Very unhappy with Naville Numismatics

I have always felt that the best place to buy a coin is in a venue that should never have had that coin in the first place. If a seller never has coins under $100, few people in that market will bother to look there so cheap coins can be a good buy. However, too many dealers have a minimum price they will charge but that does not stop them for asking $100 for a $20 coin. On the other hand, it would be silly for a small dealer to list a $10,000 coin simply because people who spend that much don't usually search junk boxes.

The biggest problem I see is everyone feels entitled to a good profit even if they bought the coin fifteen minutes earlier at the same show. That only works a few cycles before someone gets stuck. If you buy a coin at an auction, you have shown that no one else there wanted it more than you did. You might sell a coin for a profit if you know the market and pick the right coins. The fact that you outbid me on CNG last month does not mean I will pay you double next month. I understand how dealer can sell many coins they have. What I don't understand is how they can buy replacements without a lot of work and a little luck. One way to sell me coins is to buy coins from sellers I don't patronize. Another way is to find collections or wholesale lots I don't want in their entirety. One possible thread here would be to post a coin you bought this year for 1/2 what it sold for five years ago. You ask how but rarely really know. Up is not the only direction.

 

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Well, for the larger dealers they have no problems replacing stock. They get consignments. Some larger dealers have a huge backlog of consignments and you would be hard pressed to consign anything unless its a big collection of good or rare material. But for us little guys (or bottom feeders as we may well be), you are right. Its a LOT of work and unfortunately the luck is few and far between.

 

Well said

 

I started a thread (perhaps unwelcome) by the title "Prices can go down"

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/prices-can-go-down.297348/

 

Inasmuch as ancient coins, to a lesser or greater extent, are individually unique, auctions of ancient coins are an entirely different animal from auctions of modern coins.

My best suggestion is to do research, set a budget, and stick to that budget as much as possible. Calculate your total all-in costs as suggested earlier.

Occasionally you'll overpay for a coin that you really want, but that's usually OK too. If you buy coins you really like, you'll rarely regret overpaying a little bit.

 

That has always been very true for me!

 

Paypal and your bank never charge the spot FX rate, hence the discrepancy. I find Paypal more reliable as you only get hit with transparent paypal fee + spot premium, rather than international transaction fee + foreign currency fee from your bank and spot FX premium from Visa / Mastercard. Some banks may be better in other countries, but Australia's banks are the most profitable in the world!

You can log into paypal and check the exchange rate they are offering that day, for AUDUSD it seems to be spot at fix time +/- 300 basis points.

 

So I spoke with a rep of Naville this morning. The Valens solidus has been sent to me and they will reimburse me for postage and for the taxes I paid the first time. I consider this issue solved though they really should have notified me of this rather than have me track them down by phone. I still did not get an explanation for why they ignored my emails for so long.

On the issue of the Gaius denarius, I now understand what happened. I am still not happy about it, but I understand it. I bid and won the item. The auctioneer then reopened the bidding on the item because they noticed a person in the room who wanted to bid on it, but the person was not recognized before the hammer fell. I told the rep that I would have bid more had I known it was reopened but that the platform told me it was closed and did not signal that it was reopened. The rep said he was sorry but that things like this sometimes happen. He also said that in the future he will try to add an audio component to the Naville platform so that ebidders can tell when the lot is reopened. I think there must be a better way to ensure that ebidders like myself have a fair chance at a coin in the auction. I am not totally satisfied by the way this has worked out.

The rep apologized several times, and I accepted the apologies, but I do not think I shall be dealing with Naville again after this much hassle. It is unfortunate because I like their offerings. I guess the upside is that I now have a few thousand dollars to buy something else instead.

 

How convenient, after the hammer falls they find someone who wanted to bid more (interesting how he didn't bid beforehand when the bidding was ongoing --ie. was not recognized as a bidder--). You win the coin, and they reopen because they can get more money from someone else after the fact. And they don't deny it.

I don't like it. Smells like BS and lack of care and appreciation for you as a customer simply because someone else flashed a little more cash afterwards. Very disrespectful.

 

Reopening a lot during a live auction is not uncommon and all auction houses have language in their TOS that covers this. The mechanics of an auction are at the discretion of the auctioneer, who has to use real-time judgement about such issues.

Looking at the flip side, if during a live auction the auctioneer overlooks a bidder's paddle and closes the lot, failing to reopen the lot when later the error is brought to his or her attention, the consignor has suffered.

I wonder if the frequency of lot reopenings has increased in the internet age, where during a live auction the auctioneer has to be aware of floor bidders, phone bids, book bids, and internet bids. Tall order.

 

OTOH, if you were sitting in the room with your hand up and the lot closed before your bid was recognized, would you consider that you'd been treated fairly if the auctioneer refused to reopen the lot? If you were the consignor, would you be happy to learn that you would've realized a higher return if all the floor bids had been executed? Orfew's complaint is entirely warranted--he absolutely should've been given the opportunity to bid higher. The consignor has a valid complaint as well, but what would be the fairest outcome, given that the system in place is flawed?

I would suggest to Orfew that he ask for consideration on future auctions; having the buyer's premium waived on x amount of future winning bids might be a reasonable compromise.

 

I just don't like the way these auctions are done. The auction house has made their problem the customer's problem (ie not getting enough profit). This isn't a modern way to do business. Will it last? I don't think so.

 

This happened a couple of times during that auction. I was watching (and listening) to much of it via biddr (which has the audio facility), and there was nothing suspicious about how the auctioneer called it. If he realized that he had hammered a lot without noticing a last second bidder, he'd re-open the lot with an apology. This happens with live floor auctions.

On one occasion, after he had hammered a lot, he noticed that the catalog description did not make note of some scratches in the field of the coin, and he re-started the lot from opening bid after highlighting the fault. Obviously, only the floor bidders and those on the internet with audio would have been privy to that new information. That lot went to an online bidder at a price some bids lower than what it had previously closed for. I wonder if the winning online bidder had his audio turned on.

I did also passingly wonder how Naville was handling the re-opened or re-started lots since they were running the auction live online concurrently on their own platform. It's not surprising that some things slipped past them. Few online auction platforms are perfect... are there any? I once won a lot at a live online auction for CHF 195, and had a screen shot time-stamped to a few minutes after the close of the lot to prove it. When I got the bill, it was for CHF 205. When I asked why, the explanation was that the system had a 2-second delay processing bids coming in from the US and there was a last second bid on my coin that bumped the price higher even though the system had not recorded it until later (and apparently not visibly to me???). I didn't like it even though it was only a difference of CHF 10, but hey, there hasn't been a system built without some kinks that need to be ironed out along the way.

 

Alternatively, Orfew could ask NAC/Naville to try to find a comparable coin at a comparable or better price. They might even have something suitable sitting in inventory. This was sloppy and unfortunate and NAC really should make some effort to rectify it, but the notion that it's all a nefarious plot to squeeze out a few extra francs is beyond silly. Look at the total hammer price for NAC 100 and ask yourself if that really seems likely.

 

My argument is simply that I would have appreciated the chance to bid higher. I was not given that chance and that is unfair.

 

Thanks @Volodya , that is a very good idea. I will ask and see if they have something in stock that would serve as a replacement.

 

I sympathize.

Volodya has offered some creative avenues for possible recourse. Maybe it will end up even better if NAC has a similar coin in their vaults .

Also, parroting what IOM would probably say, with a coin in that price bracket you might want to consider having a bidding agent (might cost 0-5% of the hammer) at the live auction. Most auction houses also offer phone bidding for lots of a certain estimate (typically 2000 and up), which also might have led to a different outcome in this situation.

 

If you think it's bad in the coin world, fine art auctions have complicated stepped premiums, and sometimes artists' resale rights charged on top. I've overheard some very aggrieved buyers who hadn't looked up all the little symbols next to the lot number.

 

Four of the auctions on biddr.ch this week accept NEITHER pre nor proxy bidding. The one I am interested in starts at 6am in my timezone! Two of the others start at 4am!

Perhaps I will find bargains. I can't imagine a huge audience of competing buyers willing to watch the auction from their computer all morning. I am not sure if I will be online that morning.

 

You'd be surprised. I've been known to get out of bed at 4AM if I want a coin bad enough.