couple hundred last year, but to be fair others sold for similar prices.  I wonder where the market is going for ancients these days.

On 3/19/2024 at 8:02 AM, kirispupis said:

I've often wondered with these tets whether the majority are picked up by resellers or whether there's an unseen reserve and, if not met, the coin is just moved to a future auction.

Clearly, there's some minimum price, but whether that's the reserve or just the current market for resellers to make a profit I'm unsure. I would think with the continuous glut of these tets - nearly every auction has at least a bunch nowadays - the price would continue to fall - yet it hasn't.

You might have noted with Roma that they now are listing if a lot has a reserve or not.  Seems a little odd, if it has a reserve of 100 GBP then the bidding should start there, but it doesnt, it starts at the usual low amount.

That's more offered at one time in quite a while.  It will be interesting to see, but I doubt there will be any real bargains.  The market seems to still be readily absorbing these without any loss of price.  In fact it seems that prices have steadily been increasing over the last couple years.

On 2/27/2024 at 4:45 PM, kirispupis said:

First, a number of the standard sellers I rely on have dried up. They were the source of the majority of my purchases last year and one in particular I ordered from nearly weekly. All three of them have posted very few coins this year, and whatever they've listed has been uninterested.

Dealers come and go.  They sell what they have, and if they are a 'source', often they sell out and there isnt anything else.

On 2/27/2024 at 4:45 PM, kirispupis said:

Second, there's been a severe drop in interesting coins overall. Last year there were typically 3-5 auctions at any one time with items I wanted, while lately it's been 0-1. At Leu, for example, I would typically put 10-25 coins on my watch list, then whittle them down to 4-10 over the auction until I bid on them in the live portion. This year I only had 2 on the initial list. Last year I purchased heavily from Roma at the beginning of the year and CNG at the end. I haven't participated in Roma at all this year and only one CNG auction outside of Triton, where I had zero wins. Overall, I'm just not seeing so many interesting coins.

'Interesting' is entirely subjective.  It can mean no coins, or a plethora.  

On 2/27/2024 at 4:45 PM, kirispupis said:

Third, on coins where I have bid there's been tremendous competition. Perhaps there's someone more well-heeled who has my exact plan, because I've been destroyed on the coins I most wanted. For example, I had a major target at Leu and I bid over 2x the highest ever offered for the type and lost. Even on "lower" types I've been outbid more than I used to be. I've lost on a number of items where I won last year.

Yes.  There is insane competition these days.  Often coins going for 2-10 times what they are realistically worth.  Auctions are just not where is is now.  I see many more deals with fixed price dealers.  But you gotta know your material.

So, in my 'old age', ... letting go of many of my old references.  My metric is that if I have not used a reference in roughly 20 years, I likely do not need it.  So, As such have disposed of many books.  I had consigned many books to CNG but after many years and no contact from them I suppsose that is a loss. Anyway, here are a few pics of what I might think are standard works.

I'm not good at these, but:

2 hours ago, antwerpen2306 said:

I never saw such special notes. It are private bank emissions, I suppose ? Very nice. I have also a lot of banknotes, but nothing special, most German from the Weimarrepublik (gutschein, notgeld and notes for .... million mark). Interesting is this note from France : ' billet de deux francs complémentaires'

These are military pay notes, issued by the US for use in France. You can see them here:

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/note204612.html

It depends on what you call repatinated.  Looks as if its been treated with something, maybe olive oil, wax, etc.  Kind of hard to tell from the pic, but the underlying patina is natural to me.

28 minutes ago, expat said:

@dougsmit in your esteemed opinion, what would cause the second images of the long torch and the S on this coin?

That's not a second torch, but her arm.

19 hours ago, John Conduitt said:

In London it will get you a garage. But in Lincolnshire, you can have 5 bedrooms.

4 hours ago, Salomons Cat said:

In Switzerland, the money equals 30% of a nice 3.5 bedroom apartment in the center of one of the big cities. Garage included.
But you'll still need a mortgage for the other 70%.

I'm just waiting for retirement when I can leave California behind as a sad memory.  But choosing the right place to move to is monumentally difficult!

On 1/14/2024 at 4:55 AM, John Conduitt said:

especially now they've boosted the price to the cost of a large house.

I live in California, and that money will get you a small and very modest house!

While the RIC volumes are being updated I am not sure I will see all of them in my lifetime.  I am particularly interested in how the rarity ratings will come out in the later coinages.  There are plenty of mintmark rarities, but it can be difficult to tell how scarce they really are as many dealers, even the big ones, often dont give a full description of the coin.  And of course most of them would never appear in most of the auctions outside of group lots.

I'm a bit behind in my reading.  I have about a dozen in my 'immediate read' pile, and maybe another 50 to get around to eventually (and I'm always buying more).  Anyway, I went to the library book sale a while back and they happened to have quite a number of historical fiction titles.

Their website isnt functional at the moment (the book dept).  Does anyone know who is stocking these yet?

On 12/16/2023 at 9:32 AM, Rand said:

Can the numismatic market become overwhelmed with supply and follow the stamp market decline in the lower-end segment?

Antiques ownership's political and legal pressure might also influence the market unpredictably. What do you think about the future of numismatics?

Yes, it is possible.  But currently the trend is that there are plenty of new collectors, speculators, investors, etc. entering the market.  In my 35+ years as a dealer I have always been amazed to see hoards of coins be absorbed by the market.  We often think its not possible, there are too many coins for the market to bear and support.  But, on average, prices still seem to steadily climb.  It is entirely possible that sometime in the future these small disks of metal lose popularity and prices collapse.  That can happen in any industry.  I dont see it happening in my lifetime, but I have seem massive declines elsewhere.  Antiquities used to be very popular and prices were strong.  They are now not very popular and prices are continually dropping.  I am glad I sold my collection a couple years ago.  The auction house I used said they would not actively persue consignments of them any longer.

I suppose it depends on what exactly we are talking about here.  Is it auction houses bidding in their own sales or others?  If one does much browsing year after year you will see that many coins never seem to sell to collectors.  They are bought up by dealers who then try their luck with a different venue (or their own).  This is incredibly common.  When speaking to one house owner/operator (to be remain nameless, but one of the biggest in the world), he had mentioned recently that they were very short on material to fill their sales and that he was forced to buy quite a lot in other sales.  Auctions are often a gamble.  Hammer prices that will generate a profit and never guaranteed and there is plenty of risk involved.  

If we are talking about houses bidding in their own sales, yes, that is common as well.  If a lot is going too cheaply they might step in and buy it for their own inventory or for a client.  Thats common too, and completely normal.  

Shill bidding again in this thread here.  I hate it and when it is obvious I just dont do business with that house.  In the end, I enter my maximum price (never my minimum unless it is a coin of little interest).  If someone bids more (whether shill or not) I just dont care.  Someone wants it more, let them have it.  Shill bidding in this market is largely being driven by wealthy people (dont know how many are collectors or just speculators) who use that 'nuclear' strategy with their bids.  I see a $1,000 coin that I bid to to that value, but if they (shills included) want to bid $5,000, I dont care.  Yes, its a bummer as many coins are now out of reach for me.  There isnt anything any of us can do about it, so I just plod on the best I can.  

Just use the Wayback Machine.  You can search a website historically and see what was where and when:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030315000000*/http://sep11.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Memoriam

Sorry this didn’t go well for you. Leu is the most notorious shill in the world. Maybe you should have communicated your minimums. 

I dont think we need to re-write history on this one.  I understand people nowadays are very progressive and wish to work that into many topics but I dont think its necessary here.  From how I interpret the history he was more of a bi-sexual cross dresser than anything else.

14 hours ago, Finn235 said:

Jamesicus ended up being the buyer but obviously he sold it before he passed a couple years back - did you buy it directly from him?

I did.  I still have a few of his left I am selling for his widow, including a Julius Caesar portrait denarius.  Price was high on that as it was one of his favorites.  I need to call his widow and see if she might discount it some.

16 hours ago, Finn235 said:

Finn's a cutie! When I was a kid I had a tuxedo kitty - she was ALL sass and knew that she ran the house.

Nice coins too - I'm particularly fond of that Divus Augustus sestertius 😉

 

Darn tootin.  Same coin.  I love it!

2 hours ago, Heliodromus said:

Good boy(or girl) 🙂

Boy.  His name is Finn (my daughter named him after the cartoon Adventure Time).  I found him as a kitten in the middle of the road where heavy traffic was about to run him over.  One lucky kitten!

Wow.  I am always amazed that people have artistic abilities such as yours.  I culd not draw a semi-straight line or a circle (hell, likely not even a stick figure!).  If you ever have the time, you should do commission work for cabinets.

Part of me really likes the appearance of your shelves.  Very neat and arranged by size (it seems).  But for me its not practical, I need to arrange them by subject as closely as I can.

My illness is that I spotted the spelling error in the title!