HAVING A BLAST BIDDING AT THE AUCTION HOUSES THIS YEAR...AND AIN'T SPENT A DIME YET ^^

[ominus1]

..man, i'm right now bidding on 2 Gordian ll's, 2 Pescennius Nigers, several Balbinus and Pupienus's...but so far, i've been beat by the Snipers by 6-9 Eu, CHF's etc...so i'm expanding my bidding accordingly..and hopefully i'll win one or two eventually (and not the whole group at one time  :P)...AND..if i win a coin with my bid, i got a deal...^^

Share your relatable stories,coins etc.. 🙂

[CPK]

Same story here - been putting out a lot of bids, nothing major, but nearly always getting outbid at the last moment. It's fine though, most of the coins I haven't been too invested in. There is one coin in an upcoming auction that I hope to get - and have placed a substantial bid on it. For obvious reasons, I won't advertise it here. 😉 

[ambr0zie]

I bought some coins from auctions this year. Some of them good deals, some more like impulse purchases - a habit I have been trying to stop especially when the coins are not cheap. 

In my last auction I made a mistake I hate - 2 target coins, coin A being less important than coin B. 

Coin A (first chronologically) went for a decent price but not an incredible bargain in my opinion so I decided to stop bidding waiting for coin B, to allocate all the available funds. Of course coin B exceeded my budget. So I tried to get 2 birds with one stone and ended birdless. 

At least another (major) target was acquired, and with a low price in my opinion. Can't wait to post it. 

Edited February 23, 2023 by ambr0zie

[ominus1]

6 hours ago, CPK said:

Same story here - been putting out a lot of bids, nothing major, but nearly always getting outbid at the last moment. It's fine though, most of the coins I haven't been too invested in. There is one coin in an upcoming auction that I hope to get - and have placed a substantial bid on it. For obvious reasons, I won't advertise it here. 😉 

 

5 hours ago, ambr0zie said:

I bought some coins from auctions this year. Some of them good deals, some more like impulse purchases - a habit I have been trying to stop especially when the coins are not cheap. 

In my last auction I made a mistake I hate - 2 target coins, coin A being less important than coin B. 

Coin A (first chronologically) went for a decent price but not an incredible bargain in my opinion so I decided to stop bidding waiting for coin B, to allocate all the available funds. Of course coin B exceeded my budget. So I tried to get 2 birds with one stone and ended birdless. 

At least another (major) target was acquired, and with a low price in my opinion. Can't wait to post it. 

Thank you Gentlemen, for sharing your stories...:)  

[Valentinian]

I find it interesting that there are so many collectors who have the time to be on-line at the last minute for so many coins. Now there are more coins auctioned in a week than collectors saw in a year of getting paper catalogs in the mail in the 1980s and 1990s (I don't think I am exaggerating). Just about any type of ancient coins you want, from very expensive to very inexpensive, gets bids at the end. I know some are submitted near the end automatically, but the "going, going, another bid" sequence happens amazingly often. 

I think that ancient-coin collecting is more popular than it was decades ago because it is so much easier to find coins to want and buy. Back in the day when paper reigned, few catalogs told the stores that make coins desirable. On paper, stories take up precious space, so the coins were listed (sometimes without images) and you were expected to know (in advance) what you wanted. But on the internet space is almost free and if a coin has a good story, the story can be told and coins you knew nothing about (in advance) can be made interesting.  Years ago we had books and read them to find stories that make coins interesting. We kept those coins in mind and waited for them to appear (and we hoped others didn't know they were interesting so they wouldn't bid them up). Now, many NF members show coins and tell the stories that make them interesting. You get more information from NF than old-timers got from a library of many books. 

Some collectors are retired and could sit at the computer and bid in the last seconds whenever they wanted to. But, how many of us want to do that with our time for many auctions? Quite a few, apparently!

[CPK]

I usually monitor my bids until the last few hours, or the evening before, the auction goes live. I actually don't like sitting and watching the bids go off - too easy to be tempted into overbidding, and somehow it's less disappointing to come back later and see that my bids were defeated, rather than watch it happen in real time.

Besides, most times I am either at work or too busy when the lots go off to watch in person.

[DLTcoins]

37 minutes ago, Valentinian said:

 Now there are more coins auctioned in a week than collectors saw in a year of getting paper catalogs in the mail in the 1980s and 1990s (I don't think I am exaggerating). 

Ah, the good ol' days when there were more collectors than auction houses! Many don't realize that the great Andy Warhol was unfortunately mis-quoted. What he actually said was:

"In the future, everyone will own a world-famous auction house for fifteen minutes."

Edited February 24, 2023 by DLTcoins

[Steppenfool]

I barely win anything at auction. I have lost patience with the whole process. I am the second highest bidder on almost every coin I attempt to buy. I can no longer be bothered with the time and effort that has to be spent on finding out the Buyers Premium, Shipping Costs/Method and then factoring that into my bids. I find (like others) that to maximize your chances you need to watch the auction live and bid as it is closing. That is quite a substantial time investment and can be quite hard to schedule around life commitments, especially when your lots are separated by an hour or two. I remember one instance, during a more enthusiatic period, when I had to schedule one of my breaks at work to coincide with an auction.

I also find that the prices of coins with even a modicum of uniqueness or history are ever increasing, which leads to me often being outbid against my expectations. Unfortunately I don't have a great deal of spare capital right now, so I feel I am getting priced out despite all the effort and energy that auctions take. I much prefer someone telling me how much they want to sell the coin for, and I decide whether I want to pay it.

There are only two coins that I am desperate for and would bid at auction in attempt to acquire, absorbing all of these issues in the process.

[Ryro]

I simply do not understand why folks put in early bids and keep their fingers crossed. All you are doing is raising the price of the coin and giving folks more time to think about how much they are willing to pay. If you like a coin enough and aren't just goofing around, then try to acquire it. And yes, that means bidding live.

[CPK]

6 minutes ago, Ryro said:

I simply do not understand why folks put in early bids and keep their fingers crossed. All you are doing is raising the price of the coin and giving folks more time to think about how much they are willing to pay. If you like a coin enough and aren't just goofing around, then try to acquire it. And yes, that means bidding live.

That's true, but sometimes (at least, for me) if I see a coin already has a fairly high bid then my interest wanes and I will be less inclined to aggressively pursue it, simply because I don't want to be dragged into a costly bidding war.

[DimitriosL]

I think prebidding  is becoming a new strange kind of addiction for me.

[kirispupis]

My strategy varied based on the auction and how much I want the coin.

In general, the earliest I'll bid on any coin is the night before the auction. Whether I bid then or live really depends. Certainly, bidding early provides the others ample time to keep increasing their bids until they're just over you. It also may invite bidders who automatically pay attention to a coin due to a high bid, then assume it must be worth more and bid too (I call them "money sniffers").

However, there are reasons I'll bid the night before.

1. I know I can't be live at the time, usually because I have something else scheduled
2. I'll be asleep when the coin comes up and it's not a high priority
3. I don't believe my chances are high, so I'll just put in my best effort and not get drawn into an expensive bidding war

Otherwise, I'll bid live.

I've done decently so well this year. I've won most of my major targets. One thing I have noticed, though, is that in auctions where I have more targets I've had a lower success rate. My belief is auctions with a high number of great coins in a particular niche attract a lot of collectors who are into that niche. If the auction only contains one or two interesting coins there, many of those bidders will skip it.

Keep in mind, of course, that all of my targets are relatively obscure. They're not the shiny tets that attract the most bidders.

[KenDorney]

The majority of us feel this same pain.  It can be very difficult to get anything at auction these days.  My strategy has certainly changed, now I usually dont watch the auctions, I bid either the day before or just before the start of the auction (and I bid my maximum, not minimum).  There are so many these days that I just dont have the time to watch anything live anymore, and prices have meant that I dont even bother with some of the better auctions (many nice things at Leu coming up, but I think I will pass, I havent won anything from them for some time).

I also have some nostalgia about the old days of paper catalogs.  Those were the days!  But, humanity progresses and changes. This is what we have now.  Unless all the new collectors/investors/speculators lose interest this will become the new norm.

Anyway, I seem to get very little for my collection the last few years.  I did manage to get this Otacilia Severa sestertius at CNG last week.  Interesting to see the tags it came with.  Dealer A sold it for $425 in 2019.  Dealer B has a tag listed for $795 (but no note on what was paid, and could have sold before Dealer A), then last week I got it for $130.  After juice I think that is a fair retail price for the coin, so it wasnt a bargain.  Top photo is mine, bottom is CNG's.  Theirs has better definition than my photo but mine shows the color as it appears in hand.

Edited February 24, 2023 by KenDorney
grammar

[Severus Alexander]

I'd just like to note that the availability of proxy bidding (e.g. on biddr) is really helpful.  It avoids the gradual-bid-up problem that accompanies pre-bidding (as pointed out by @Ryro).  On biddr, at least, it also prevents any sort of shill bidding on the part of the auctioneer, as a proxy bid is hidden from everyone except the bidder themselves.

Very desirable, high-grade coins are certainly hard to get these days, no question.  But I've had plenty of success this year at a level or two down from those types of coins.  Sometimes I'm able to attend live, but I rarely raise my max bid when doing so.  (Very occasionally, if it looks like a single increment might take it.)

Here's an example from late last year... a very rare As from the Antioch mint of Valerian. They typically go for 300 and up (a horribly tooled example sold for 800 eur back in 2014!) but I snagged this one for a hammer of only 140 eur:

Cleaned up a bit it's a very respectable example, much better than the next cheapest which sold for 150 CHF at Leu in 2021. (That's not active corrosion, btw.)

My advice: bid low, bid often, bid proxy.

Edited February 25, 2023 by Severus Alexander

[seth77]

I just love bidder. All the accessibility of eBay but w/o the waste of time having to go through pages of fake and/or zapped junk.

[Limes]

On 2/23/2023 at 7:49 PM, ominus1 said:

..man, i'm right now bidding on 2 Gordian ll's, 2 Pescennius Nigers, several Balbinus and Pupienus's...but so far, i've been beat by the Snipers by 6-9 Eu, CHF's etc...so i'm expanding my bidding accordingly..and hopefully i'll win one or two eventually (and not the whole group at one time  :P)...AND..if i win a coin with my bid, i got a deal...^^

Share your relatable stories,coins etc.. 🙂

Well... those are quite the targets 😁 Its been discussed a million times before, but I do think that desirable (silver) Romans (not to mention Greek...!) require deep, very deep pockets these days. You might get lucky, so bidding a lot might raise the chances of scoring one. 

My story; so far I've been fortunate with my bids. Although I only did bid on two coins in two auctions this year; one was just too ugly for anyone else to bid on, but I love it. The other one - the Vespasian IVDAEA CAPTA sestertius shows before - surprised me, because less better ones on e.g. Roma fetched higher prices. My two other additions were bought from sellers, not auctioneers, and there was some room to talk about the price. 

I try to avoind pre-bidding as much as possible. And when I must because I cannot attend an auction, I use the proxy bidding if that's an option. My experience is pre bidding either raises the price. And sometimes I'm bidding against a ridiculous pre bid, which I dont think the coin is worth. My most important lesson: don't get dragged into stupid bidding wars if the coin isn't worth it, there's always another coin. Unfortunately, free time and deep pockets drew a lot of doofuses into this otherwise lovely hobby. And it's my personal opinion that rich people (not all, but still many) are great at ruining things for everybody else. 

[Ancient Coin Hunter]

Have had some success over the past year but only bought 6 coins. In years past I was buying maybe 3 coins a month. The last minute sniping seems to be de rigueur these days so I've even resorted to the practice and won a few coins but generally have paid more than I had planned, not including tax, shipping, and the 18% buyer's fee. Early bidding so far has been a waste of time for me as the coins have gone for something like 8x-10x the estimated price in many cases. The alternative to auction lunacy is to pour over fixed price sites looking for items that can fill a whole in the collection at a reasonable cost.

[John Conduitt]

On 2/24/2023 at 1:41 AM, Valentinian said:

I find it interesting that there are so many collectors who have the time to be on-line at the last minute for so many coins. Some collectors are retired and could sit at the computer and bid in the last seconds whenever they wanted to. But, how many of us want to do that with our time for many auctions? Quite a few, apparently!

I always bid live. With some auctions, you aren't going to win unless you do.

But because of that, I narrow down my targets comprehensively. I mark my favourites when they appear, and when I check on them nearer the time, many have been bid out of my range or my priorities have changed. I'm left with perhaps 2 auctions to watch a month.

Then there are the countdown timers used by CNG, eBay, Roma etc. They allow me to work out exactly where I'll be when the specific lot comes up, and I set an alarm. My alarm goes off, I get out my phone, open the auction app, wait until a few seconds from close, bid, win, and put my phone away. All done in 2 minutes. So I only have to watch auctions that don't have timers, and even then, I can work out roughly when I need to join. I must spend less than half an hour a month actually watching live auctions and yet get most of my coins from them.