A second winning bid on Heritage. Same thinking as the Large Cent. Compensated for the higher Buyer's Fee by winning at a lower bid. I'm happy with it. 1806 Half Cent - Small 6 with Stems (C-2), R-4, NGC VG-10-BN
I think most people factor in the 20% when bidding, which sucks for the sellers. At least I do. I'll eat the shipping cost though. Nice pickup.
I once owned the former finest known and discovery piece for that variety. It had full Mint State sharpness. Unfortunately an idiot cleaned it. It was expertly recolored, but the damage had been done. Don’t get me wrong. The coin was still valuable. I sold it to another dealer for $3,000 who told me he sold it years later to help fund his kid’s education. Congratulations on finding a really tough variety. Now you need the C-3. Just kidding. that one is really hard to find, and it’s hard to attribute it. I once had a goal of getting all of the Draped Bust die varieties. I got to within four pieces. One of the pieces I didn’t have was the very rare 1806. The others were the 1802/0 old reverse, the rarest 1804 and the rare “office boy” variety of the 1808/7. I had a shot at all of those years later either in auctions or private treaty, many years later.
The 20% buyers’ fee was designed to benefit consigners (sellers). There are ways to negotiate 100% of the hammer price, or even more if you have coins they want to sell. To me the 20% buyers’ fee does a job on buyers, but I have yet to be a seller.
