Several months ago a post from CU forum member hfjacinto inspired me to look for something Portuguese to add to the collection. While I prefer toned, a nice blast white coin with pl features always catches my eye as well. And this was available on eBay. It wasn’t a ton of money but was still well above recent sales. The picture suggested it was a premium coin to a generic 63, so I understood the higher price. I just figured I would wait to see if it was discounted or an eBay offer came along. Well I waited too long and one day noticed the coin had sold. I was a bit disappointed but figured these were common enough that there would be another opportunity. Fortunately the same coin recently popped up for sale via eBay auction. I put in a reasonable bid and won for less than my max (and over half off the original ask). So a little patience and luck saved me some funds and delivered a nice coin (it has solid luster, a frosty reverse, and close to PL fields).
A poor ROI for the second seller but good for you. I really like early to mid 20th century Portuguese coins. Something about the design just looks like an old, classic coin.
It was not great for the second seller and I wonder why he started the auction at about 1/3 of what he paid (to me it seems like you either risk it all and start from $1 or start at your minimum acceptable level, which I would guess should be around cost in this case). I agree with you that something about this design does look old and classic (then again it is over 100 years old ).
