Kuenker auctions

[Limes]

Yup, todays e live venue did not bring me any coins either. My budget was low, yes, but I had decided to put it all on 2 coins. I missed the first one, and the second one by a mere 25 eur, but of course I did not know how high the other bidder would go. Interestingly, as was in the previous e live auction some bidders seem to be bidding against themselves again. No patience I guess. What annoyed me was that this 'premium' e live venue had a few of 25% also. Seems a bit strange to me, why do they levy the same fee on an e live venue, as on the floor auction? 

In any case, I was more lucky in the cng auction. Then again, i already fear the tax levied and the annoying handling costs of the shipping company. Ah well, thats the life of a collector I guess.

[Coinmaster]

16 hours ago, SimonW said:

Good question, @Severus Alexander. I can't talk for others, but I am just not that disciplined 🙂 That's why I don't set myself a "hard" limit in the first place. Instead, I usually have a rough range in mind. Many times I even go beyond that and keep bidding until I feel the next bid realy hurts. This said, I usually don't regret the coins I've bought, but the ones I didn't.

It also greatly depends on the coin. Is it one that I "must have" or one that would be "nice to have". In the area I collect and try to complete, there are many rare types that only turn up on the market every 10, 20 or so years and I usually don't want to risk to wait that long before I'll get another chance to buy one at an even higher price.

I bought some of the fractions in that sale. Here is the one that was the "must have" coin for me this time:

What is it? Never seen this anonymous type!

 

[Severus Alexander]

@SimonW and @Tejas, thanks for engaging with my thinking on this ethical issue. 🙂 I'll be interested to hear what you think when I elaborate a bit more, if you care to respond further. (Sorry for the essay. Feel free to say tl;dr! 😆)

To recap, I suggested it was morally incumbent on a buyer to consider the means of those below them in buying power when bidding on a coin (or anything else) that has a relatively established market value and that can be expected to come up again without too much waiting around... especially when the coin isn't even something the wealthier bidder wants that much.  Basically, a rich collector paying far beyond market price just because they can and don't feel like waiting around (or worse: on a whim) is behaving unethically due to the harm it brings to the collector with less means, but who can pay around market value... especially if this is repeated behaviour on the part of the rich collector.

It might be easier to understand my point in the following scenario: a rich collector (Richie Rich) knows there's only one other bidder (Poorie Poor), knows Poorie has very little money, knows Poorie won't get a chance at that price again, and the coin is sitting at well below market value. Richie also knows Poorie really wants the coin. (It's still a coin that comes up often, though; Richie will just have to wait a bit if he doesn't bid.)  In that case it seems obvious to me that Richie Rich ought to leave the coin for Poorie Poor at below market value.  If Richie nonetheless outbids Poorie, he's being a jerk!  Richie is knowingly sacrificing a substantial bit of Poorie's joy for a trivial need of Richie's own: a bit of a wait, or worse a mere whim.  Do you agree?

The same point would apply in a similar situation except where it's not Richie Rich and Poorie Poor, but instead Average Joe and Poorie Poor being the only two bidders.

It's less obvious in the original case because a bidder doesn't know a lot of these details, but I still think the point holds and for the same reasons.  It's reasonable for the wealthy bidder who hardly notices paying 5, 10, or even 20 times market value to assume there are some underbidders who really want the coin and who are in Average Joe and/or Poorie Poor's situation.  In fact this is pretty much guaranteed.  So the wealthy bidder does know that they'll be doing some harm in exchange for a trivial need of theirs (waiting a bit, or a whim).  It's OK for the wealthy bidder to bid the coin up above market value somewhat, but not ridiculously so.

Of course there's a fuzzy line between these sorts of cases and the ordinary sort of case where it's perfectly ethical behaviour determining a fair market value, but just because there's some vagueness here doesn't mean there aren't clear cases where things become morally questionable.  I suspect you both might disagree, but I don't see how you can deny the conclusion in the Richie Rich/Poorie Poor case.  Then it's just a matter of outlining the relevant vaguenesses.  For example, when Average Joe is after a coin, they can count on other Average Joes bidding too, and not just Poorie Poor's.  So it's not incumbent upon them to defer to a Poorie Poor, since they'll just lose the coin to another Average Joe then, and their sacrifice won't do any good at all.

You'll observe that this is following something like a basic utilitarian/consequentialist ethical principle, that one ought to maximize benefits and minimize harms to all concerned.

Some responses to some good points you both make:

@SimonW says "A free market economy doesn't work this way."  How it works and how it should work (in the sense of how people should behave, morally speaking) are different things.  My point is a point about "ought", not "is".  (I've heard people defend the most atrocious behaviour on the grounds of "free market."  But obviously it's not true that anything goes.)

Also: "But more importantly: who is to decide who (the well-heeled or the less well-heeled buyer) "deserves" a coin and who should or should not be bidding?" Here's where the reason for buying comes into play.  When Richie Rich buys something he doesn't even particularly want, or just to avoid waiting a bit, or on a whim, these are trivial reasons that can't compete with Poorie Poor's great desire for the coin, or even Average Joe's.

@Tejas says "There is not only the interest of the buyers (collectors), but also the interest of the sellers. An auction caters to the interest of both groups. Compared to all alternatives, it is the most efficient and the "fairest" way to "allocate" coins from sellers to buyers."  Yes, I worried about this a bit when I made my original comment.  Also, it means the Richie Rich/Poorie Poor case maybe needs another bit of information: that Richie knows the seller is reasonably wealthy.  The obligations may change somewhat if the seller is known to be an Average Joe, and certainly if the seller is known to be a Poorie Poor.

I wonder what the probabilities are concerning the seller's wealth status in the ordinary case?  Probably it can be safely assumed the seller isn't a Poorie Poor, at least that's a low probability scenario. The wealthy collector should base their actions on the probability of there being someone with much less means than them who really wants the coin, and that the seller doesn't really need a lot more than market value (as Poorie Poor would).  These probabilities mean the general point still holds, in the sense that there's an ethical line beyond which we've departed from fair market value, as I explained above.

Anyway, surely the world is full of rich people behaving badly!  Often without realizing it.  No? 😄 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Severus Alexander

[akeady]

I got something the second day too, so not bad!   I'll try not to jinx them by posting 'til they arrive 🙂

Congrats on successful bids, all.

Aidan.

[Severus Alexander]

18 hours ago, Kaleun96 said:

But speaking of die studies, I have thought about going through all the early types from Tarsos, Sidon, and Tyre to see if I can notice any new die links. Taylor has done something similar for Tyre and Sidon and found a new die link or two I believe.

Thanks for the detailed comments, @Kaleun96!  I'd be happy to help with the Tarsos part of this project if/when you attempt it.  It should be possible to generate some better die-pair stats now, at least, given all the new images floating around on acsearch etc.  

One of my reasons for thinking that these dies may have been used all at roughly the same time is the small number of dies compared to (one would assume) the need for a large amount of coinage ahead of the Battle of Issus.  Following a suggestion from @kapphnwn, one might want to include the early Myriandros tets in this study too. These are remarkably similar in style to the early Tarsos tets.

[znmto]

4 hours ago, Severus Alexander said:

@SimonW and @Tejas, thanks for engaging with my thinking on this ethical issue. 🙂 I'll be interested to hear what you think when I elaborate a bit more, if you care to respond further. (Sorry for the essay. Feel free to say tl;dr! 😆)

To recap, I suggested it was morally incumbent on a buyer to consider the means of those below them in buying power when bidding on a coin (or anything else) that has a relatively established market value and that can be expected to come up again without too much waiting around... especially when the coin isn't even something the wealthier bidder wants that much.  Basically, a rich collector paying far beyond market price just because they can and don't feel like waiting around (or worse: on a whim) is behaving unethically due to the harm it brings to the collector with less means, but who can pay around market value... especially if this is repeated behaviour on the part of the rich collector.

It might be easier to understand my point in the following scenario: a rich collector (Richie Rich) knows there's only one other bidder (Poorie Poor), knows Poorie has very little money, knows Poorie won't get a chance at that price again, and the coin is sitting at well below market value. Richie also knows Poorie really wants the coin. (It's still a coin that comes up often, though; Richie will just have to wait a bit if he doesn't bid.)  In that case it seems obvious to me that Richie Rich ought to leave the coin for Poorie Poor at below market value.  If Richie nonetheless outbids Poorie, he's being a jerk!  Richie is knowingly sacrificing a substantial bit of Poorie's joy for a trivial need of Richie's own: a bit of a wait, or worse a mere whim.  Do you agree?

The same point would apply in a similar situation except where it's not Richie Rich and Poorie Poor, but instead Average Joe and Poorie Poor being the only two bidders.

It's less obvious in the original case because a bidder doesn't know a lot of these details, but I still think the point holds and for the same reasons.  It's reasonable for the wealthy bidder who hardly notices paying 5, 10, or even 20 times market value to assume there are some underbidders who really want the coin and who are in Average Joe and/or Poorie Poor's situation.  In fact this is pretty much guaranteed.  So the wealthy bidder does know that they'll be doing some harm in exchange for a trivial need of theirs (waiting a bit, or a whim).  It's OK for the wealthy bidder to bid the coin up above market value somewhat, but not ridiculously so.

Of course there's a fuzzy line between these sorts of cases and the ordinary sort of case where it's perfectly ethical behaviour determining a fair market value, but just because there's some vagueness here doesn't mean there aren't clear cases where things become morally questionable.  I suspect you both might disagree, but I don't see how you can deny the conclusion in the Richie Rich/Poorie Poor case.  Then it's just a matter of outlining the relevant vaguenesses.  For example, when Average Joe is after a coin, they can count on other Average Joes bidding too, and not just Poorie Poor's.  So it's not incumbent upon them to defer to a Poorie Poor, since they'll just lose the coin to another Average Joe then, and their sacrifice won't do any good at all.

You'll observe that this is following something like a basic utilitarian/consequentialist ethical principle, that one ought to maximize benefits and minimize harms to all concerned.

Some responses to some good points you both make:

@SimonW says "A free market economy doesn't work this way."  How it works and how it should work (in the sense of how people should behave, morally speaking) are different things.  My point is a point about "ought", not "is".  (I've heard people defend the most atrocious behaviour on the grounds of "free market."  But obviously it's not true that anything goes.)

Also: "But more importantly: who is to decide who (the well-heeled or the less well-heeled buyer) "deserves" a coin and who should or should not be bidding?" Here's where the reason for buying comes into play.  When Richie Rich buys something he doesn't even particularly want, or just to avoid waiting a bit, or on a whim, these are trivial reasons that can't compete with Poorie Poor's great desire for the coin, or even Average Joe's.

@Tejas says "There is not only the interest of the buyers (collectors), but also the interest of the sellers. An auction caters to the interest of both groups. Compared to all alternatives, it is the most efficient and the "fairest" way to "allocate" coins from sellers to buyers."  Yes, I worried about this a bit when I made my original comment.  Also, it means the Richie Rich/Poorie Poor case maybe needs another bit of information: that Richie knows the seller is reasonably wealthy.  The obligations may change somewhat if the seller is known to be an Average Joe, and certainly if the seller is known to be a Poorie Poor.

I wonder what the probabilities are concerning the seller's wealth status in the ordinary case?  Probably it can be safely assumed the seller isn't a Poorie Poor, at least that's a low probability scenario. The wealthy collector should base their actions on the probability of there being someone with much less means than them who really wants the coin, and that the seller doesn't really need a lot more than market value (as Poorie Poor would).  These probabilities mean the general point still holds, in the sense that there's an ethical line beyond which we've departed from fair market value, as I explained above.

Anyway, surely the world is full of rich people behaving badly!  Often without realizing it.  No? 😄 

I think this is a bit off-topic.

[SimonW]

9 hours ago, Coinmaster said:

What is it? Never seen this anonymous type!

It shows Tiber crowned with reeds on the obverse and she-wolf with twins on the reverse (RIC 18). The Tiber/she-wolf group is one of the rarest among the anonymous Quadrantes. There are multiple subtypes with both Tiber left and right, she-wolf left and right (as well as some other smaller variations). Within this group, Tiber left is much rarer than Tiber right. Although RIC says "only" R, this is the first piece with Tiber left that I see offered on the market since I started collecting fractions about 15 years ago.

 

9 hours ago, Severus Alexander said:

@SimonW and @Tejas, thanks for engaging with my thinking on this ethical issue. 🙂 I'll be interested to hear what you think when I elaborate a bit more, if you care to respond further.

@Severus Alexander, I'll send you a PM later today 🙂 

Edited October 22, 2022 by SimonW

[Tejas]

On 10/21/2022 at 7:01 PM, Severus Alexander said:

@SimonW and @Tejas, thanks for engaging with my thinking on this ethical issue. 🙂 I'll be interested to hear what you think when I elaborate a bit more, if you care to respond further. (Sorry for the essay. Feel free to say tl;dr! 😆)

To recap, I suggested it was morally incumbent on a buyer to consider the means of those below them in buying power when bidding on a coin (or anything else) that has a relatively established market value and that can be expected to come up again without too much waiting around... especially when the coin isn't even something the wealthier bidder wants that much.  Basically, a rich collector paying far beyond market price just because they can and don't feel like waiting around (or worse: on a whim) is behaving unethically due to the harm it brings to the collector with less means, but who can pay around market value... especially if this is repeated behaviour on the part of the rich collector.

It might be easier to understand my point in the following scenario: a rich collector (Richie Rich) knows there's only one other bidder (Poorie Poor), knows Poorie has very little money, knows Poorie won't get a chance at that price again, and the coin is sitting at well below market value. Richie also knows Poorie really wants the coin. (It's still a coin that comes up often, though; Richie will just have to wait a bit if he doesn't bid.)  In that case it seems obvious to me that Richie Rich ought to leave the coin for Poorie Poor at below market value.  If Richie nonetheless outbids Poorie, he's being a jerk!  Richie is knowingly sacrificing a substantial bit of Poorie's joy for a trivial need of Richie's own: a bit of a wait, or worse a mere whim.  Do you agree?

The same point would apply in a similar situation except where it's not Richie Rich and Poorie Poor, but instead Average Joe and Poorie Poor being the only two bidders.

It's less obvious in the original case because a bidder doesn't know a lot of these details, but I still think the point holds and for the same reasons.  It's reasonable for the wealthy bidder who hardly notices paying 5, 10, or even 20 times market value to assume there are some underbidders who really want the coin and who are in Average Joe and/or Poorie Poor's situation.  In fact this is pretty much guaranteed.  So the wealthy bidder does know that they'll be doing some harm in exchange for a trivial need of theirs (waiting a bit, or a whim).  It's OK for the wealthy bidder to bid the coin up above market value somewhat, but not ridiculously so.

Of course there's a fuzzy line between these sorts of cases and the ordinary sort of case where it's perfectly ethical behaviour determining a fair market value, but just because there's some vagueness here doesn't mean there aren't clear cases where things become morally questionable.  I suspect you both might disagree, but I don't see how you can deny the conclusion in the Richie Rich/Poorie Poor case.  Then it's just a matter of outlining the relevant vaguenesses.  For example, when Average Joe is after a coin, they can count on other Average Joes bidding too, and not just Poorie Poor's.  So it's not incumbent upon them to defer to a Poorie Poor, since they'll just lose the coin to another Average Joe then, and their sacrifice won't do any good at all.

You'll observe that this is following something like a basic utilitarian/consequentialist ethical principle, that one ought to maximize benefits and minimize harms to all concerned.

Some responses to some good points you both make:

@SimonW says "A free market economy doesn't work this way."  How it works and how it should work (in the sense of how people should behave, morally speaking) are different things.  My point is a point about "ought", not "is".  (I've heard people defend the most atrocious behaviour on the grounds of "free market."  But obviously it's not true that anything goes.)

Also: "But more importantly: who is to decide who (the well-heeled or the less well-heeled buyer) "deserves" a coin and who should or should not be bidding?" Here's where the reason for buying comes into play.  When Richie Rich buys something he doesn't even particularly want, or just to avoid waiting a bit, or on a whim, these are trivial reasons that can't compete with Poorie Poor's great desire for the coin, or even Average Joe's.

@Tejas says "There is not only the interest of the buyers (collectors), but also the interest of the sellers. An auction caters to the interest of both groups. Compared to all alternatives, it is the most efficient and the "fairest" way to "allocate" coins from sellers to buyers."  Yes, I worried about this a bit when I made my original comment.  Also, it means the Richie Rich/Poorie Poor case maybe needs another bit of information: that Richie knows the seller is reasonably wealthy.  The obligations may change somewhat if the seller is known to be an Average Joe, and certainly if the seller is known to be a Poorie Poor.

I wonder what the probabilities are concerning the seller's wealth status in the ordinary case?  Probably it can be safely assumed the seller isn't a Poorie Poor, at least that's a low probability scenario. The wealthy collector should base their actions on the probability of there being someone with much less means than them who really wants the coin, and that the seller doesn't really need a lot more than market value (as Poorie Poor would).  These probabilities mean the general point still holds, in the sense that there's an ethical line beyond which we've departed from fair market value, as I explained above.

Anyway, surely the world is full of rich people behaving badly!  Often without realizing it.  No? 😄 

You are basically arguing for some kind of (socialist) utopia, where everybody has complete knowledge of everybody elses' financial situations and preferences. Reality is different. A free price mechanism is the best and fairest way for allocating scarce resources, such as ancient coins under the conditions of imperfect information.

Prices are signals of scarcity. A high price tells people that the good is scarce and some people should refrain from acquiring the good, because it is beyond their means. It does not say anything about who deserves it and who doesn't. It makes no moral judgement.

Still the price mechanism is social in a sense. By reserving a scarce and highly priced good for the rich, their demand gets diverted away from less scarce goods, leaving more of these goods at lower prices to the people with less spending power. Imagine in your example, Richie Rich does not buy the coin, but leaves it to Poorie Poor to acquire, this does not mean that Richie Rich does not spend his funds. He will divert it to other coins, thus raising the demand and hence the price of these coins.

More than 200 years of economic insight (infact its more like 600 years) tells us that there is nothing that can beat a functioning price system. A French economist named Frederic Bastiat wondered in the 19. century in an essay called "How Paris is fed" how it is possible for all these people of Paris to be fed each day without any central administration organizing food production and distribution. His answer of course is the price mechanism. 

[Severus Alexander]

20 hours ago, znmto said:

I think this is a bit off-topic.

True. 😄 Thankfully an occasional tangent is OK here on Numisforums... though it would also be perfectly reasonable to take this topic to pm's, as Simon has done.  Welcome to the forum!

For everyone else: this a tangent to the thread, feel free to ignore. 🙂 (But it's interesting, though! 😜) 

Thanks for the response, @Tejas!  I agree with much of what you say, I don't think we're nearly as far apart as you think we are.  I'm certainly not trying to defend a political position, much less socialism, nor am I criticizing the free market.  I also agree with you that auctions are in general an excellent way of allocating scarce resources.  Most of what you say is aiming to defend that view, which I'm not contesting.  I'm not talking about the free market price-fixing mechanism as it normally operates.  I'm talking about an abnormal situation, where an individual's behaviour departs from the rational and from the normal, but most importantly where it departs from moral behaviour.

In other words I'm making a much smaller point about the ethical behaviour of individuals in the context of a free market.

First, it's pretty clear that individuals can act unethically within that context, right?  Insider trading, for example.  Which happens to be illegal as well; it's illegal because it's unethical.  But not all unethical behaviours are illegal, though.  Lying, for example.  (In the context of the free market, some kinds of lies are illegal, but not all. And outside that context, plenty of lies aren't illegal, although they're still unethical.)

I'm just saying that in some cases, wealthier bidders "throwing their money around" for no adequate reason qualifies as unethical.  That's when: 1) there's an established market price for the coin (with vague boundaries), 2) the wealthier bidder goes well beyond those vague boundaries for no good reason, and 3) the wealthier bidder has very good reason to think there are other bidders who want the coin for much better reasons, but who can't afford to throw their money around in the same way.  (Probably I should add 4: there's no reason to think a particularly needy seller is on the other end of the transaction.)  In this situation, the wealthier bidder is very likely to be causing harm to those less fortunate than them, for no good reason.  Not nice!  (Though a pretty minor ethical infraction, as these things go, to be sure. 🙂)

One way to argue against me would be to say that one or more of 1-4 are never satisfied.  I think that case is hard to make.  Maybe not often satisfied, but never??

The argument is actually analogous to one that Peter Singer makes in a much more important context.  Suppose that, wearing some new shoes and a suit, you witness a child drowning in a pond.  Morally speaking, should you jump in to save the child and ruin your new clothes (thus sacrificing them), or instead walk on and let the child drown?  It's obvious that you should jump in.  Your need for the suit and shoes pales in comparison to the child's need for her life, there's no contest!  But we all face this same situation every day, says Singer (at least those of us living in areas of relative affluence).  Children die of poverty/hunger/malaria etc. every day, and a simple donation (to the value of the suit and shoes, or even less) would save a life.  Instead of buying that suit, or going out for dinner or whatever, we ought to donate the money.

Of course that leaves the question of where to stop, since there are always more lives to save.  He discusses this issue and comes to a compromise position in The Life You Can Save (a brilliant book, available for free here.)  But the general point is, I think, unassailable.  Hopefully it's obvious how my Richie Rich/Poorie Poor case is analogous, although of much less importance because the harm to Poorie Poor in not getting a nice coin is far, far less than in the Singer argument about affluent people buying nice suits.

And, just to post an appropriate coin, here's one issued by a philosopher: Aristion of Athens, just before Sulla's sack of the city in 88 BCE:

Edited October 22, 2022 by Severus Alexander

[znmto]

4 hours ago, Severus Alexander said:

True. 😄 Thankfully an occasional tangent is OK here on Numisforums... though it would also be perfectly reasonable to take this topic to pm's, as Simon has done.  Welcome to the forum!

For everyone else: this a tangent to the thread, feel free to ignore. 🙂 (But it's interesting, though! 😜) 

Thanks for the response, @Tejas!  I agree with much of what you say, I don't think we're nearly as far apart as you think we are.  I'm certainly not trying to defend a political position, much less socialism, nor am I criticizing the free market.  I also agree with you that auctions are in general an excellent way of allocating scarce resources.  Most of what you say is aiming to defend that view, which I'm not contesting.  I'm not talking about the free market price-fixing mechanism as it normally operates.  I'm talking about an abnormal situation, where an individual's behaviour departs from the rational and from the normal, but most importantly where it departs from moral behaviour.

In other words I'm making a much smaller point about the ethical behaviour of individuals in the context of a free market.

First, it's pretty clear that individuals can act unethically within that context, right?  Insider trading, for example.  Which happens to be illegal as well; it's illegal because it's unethical.  But not all unethical behaviours are illegal, though.  Lying, for example.  (In the context of the free market, some kinds of lies are illegal, but not all. And outside that context, plenty of lies aren't illegal, although they're still unethical.)

I'm just saying that in some cases, wealthier bidders "throwing their money around" for no adequate reason qualifies as unethical.  That's when: 1) there's an established market price for the coin (with vague boundaries), 2) the wealthier bidder goes well beyond those vague boundaries for no good reason, and 3) the wealthier bidder has very good reason to think there are other bidders who want the coin for much better reasons, but who can't afford to throw their money around in the same way.  (Probably I should add 4: there's no reason to think a particularly needy seller is on the other end of the transaction.)  In this situation, the wealthier bidder is very likely to be causing harm to those less fortunate than them, for no good reason.  Not nice!  (Though a pretty minor ethical infraction, as these things go, to be sure. 🙂)

One way to argue against me would be to say that one or more of 1-4 are never satisfied.  I think that case is hard to make.  Maybe not often satisfied, but never??

The argument is actually analogous to one that Peter Singer makes in a much more important context.  Suppose that, wearing some new shoes and a suit, you witness a child drowning in a pond.  Morally speaking, should you jump in to save the child and ruin your new clothes (thus sacrificing them), or instead walk on and let the child drown?  It's obvious that you should jump in.  Your need for the suit and shoes pales in comparison to the child's need for her life, there's no contest!  But we all face this same situation every day, says Singer (at least those of us living in areas of relative affluence).  Children die of poverty/hunger/malaria etc. every day, and a simple donation (to the value of the suit and shoes, or even less) would save a life.  Instead of buying that suit, or going out for dinner or whatever, we ought to donate the money.

Of course that leaves the question of where to stop, since there are always more lives to save.  He discusses this issue and comes to a compromise position in The Life You Can Save (a brilliant book, available for free here.)  But the general point is, I think, unassailable.  Hopefully it's obvious how my Richie Rich/Poorie Poor case is analogous, although of much less importance because the harm to Poorie Poor in not getting a nice coin is far, far less than in the Singer argument about affluent people buying nice suits.

And, just to post an appropriate coin, here's one issued by a philosopher: Aristion of Athens, just before Sulla's sack of the city in 88 BCE:

I am dismayed that you acknowledge your post as off-topic and still double down and persist in preaching your ideology.

It is a very slippery slope into politics, which has been the death-knell of many online communities.

It would be a shame to count this one among them, especially given how young it is.

[Kaleun96]

On 10/22/2022 at 4:48 AM, Severus Alexander said:

One of my reasons for thinking that these dies may have been used all at roughly the same time is the small number of dies compared to (one would assume) the need for a large amount of coinage ahead of the Battle of Issus. 

That does make sense and I had thought this as well but we know from Sidon and Tyre that some of the dated issues have a surprisingly low number of dies. I think some of the early Sidon and Tyre "years" had only two or three obverse dies known to Newell. There's probably more but given the relatively few examples in PELLA and acsearch, I doubt there's more than a couple to be found unless a new hoard is uncovered.

This is for Sidon and the first couple of "Dated" types are all like this, with only a couple of dies listed. The undated early types with the sigma control mark have more dies listed but given they're undated, they could theoretically span several years. It's not really until Year 13 (321 BC) that Newell lists more than 2 obverse dies for one of the dated types.

Tyre (Ake) tends to have a few more dies for each type, but not a whole lot more. Between 333-330 BC, Newell lists a total of 11 obverse dies and some of the early dated issues (from 330 BC onwards) only have one or two obverse dies listed.

Perhaps the bulk of the minting was being done back in Amphipolis at this time. Troxell lists 72 obverse dies for the Group A tetradrachms, which should all be fairly early in the overall sequence, either late 330s or early 320s.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Kaleun96

[SimonW]

9 hours ago, znmto said:

I am dismayed that you acknowledge your post as off-topic and still double down and persist in preaching your ideology.

It is a very slippery slope into politics, which has been the death-knell of many online communities.

It would be a shame to count this one among them, especially given how young it is.

Discussions on the ethics of bidding should be allowed in my opinion.

Even political discussions per se are not a problem as long as the interaction is respectful and other opinions are tolerated. @Severus Alexander is one of the most respectful and considerate people I know. In that context, a little digression should be fine 🙂 

Edited October 23, 2022 by SimonW

[Phil Davis]

8 hours ago, znmto said:

I am dismayed that you acknowledge your post as off-topic and still double down and persist in preaching your ideology.

It is a very slippery slope into politics, which has been the death-knell of many online communities.

It would be a shame to count this one among them, especially given how young it is.

What's actually "dismaying" is the fact that you've used most of your handful of comments here to harshly critique the functioning of a forum in which you've barely participated. Contrast that with the contributions of Severus Alexander-- the target of your current pontificating-- one of the best-liked and best-informed Numis Forums members. I have no idea what your agenda really is.

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by Phil Davis

[Roman Collector]

I haven't purchased anything from Künker in a few years and only through an e-Live auction, never a floor sale, so this isn't quite relevant to the topic at hand, but it is illustrative of a few general principles I've come to learn over the decades I've been buying coins at auctions.

The single most important principle is this: Although price is dependent on supply and demand, demand plays a much bigger role. Demand plays such a role that for many coins, rarity (supply) doesn't matter.

There are a couple of factors that influence demand. Demand increases if ...

- The coin features a famous, infamous, or notorious historical figure, such as Marc Antony, Brutus, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Caligula, Nero, or Cleopatra. Not only do collectors of ancient Roman coins want them, but many general coin collectors and even people with little interest in coins otherwise compete for these coins.

- The coin is part of a popular "set," such as the Twelve Caesars. This set increases the demand for Julius Caesar, Augustus, Caligula and Nero even more, and puts price pressure on Vitellius, Galba, and Otho.

- The coins are perceived as biblical, such as the Tribute penny, the shekels of Tyre, and widow's mites. These coins are extremely common, but in high demand by non-numismatists, and are thus priced out of proportion to other coins of similar scarcity and grade.

- The coins are exceptionally high grade. The entire TPG (and smoothing and tooling) industry revolves around collectors who value technical grade above other considerations.

As a result of demand, these coins are expensive, though readily available. On any given day, one may easily purchase a dozen denarii of Nero. No matter the auction size, there are Nero coins for sale. There is no shortage of Nero coins. Nero ruled for 14 years. His mints issued a lot of coins. Nerva, on the other hand, ruled for less than a year and a half. Nerva coins are in lower supply, but way less costly. Why? Because Nerva was the THIRTEENTH Caesar and doesn't have the notoriety that Nero does.

Apart from "condition rarity," rarity doesn't matter all that much. There are tens of thousands of different ancient coin types (perhaps hundreds of thousands?), a good proportion of which are known from fewer than a dozen specimens. What does this mean? Rare coins are actually common in ancient numismatics. I'm sure that every one of us here has a coin that is known from fewer than half a dozen specimens. And the more you flyspeck, the rarer an issue may appear. Rarity in and of itself, therefore, has little effect on demand and little effect on price.

For example, coins of any of the Antonines are extremely common in aggregate. Most collectors are of the "one of each person" variety and only want one (or two or three, if they are looking for different denominations or issuing authority or whether they view posthumous issues as different from lifetime ones). Because these collectors only want one or a few Faustina the Younger coins in their collections, they have a hundred thousand to choose from and they'll choose one in high grade and with a nice style. They aren't interested in the reverse type or the obverse inscriptions, and they certainly don't care about the empress's hairstyle. They just want an example for their sets. There's nothing wrong with this approach. I, for example, have only one coin of Numerian and I didn't care about reverse variety, bust type, etc.

Künker deals in "high end" coins, which is to say coins in high demand for any of the above reasons, and therefore expensive. Künker's clients, for the most part, don't care about rarity for its own sake. This means that specialist collectors, who DO care about flyspecking and reverse types and bust types, can sometimes pick up coins they desire for their specialized collections that are overlooked because they are perceived as uninteresting or low grade. Such was the case with this one.

Anyone who knows me knows that I collect coins of Faustina the Younger and that I do care about bust types and reverse varieties. I don't just want "a nice coin of Faustina," but "the denarius with the CONCORDIA seated reverse type and the left-facing portrait with the Beckmann type 3 hairstyle." Such a coin isn't in that much demand. Most collectors wouldn't even recognize it if they saw it.

I always type "Faustina" in the search box when Künker posts a new auction. I look and see what they have. Most of the time, its the usual boring selection of high grade, pretty, but very common types I already have in my collection. But about two years ago, this one came up in one of their e-auctions. This is their photo. Did it do the coin justice?

Here's my photo, not that I'm an expert photographer.

It's pretty nice. It has a nice style. It's centered pretty well. Its inscriptions are discernible. The patina is nice, but run of the mill. I'd call it gVF. It was raw, not slabbed. It's problem-free, but not a stunner.

In short, it wasn't the sort of thing the typical Künker customer was looking for. Two people bid on it (including me) and it hammered for 155.00 € on an estimate of 125.00 €. The "Richie Rich" that @Severus Alexander writes about wasn't at all impressed.

On the surface, it looks like a common Laetitia type, such as this one I already had in my collection.

But it's not an upgrade. It's a different coin. Look at the direction Laetitia is facing. Look at what she's holding in each hand on each coin. The Künker coin is unlisted in RIC. It is not in the British Museum collection nor is it listed in Cohen, though Szaivert cites an example in Paris (presumably obtained by the BnF after Cohen). It's rare. Apart from mine and the specimen in Paris, the known examples appear to be limited to: Gorny & Mosch Giessener Münzhandlung (Auction 200), 10.10.2011, lot 2612; Gorny & Mosch Giessener Münzhandlung (Auction 164), 17.3.2008, lot 411; Auktionshaus H. D. Rauch GmbH (Auction 81), 21.11.2007, lot 426. Five total specimens, apparently.

It's far more rare than an EID MAR denarius, but it seems that I was the only bidder who cared. Demand is low for Faustina Laetitia reverse varieties, so it wasn't very expensive. It carried no premium for rarity. It went for what any common Roman sestertius in gVF would go for and certainly for far less than a Temple of Janus sestertius of Nero in gVF would have sold for, even though the Temple of Janus type is one of Nero's most commonly encountered reverse types.

When trying to make sense of seemingly crazy auction prices, it's important to know that DEMAND MEANS MORE THAN SUPPLY.

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

Prices haven't been crazy for my kind of purchases, fixed-price vcoins offerings.  While I'm sure prices have increased, I still find plenty that I can easily afford. 

I don't trust auctions; shills, dopey buyers, etc.  Since record auctions are the only ones which I sometimes frequent, I'll trot out this example.  There's this one particular title of big band remotes, super common as a type (there were 6000 episodes) and usually in rotten condition, but the prices have been mysteriously high since 2007.  What would have gone for $5 in the 90's now can go for $45-150.  (But try to unload one that went at ebay and one hardly gets anything). Hence, I just pass that title over.  And what's crazy, the truly rare titles often don't go for crazy amounts.  I just let one night stand go.  The ones I like the best, the very late ones with experimental jazz and ultra-lounge stuff, don't usually go for a lot. 

But we also have a buying group (to get the episodes, not so much keep the records) to spread out the cost between members.  One can't really do that with coins.

Generally speaking, my motto is; if the price is crazy, I don't need it.  I also don't need the hassle.  I don't know of any snipe tool with coin auctions.

Edit: Conclusion: Mid-grade and budget coins seem to be more stable in price. 

I'm very disciplined about auctions.  I don't look at them, so I don't miss the coins, and even if I do, I still have zero desire to bid.

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by Nerosmyfavorite68

[Severus Alexander]

Thanks for the kind words/thoughts all, especially @SimonW and @Phil Davis, much appreciated! ☺️ Hopefully znmto will come around to seeing how things work around here, and appreciating this great forum more.

A couple things to add to the position I'm defending, which seems to have few supporters (as opposed to the many who support it being OK for me to discuss this stuff here, which is the main thing!)

1) The ethical standard I'm defending – whereby in some circumstances a wealthier bidder "should" resist the temptation to bid way outside market value in deference to someone who probably wants the coin a lot more than they do – is a very high standard (like the one Singer defends), one that we likely all fall short of very often.  So in the realistic case (not the unrealistic full-knowledge Richie Rich/Poorie Poor case) this "should" isn't really a "you're a jerk if you don't do this."  It's more like: it's a morally better thing to do than to bid anyway.  So I'm not necessarily accusing the wealthy bidder of doing anything "wrong" in bidding anyway, assuming that doing something wrong means failing to live up to one's duty to others.  (Actually, I'm not sure there is an objective line that counts as right vs. wrong; I'm much more comfortable with a graded morally better–worse scale.)

2) I'd agree with something @SimonW said to me in a pm, which is that the scenario I'm envisaging – again the realistic one where a wealthy bidder can come to reasonable conclusions about the probability of doing harm, but without knowing for sure – really doesn't come up very often.  So this certainly doesn't do much if anything to explain rising prices!  (Which wasn't my intention.)  There are much better explanations for that in this thread, like the one @Roman Collector just gave. (Nice Faustina, RC!  It's may not be in RIC, but it's in RC, eh? 😄 I note that the Künker photo suggests much smoother surfaces than your photo does. Maybe they got complaints and that's why they've switched to the shinier ones, which IMO tend to make the surfaces look worse than they really are.)

Maybe those clarifications will bring a few people closer to the view I'm defending here.  (If anyone is still reading! 😆) In any case, it's been fun. And thanks again for coming to the defence of the forum and my participation here.

[znmto]

14 hours ago, Phil Davis said:

What's actually "dismaying" is the fact that you've used most of your handful of comments here to harshly critique the functioning of a forum in which you've barely participated. Contrast that with the contributions of Severus Alexander-- the target of your current pontificating-- one of the best-liked and best-informed Numis Forums members. I have no idea what your agenda really is.

 

Is my opinion worth less because I don't contribute? The majority of any forum's members are lurkers. 

 

Your personal attack is wholly unwarranted.

Edited October 24, 2022 by znmto

[akeady]

My coins arrived today in a nice Kuenker box.

The as broke out of its flip, but didn't escape the box 😄

Cr. 41/5 & Cr. 500/7 (Brutus denarius).

Very happy with them 🙂

ATB,
Aidan.

Edited October 29, 2022 by akeady