Close call

You have to understand the rules/workings of every venue. Not all are the same. If you set an eBay snipe for $120.09 and someone else bids $120.00 one second later, you will pay $120.09 but if their lower bit arrives one second before yours, as I understand it, your higher bid will be rejected as less than the required increment. Right?

I prefer software that only accepts on-increment bids so it puts an end to this 9 cent silliness. If you bid at any point early or late, the bid will be reduced to whatever the even number is. Since eBay has a $2.50 increment at $120, any bid between $120 and $122.49 would be recorded as $120 with the first in taking priority. eBay does not do this. Don't some sellers' s/w programs honor increments? I'm thinking the old Pecunem did. I have not used the new NN software.

 

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I dont pretend to know how it all works or happens. But in the case of Ebay, I bid many times in very odd amounts. $111.37, but get out bid for just one penny over. Maybe it is just happenstance that it works out that way 95% of the time. I have no idea. But, I have learned to just bid one increment over that which shows, Works for me. I dont get personal about it. I bid what I am willing to pay and not a penny over. But, If I wait until the last moments of the auction I get more lots than if I had bid early. Not the best thing for a dealer to reveal as I re-sell most of these to all of you, but then, if I can re-sell them for 10% or more I am happy. That is my profit for watching the auctions to the last seconds.

 

Yea, I think some houses do! I wont mention who, but I appreciate those who just bump those bids up to the increment. One house, just this week, I had many lots which I bid say $111, but the new bid was to $125 (not specifying that as fact, but just as an example). Many times we cant take the time to look through the terms to see that the increments are, but their software will let us know. I like that and appreciate it so that I know what I truly need to bid.

 

I think the phenomenon you are referring to happens when at the last seconds several bidders submit in which case theirs is higher, resulting in you losing out by a minimal amount when in truth they could have bid twice as much. This happens to me all the time.

 

Yea, I think you are right in most instances. But those few times I have to wonder...But as my strategy has now changed, I dont care so much. I wait if I can till the end of the auction, up to a few minutes before the close. Hard to do with so many auctions, days and times of the week. However, I do get more lots now that I ever did since the internet came into play.

 

Congrats on finding and winning such a rare coin. I actually get a little nervous when bidding on something I feel others might not know about. There is always that last second in which someone might put in an absurd high amount and either drive the price way up or even worse, outbid me.

 

I would disagree with this point. I have a coin that I purchased under the RIC Rarity as being 2 to 3 know, then found a source that says as many as 5 exist, then have been proven here on CT that as many as 7 exist, all the while everyone tells me the RIC under estimates it's rarity scale/rating. Based upon my experience, and granted it is limited when it comes to rare coins, and no, the previously mentioned coin is not my only "rare" coin. The RIC and other sources are wrong, as more exist than they know about, not the other way around. Nothing is "rarer" than what is listed by experts that have studied those coins for decades. See the 1933 Double Eagle and its history. First none exist, then 1, then 11, now 15. 1 Legally exists, 2 others are in the Smithsonian, but the government didn't obtain 10 fakes from that family.

 

I'm guessing he is referring to rarity relative to all coins of that volume. The scale in terms of actual numbers known is irrelevant anyway as RIC has been published decades ago.

 

We go through this every time it comes up but we always have people who missed the last time. RIC ratings do not attempt to count the number of a coin that exist. They surveyed a specific and very limited list of collections, mostly museums, and report how many of a coin were found in those places. 'Unique' means they found one in their list of places not that one exists. They did not consider the fact that thousands of other collections exist and may have the coin or that one of those collections might have a thousand examples. I have seen five examples of an R5 held in the same hand buy a specialist demonstrating that point. Many of us that specialize in something enjoy owning a coin (or a hundred coins) 'not in RIC' or otherwise unknown but we really do not know what is held by those thousands of hidden collections either. Don't get too interested in 'rarity'. What makes a difference is the ratio between the number that exist and the number of people who want one. The old joke tells of a sale where a 'three known' failed to draw a bid. It seems that only two people cared and they owned the other two. There are a hundred or so EID MAR denarii and a few thousand people who want one. A few of us have coins not otherwise seen in the market in the last 50 years. No one cares about them. Which is 'rare'?

 

Thanks Doug! I have for many years tried to educate people on just what the rarity ratings really mean in RIC. Although, it can and does allow us to track truly rare examples. With the advent in the internet and the various databases, comparing them to RIC can often give us an idea of some of them. In some cases one may find a coin in which one or two examples exist in published collections, but doesnt not exist in the sales records. Those ratings can on occasion have relevance, but less so with late Roman mintmarks.

 

I remember one time where I bid $224 instead of $24 on a slightly better than normal Claudius Constantiae As. Fortunately though I won it for $22 so everything turned out ok.

 

I don't think so. A "bid" of $120 is really a limit, so if the second highest bidder has "limit" 37, the 120 will only be recorded as 38. My 120.09 "limit" would exceed 38 by enough to count, and then it would be recorded as 120.09 above the newly recorded 120.

 

"RIC calls it "R", but I think it is rarer than that." This can happen. Granted, most RIC VIII frequency ratings in this time period overstate rarity. I personally have seen well over 100 of one type called "R3". There are many stories of so-called extremely rare types existing in numbers much greater than RIC suggests. But that does not mean every "rare" type is commoner than, or even as common as, RIC suggests. Collect and pay attention for 40 years. Take notes, because memory is faulty. Consult with other specialists in the area. If you have not seen one and your specialist friends don't have one, and RICs plate coin is not very good, it is more than just "rare."

 

The RIC system would work equally poorly in the other direction. There are ancient coins known as a result of a single find. Lets say a pot of 50 freshly struck coins were found and obtained by a museum in the UK which traded their 49 duplicates with other local and national museums around the world. When RIC surveyed their list, that one pot would suggest 'everyone has one' level of common even though there might not be a single specimen ever found elsewhere. That would make a C common coin that would be unobtainable in the commercial market. I have a couple Septimius denarii that are listed in the literature but that you never see for sale. It makes a big difference whether a coin was known 200 years ago and has been listed in every catalog or if it was first discovered in 2000 after the last book was published. It is rather like when the US released a number of bags of silver dollars that had been on the bottom of a pile in a vault and turned out to be 1904O that were previously rare.

 

Winning an auction by a few cents or dollars is the equivalent of passing a test by a point or two. It feels great, and you forget quickly that you nearly failed!

 

Sounds familiar.

 

There is a lot worse than 'nearly failed'.