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Leu Auction Postponed


Restitutor

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Just saw this email come my way: 

74D2536E-2D08-481C-8BF0-B9FD9B8B51A1.jpeg.9721b990c44e8317b5e213561c3dec48.jpeg

While I wasn’t planning on bidding on anything today (no Roman coins), this news is making me think I’ll have zero chance of winning any coins when the Roman coins do come up. A system overload can likely mean only 1 thing: a colossal boatload of bidders 😭 

Hopefully waking up at 6am Monday & Tuesday will be profitable but, we shall see… 

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Now this is a little tricky for me. I wanted to bid on certain coins elsewhere tomorrow. Depending on how much money I spend today at Leu or not. 

Now of course I do not know tomorrow how much I will spend on Leu. My lots would have come up tonight. Now the lots will come on tomorrow night. But the other auction tomorrow is now before Leu.

That messes up my budget planning a bit.
 

🤓🫣☠️

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29 minutes ago, Restitutor said:

A system overload can likely mean only 1 thing: a colossal boatload of bidders 😭 

PS: I think that's why I will now just enter my pain threshold on all lots and let myself be surprised until Wednesday. Either I won something - or it was too expensive for me and I'm not willing to pay more. But the run of the crowds I will not go.

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It seems like the Leu auctions are getting increasingly popular due to the interesting inventory that sometimes is seldom seen, for example  a huge variety of antoniniani of Gallienus that someone put together over the course of decades, with reverse types I have never seen.

I guess it's helpful that they postpone the auctions, but I will still need to get up at 3 am to purchase stuff that interests me.

 

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20 minutes ago, Ancient Coin Hunter said:

It seems like the Leu auctions are getting increasingly popular due to the interesting inventory that sometimes is seldom seen, for example  a huge variety of antoniniani of Gallienus that someone put together over the course of decades, with reverse types I have never seen.

I guess it's helpful that they postpone the auctions, but I will still need to get up at 3 am to purchase stuff that interests me.

 

Agreed. I find myself rarely even looking at other auctions anymore with the same level of enthusiasm as when a new Leu one pops up. They seem to always have the highest proportion of interesting coins overall. I think I have like 40+ coins on my watchlist for this one… even though I only have budget for 1 😂 I suppose though since they don’t run auctions every two weeks like, say, CNG, they don’t churn through as many coins as often. So, easier to have all their auctions contain really good coins when the number of auctions is far less than other houses I suppose. 

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4 minutes ago, Heliodromus said:

I see they've saying both auctions 20 & 21 are postponed by one day, but on their web site only the date for auction 20 has been updated. Auction 21 is still showing as June 28th despite the supposed new June 29th date.

 

I’ve been periodically refreshing since 8am EST and it seems like they have to update the times for each lot in batches vs all at once. Feel bad for whoever is tasked with that job! 

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This isn't the first time Leu's system has failed due to overload.  I wish they'd switch to using biddr or something... surely this is one time too many?!

Anyway, I did manage to win something in the first 110 lots! 😁 Even woke up in the middle of the night especially to do so.  Therefore I'm not unhappy.

Here it is, a potin of the Carnutes from the first century:

image.png.572cf7fd4bfd6348e4185398af877348.png

I like the grotesque on the obverse, and the wolf on the reverse is very excited... 😮

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12 minutes ago, Heliodromus said:

I see they've saying both auctions 20 & 21 are postponed by one day, but on their web site only the date for auction 20 has been updated. Auction 21 is still showing as June 28th despite the supposed new June 29th date.

 

The best thing is to call up the individual lots and look at each lot. Each lot shows the exact end date and time. I have re-labelled my watch list / favourites - with a new date and time. Each lot is new.

Pay attention - it is not an auction!
There is no 3... 2... 1... 
Exactly on the day at the specified time is the end for the lot, with the price that is then the highest. 

Don't let it happen like it did to an acquaintance - he sat in front of the lot until it was his turn and thought it would start with 3, 2, 1. And he wondered why the next lot came in the same second and his dream coin was sold all at once 🙂 

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1 hour ago, Prieure de Sion said:

The best thing is to call up the individual lots and look at each lot.

Yes, but the individual lots (at least the ones I'm looking at) are still showing the old date for auction 21, although auction 20 lots have been updated.

I'll probably end up forgetting to bid anyway, which I've done 2-3 times recently!

 

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I've never bid in a Leu auction -- is that a different company from the old Bank Leu? But I looked through both auctions 20 and 21 on Numisbids, and put a half-dozen coins on my watch list. A number of Gallienus coins I've never seen offered before. Hopefully there's time for me to register. Even though I promised myself yesterday not to buy any more new coins until I catch up on my backlog of writing up coins I've already bought, and reorganizing my trays to make room for them!

Also, is Leu known for super-low opening bids? What's with the $25 and $50 starting prices for many Roman Republican and other coins?

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10 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

I've never bid in a Leu auction -- is that a different company from the old Bank Leu? But I looked through both auctions 20 and 21 on Numisbids, and put a half-dozen coins on my watch list. A number of Gallienus coins I've never seen offered before. Hopefully there's time for me to register. Even though I promised myself yesterday not to buy any more new coins until I catch up on my backlog of writing up coins I've already bought, and reorganizing my trays to make room for them!

Also, is Leu known for super-low opening bids? What's with the $25 and $50 starting prices for many Roman Republican and other coins?

Fingers crossed! I remember when I registered years ago it was super quick so hopefully it hasn’t changed. 

And yeah the super low starting prices are the MO for Leu. Usually $50 starting goes for around $200-$250. Also noticed more people catching on to the no pre-bid and just wait till super close to the hammer time before bidding. Unfortunately they don’t reset the clock like CNG does if someone bids a couple seconds prior to the hammer time so Clio-esque sniping is the order of the day! 

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1 hour ago, Heliodromus said:

Yes, but the individual lots (at least the ones I'm looking at) are still showing the old date for auction 21, although auction 20 lots have been updated.

It's seems they were unaware of this!

I notified them, and they replied thanking me ... the auction 21 lot date have now been updated!

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36 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

Also, is Leu known for super-low opening bids? What's with the $25 and $50 starting prices for many Roman Republican and other coins?

 

23 minutes ago, Restitutor said:

And yeah the super low starting prices are the MO for Leu. Usually $50 starting goes for around $200-$250. Also noticed more people catching on to the no pre-bid and just wait till super close to the hammer time before bidding. Unfortunately they don’t reset the clock like CNG does if someone bids a couple seconds prior to the hammer time so Clio-esque sniping is the order of the day! 

Perhaps one of the reasons why the servers collapsed. With the rush then. Some of the entry prices are very unrealistic. I don't like that.

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39 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

I've never bid in a Leu auction -- is that a different company from the old Bank Leu? But I looked through both auctions 20 and 21 on Numisbids, and put a half-dozen coins on my watch list. A number of Gallienus coins I've never seen offered before. Hopefully there's time for me to register. Even though I promised myself yesterday not to buy any more new coins until I catch up on my backlog of writing up coins I've already bought, and reorganizing my trays to make room for them!

Also, is Leu known for super-low opening bids? What's with the $25 and $50 starting prices for many Roman Republican and other coins?

They are not related to Bank Leu.

ATB,
Aidan.

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Auction now start later at 16.07.22 ! 

Auction actually completely now postponed to 16.07. to 19.07. There must be something bigger in the trouble from the IT. Surely Leu does not do that on purpose - think on site you will be mighty annoyed. Not ideal for business, of course. This never goes down well. 

What happens with all the pre-bids? Will they remain or will everything be reset again? 

Annoying of course also for the consignors. The sale will be postponed. Maybe some angry bidders will jump off. Maybe one or the other buys other coins in the meantime, which reduces the budget. More people on vacation in mid-July. This is not optimal.

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I hope they reset the pre-bids, so much strategy goes into when you submit your bids it would seem in really bad taste to keep them where they're currently at. Pushing back a few days and keeping things where they're at is one thing, but pushing things back 3 weeks and keeping them is entirely different. 

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After I spent all that time scrolling through the lots, and registering in a hurry? They have some nerve! But I certainly won't be pre-bidding, at least until the day before each session. 

I noticed at least two Roman bronze military diplomas among the lots. Does anyone think they're genuine? I recall reading somewhere that most of the Roman military diplomas offered for sale are modern forgeries.

 

 

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3 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

I noticed at least two Roman bronze military diplomas among the lots. Does anyone think they're genuine? I recall reading somewhere that most of the Roman military diplomas offered for sale are modern forgeries.

Switzerland is one of the "free ports" mentioned in this thread (along with Dubai), and I think Leu handles quite a bit of stuff that comes out of Turkey and such.  No dealer is immune to fakes, of course, but I would say there is a very good chance they're genuine.

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7 hours ago, DonnaML said:

I've never bid in a Leu auction -- is that a different company from the old Bank Leu? But I looked through both auctions 20 and 21 on Numisbids, and put a half-dozen coins on my watch list. A number of Gallienus coins I've never seen offered before. Hopefully there's time for me to register. Even though I promised myself yesterday not to buy any more new coins until I catch up on my backlog of writing up coins I've already bought, and reorganizing my trays to make room for them!

Also, is Leu known for super-low opening bids? What's with the $25 and $50 starting prices for many Roman Republican and other coins?

Two pieces of advice I can offer for bidding at Leu.

  1. Focus on the coins you really want. Don't be fooled by the low opening bids. Leu auctions generate a lot of interest and you'll definitely need to fight for the coins you want. I'll usually start with 25-30 coins in my wish list, then wind up bidding on only five or six - but putting in strong bids for all of them.
  2. Beware that Leu is unusual in allowing slight "overbids" (not sure what they're called). I once put in a max bid for 750 CHF and lost it at the last second to a 752 CHF bid due to the way their rules work.

For me, there are some intriguing coins at this Leu, but I'm going to skip it. I picked up 18 coins between the last CNG, Nomos, and Roma and I need some time to recover. Luckily there's nothing on my list in this Leu that I'm not confident will come up again soon.

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