I’m working on a personal coin research/archive project and I’m trying to broaden the range of auction houses I follow. At the moment I’ve been looking at catalogues from: CNG The Coin Cabinet Stack’s Bowers Numisbalt Nomisma Heritage I’m particularly interested in auction houses that regularly handle ancient coins and hammered coins, although houses with a good mix of world coins are useful too. I’d be interested to know where everyone here buys from, or which auction catalogues you regularly follow. It doesn’t matter if you actually bid or buy there — if you enjoy browsing a particular auction house because they have interesting material, good descriptions, good photography, useful references, or simply a large selection, I’d like to hear about it. The project itself is fairly simple at this stage: I’m building a personal archive/research resource that lets me keep auction information together and make it easier to research coins and past prices. I’m deliberately keeping the scope fairly modest for now, but the more auction houses I can identify, the more useful it should eventually become. So, which auction houses would you recommend I add to my list for ancients and hammered coins? I’d especially appreciate recommendations for houses that have older auction archives still accessible online, not just their current sales.
As far as getting data on prices, in addition to acsearch, you could look at coinstrail. These sites are results consolidators. So, you can search for a specific coin and get results from auctions by many companies. However, to get really detailed info, you must pay for a subscription. Many auction companies’ websites allow searching for past sales of specific coins. But the results will be only their own sales. You can also download catalogs from company websites. Nearly all of the big American and European companies provide this. Or use the Newman Portal where you can download the catalogs of many companies. Either way, you’ll have to search the catalogs yourself. For ancient and other hammered coins, start looking at the offerings of European companies. MDC, NAC, Sincona, Baldwin’s, Noonan’s, Leu, Spink, Elsen, Gorny & Mosch, Maison Palombo, St. James and Kunker for starters. Buying from European companies is more complex. You will often need to bid and pay in the currency of the country of the company, pay by international wire transfer, have higher shipping and maybe pay a tariff. Some European companies, like NAC, have an American partner. So, paying is no different from an American company. Mike
Just read at the German forum that „It is dutifully specified that FEDEX and DHL do not collect coins in Italy or in San Marino.“ and since you mention Nomisma: "… bearing in mind that San Marino is not an EU country and therefore considering all current customs and postal regulations. By way of example, it should be noted that it is not possible to ship by registered mail to the following countries, among others: Great Britain, Germany, Albania, Canada, USA and Arab countries in general. For Great Britain, Germany, Canada, USA, Nomisma will take out private insurance without any commitment or liability."
They are not as big as the other guys but I highly recommend Davissons Ltd. As mentioned earlier, it may be simpler to use acsearch.info
One thing you should know when looking at prices realized is whether the prices are hammer or total (hammer plus premium). American companies usual report total price. European companies often report hammer prices. If you are selling, hammer prices are more important (that’s what you’ll get). If you’re buying, total price is more important. You can convert between them if you know the buyer’s premium as percent of hammer. Mike
Thanks everyone, this is exactly the kind of information I was hoping for. Mike, that list gives me quite a few more auction houses to look into. The comments about acsearch, Coinstrail and the Newman Portal are useful as well. I've used some consolidated results resources before, but part of what I'm interested in is the underlying auction information itself — descriptions, photographs, prices and older catalogue material. Your point about hammer price versus the total price including buyer's premium is particularly useful. That's one of those details that becomes quite important when trying to compare results from different auction houses consistently. I'm working on something locally for my own research that is a little more involved than simply keeping a list of past prices. I'm still experimenting with it, so I don't want to say too much about it yet, but the goal is basically to preserve and organize auction information from a number of different sources in a way that remains useful for research later. The recommendations here are already giving me several new directions to explore. Thanks again, everyone — please keep the auction-house suggestions coming. I'm finding that some older online auction material doesn't remain available forever, which has made preserving the underlying catalogue information just as interesting to me as tracking prices.
When buying via auction, I use Numisbids and, once in a while, Sixbid. Both are auction aggregator sites, meaning if you keyword-search something you're looking for, you'll get hits from dozens of different auctions at the same time, from various auction firms. Including at least some of the ones you listed. I was having a devil of a time in finding a lifetime Julius Caesar denarius within my budget when I was doing my Twelve Caesars collection. I gave up on competing on sites like Heritage or CNG. I kept getting shot down, time and time again- and by a wide margin. Finally I won one in a European auction, with the Jean Elsen & ses Fils firm in Belgium. It was worth it to me to import one. Moving mostly in American circles, I might never have been exposed to those European auctions, had I not been using Numisbids.
