Close call

Late Roman bronzes can be attractive and inexpensive. However, if you collect for a long time and go deeply enough into them you find some are hard to come by. Wait a few decades and your willingness to pay for an obscure rarity may increase. Look at this coin:



14 mm. 1.25 grams.
Constantius II as Augustus.
VICTORIA AVGVSTORV [sic]
PLG
Victory left holding wreath and palm.
RIC VIII Lyons 36 plate 4. Struck 342-3.
Their example is crowded and might not have the terminal "M" on AVGVSTORVM that they give in the legend. I wonder if John Kent (the author) ever saw a good example? RIC calls it "R", but I think it is rarer than that. It was issued only at Lugdunum (Lyons).
It is Failmezger 397A (a book I like and use a lot), not pictured and called "RR" (his highest rarity, because none of the collectors consulted, which included me, had one). It got the "A" on "397" as a late addition, not noticed until the numbering had been fixed.

So, when I saw this on eBay I wondered what I should bid. Late Romans this nice can cost $20 and sometimes less. Perhaps I could hope to get this obscure rarity for about 40 euros? I use eSnipe and set a future bid. Then I thought about it. At what price level would I be happy to let it go? At what level would I regret it if I was the underbidder?

My evaluation kept rising. I finally reset my bid to 120.09 euros.

Result: I won it at 120.09 euros, over the underbidder who bid 120.00 euros. Close! I wish he/she hadn't been so knowledgeable. The next bidder down was only 37 euros, about what I thought it might go for if I got lucky. I didn't.

But I am happy with it. A real rarity in great shape, and I needn't have regrets that I bid too low.

 

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Great bidding strategy, for a NICE coin! Nice job!

 

Congratulations. I would never in a million years thought this coin to be rare. I suppose that means I haven't been collecting long enough to be in the know. And you are correct. Close bidding.

 

I hear you sir. Very interesting type. I have never seen it before. I know that because my eyes know more than my brain does it seems. I looked at the coin and had to stop and look it over very closely. That is how I know when I have never seen a coin type before.

I do the same, (regarding your raising your bids). I ask myself at what price am I ok NOT owning the coin, and the answer usually is much higher than what I would LIKE to own the coin for. The Sogdian gold I posted earlier was an example. I bid, then raised my own bid twice before the auction closed. I think I bid about three time what I purchased it for. I might have been mad losing it even at that price.

Coin collecting is a hobby, not a money making enterprise. Who cares about resale value when you are facing a possibility of never being able to own something again at ANY price?

Fantastic acquisition sir.

 

Congrats! Its always disappointing to think you've found a diamond in the rough that no one else is seeing, only to find that someone else knows what it is and wants it almost as much as you. I've picked up a few of my RR bronze rarities for almost nothing because I got lucky and no one else noticed and then been baffled when the next coin I bid on I'm completely blown out of the water by someone else who did.

 

Pierre Bastien in “Le monnayage de l'atelier de Lyon (337- 363)” records the reverse legend as AVGVSTORV. For Constantius II, he lists 1 example from workshop P and 2 from S. For Constans, 1 for P and 1 for S. Bastien 43- 46

 

Thanks for the information, Victor. It seems Bastien confirms it is rare.

 

The above is the great fact of specialization and, for that matter, collecting in general. Rare coins are worthless unless they are accompanied by something equally rare --- a buyer willing to pay. To most of us, Valentinian's coup is just another LRB with Victory and one of the most common emperors. To many, great rarities of RR bronzes are ugly lumps. It is harder to snag a sleeper RR denarius because the number of collectors and the availability of catalogs is much greater for the more popular silver.

One of my recurring sorrows in life is finding something I consider really neat and not being able to find anyone with whom to share my tidbit be it a coin or piece of information. Anyone who collects a specialty of ancient coin faces this to some degree. My interest in Eastern denarii of Septimius Severus fell off when Roger Bickford-Smith died; my interest in LRB tapered when author Victor Failmezger stopped collecting and moved away from where I lived. Having someone to tell of your finds that can appreciate them is like being far from home and finding someone who speaks your language.

Yesterday I found out I won four coins in a sale of which perhaps two might be appreciated by a few people who read Coin Talk. I have found the hobby less frustrating since I broadened my areas of interest to include more things but I refuse to be interested in anything simply because it is EF+. Specialists are interested in rarities within their areas of interest. This rarity probably suffers from lack of demand caused by most of us being ignorant that it existed. Congratulations to Valentinian in finding not only a rarity but one in presentable condition. Not all rare finds are. It must be nice even to have a coin that is covered by the literature even if you disagree with the R number assigned. We all know the RIC numbers are questionable in value and I never know how much significance to assign to those in other books. Most important, however is you found a coin you wanted. That is the name of the game.

 

Nice one! I just read a draft of a book on late Roman bronzes that gave me a whole new perspective on what I thought were generally uninteresting coins. It's just the opposite- a really dynamic time period to say the least!

I often rethink bids just like you. Sometimes in my area I'll bid really high, more than I'd ever want to pay, because I must have it. I haven't had buyer's remorse yet!

 

Sometimes, if I REALLY want a coin, I bid MORE than the market will bear, so that I WIN at what the market will bear... Works every time, you are correct: no buyer's remorse.

 

Congrats on your new rarity!!

The same thing has happened to me many times before ... just when you think you have gotten a rare coin rather cheaply there is that one other bidder who says 'not so fast'. You're right of course to bid the most you're willing to pay for a speciality coin and not look for bargains, it takes the sting out of either losing or paying a premium price.

 

Relatively few sellers publish how much the winning bidder actually bid. When we bid $123 and the coin sells for $124 we often wonder if we could have won had we bid $125 or if the winner bid $1000 and we were wasting our time showing up. Rules and increments vary with every venue. All we can do is learn the rules for the sale in question and bid an amount that will strike us as appropriate whether we win or lose. Some sales include more than one example of the same type coin. I enjoy watching the realization on the second and comparing it to the first. Sometimes it reflects the relative merits of the two coins and sometimes it shows there were only two participants that wanted the coin. The worst scenario is when there are two equal coins and three bidders. Someone has to decide who pays more and who buys nothing.

 

I learned a LONG time ago not to enter high bids (yes, I know that is opposite of the position I used to publicly have). Bottom line is this: No matter who the auction house is, we dont know and can not know what happens when we submit our high bids. Maybe that underbidder really was at 37 Euro, but maybe he was at 40 and the auction house bumped it up to your 120 high? I mean, you won by .09 Euro? Maybe, but I see a LOT of it, and from the best known houses in the world. I once paid $750 for $100 coin. Yea, I had to have it, thought who would be crazy to bid that high? Guess what? I won it at exactly that high bid. It happens more often that you may think, bid going up to just the exact high bid you enter. So, I never enter high bids. Just the current amount needed.

 

But who has time to manually snipe an auction if you really want the coin? There were two group lots yesterday I placed a good bid on and both were manually sniped out from under me. I was in a meeting and could not be on my computer checking bids every second.

 

Congratulations, @Valentinian. I'm glad you got the coin.

This is an interesting thread with some thought-provoking comments.

Only slightly related and definitely less thought-provoking, I had a bidding accident today which thanks to the kindness of the auction house ended up okay.

I accidentally bid $70,103 for a very modest Greek bronze coin. Obviously that was sufficient to win the lot but at a price more than double my intended max. Had I been required to honor the bid, the $230 hammer wouldn't have bankrupted me but CNG simply retracted the bid when I called them immediately after the lot closed (thank you, CNG!!).

There were only two bidders on the coin, sitting at $65 in the final seconds. I entered a bid of $103... except that I didn't first erase the pre-filled next bid increment ($70) nor did I notice what I'd done until the lot closed. Surprise!!

 

Thats a big consideration. While I am a dealer, I cant sit by and watch ALL the auctions either. But, if I have time, I can win some lots. If one cant be there at the close, just enter the highest you can stand. Yea, I know, maybe counter to what i just said, but consider this. I want this coin, maybe bid $1,000 to get it just to be sure. End result is that it may cost me that same $1,000 when it might have cost $100

 

The auction I won at 120.09 euros was on eBay. I believe their software treats bids honestly. I think there really was an underbidder at 120.00. He/she has feedback of 1835, so I think it was a very experienced buyer who knew the coin was special.

If it was one of you reading this, PM me. We have an interest in common!

 

Maybe, but I've won lots of coins at fractions of my max bid. The MFB I won yesterday for $125 had a $350 max, for example.

 

I don't see how this could be the case here since this was an eBay auction?

 

I am in agreement with folks above, I have always felt the bidding was right when I had my final results. Never felt thar my bid was inflated to my highest.

I would be curious how long an auction company would stay in business by falsifying bids this way. An inside person could leak this devious practice, and they would be out of bidness. Maybe it happens, but too many companies have a reputation to uphold, and to destroy a reputation over ONE coin would never be worth it. Focus on the consumer, be right, be honest and fair, and you can make a LOT of money without being false. It always comes down to the MOM rule: say and do things as if you were doing it for your mother.