Surprising VAuction Win

A cautionary tale: Don't respond to outbid notifications at work.

I was pleased to learn that I had won a lot of 92 ancient coins on the most recent VAuction. That is, until I saw the bill: $730 + 15% for the lot pictured below.


Wait a minute. $730? That's more than I have in my PayPal account. My PayPal account is my budget; I never bid more than my balance. Surely there must be a mistake.

Oops. There was: mine.

I finally figured out what happened. Originally I bid $110, which was $10 over the estimate. Then, checking my email at work between classes, I read a notice saying I'd been overbid. I'm always pressed for time at work--never know when another screaming hoard of 5th graders will swarm into the room demanding to learn more science--so I was not as careful as I should have been when I attempted to raise my bid to $180. Turns out I actually bid $110,180! So it could have been a lot worse, I guess.

But apparently somebody must have bid up the lot to over $700, too, so he or she must have seen something in there that caught their imagination. I can see a Severina and a Constantine SPQR OPTIMO . . . and what looks like an interesting Greek bronze at the lower right, but nothing really outstanding.

Any guesses what inspired the second-highest bidder to go 7 times the estimate?

Also, can anyone point me to a good sight to learn more about those three Hunnic drachms in the photo? Are those countermarks on the rims of the two upper ones?

And if anyone else has a story like this, I'd be interesting in hearing it. Did it turn out okay? Or am I the only one to pull a bone-headed stunt like this?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Good thing Clio did not bid $10,000!

Looks like you paid $7 per coin, a good deal still.

John

 

Ouch, sorry.
Perhaps the underbidder meant to bid 70 and accidently hit 700

 

Well, I would add the warning "don't bid without your glasses on." I raised a bid on my smartphone sans glasses from 160 GBP to 180. Turns out I raised it to 1,180 GBP and ended up winning the lot for 350..... I guess it could have been a LOT worse!

 

Count me in the 'club' LOL

Actually, I've been guilty of such a thing a couple of times over the last three years but, like you, the coins fell within my intended bid and not my similarly combined fiasco. At least once I had the right number of digits but didn't notice I bid nearly two hundred over my intended maximum and then won the coin for more than $150.00 over what I intended---- it was a left-facing denarius of Otho so i was shocked but not devastated

 

This has not happened to me...yet.

 

Maybe there's an aureus on the bottom of the pile?

 

This has happened to me on a Heritage auction. In a panic I called them and the rescinded the bid, advising me to call right away if this ever happened again.

 

$7 per coin isn't too bad. I was buying 1/2 kilo lots of uncleans for $375. Usually ended up with around 250 LRBs with some Greek imperials and Byzantine folles. Though I did get a couple of high-grade widow's mites in one hoard. I'd say 50% were slugs and not worth even trying to attribute. Lots and lots of Falling Horseman types.

 

Yeah, I did it too! In 2016, bidding on a coin I thought I might win mid-$30-ish, I intended to put in a $50 bid & let it ride. Was pleased to win it for under $40, but saw my actual bid was.....$500.!!!!

 

I stuck a couple of bids in for this lot as well so I apologize for driving the price up a bit on you. Of course it seems it wouldn't have mattered. You were all in

If you choose to sell some of the coins I expect you will recoup a lot of the cost. If not, I expect you will get a heck of a lot of enjoyment out of the lot.

 

In the 'old days' this never really happened as we entered our bids on a sheet and mailed an actual letter! Horrors! With internet bidding its very easy to make these mistakes and its happened to most of us. I myself did this some years back. Not sure what happened, but I was bidding on a tetradrachm worth about $150 at the time, I ended up paying $475.

 

I was an original underbidder on the lot, but had no idea how it went to $375 on auction day, let alone the final price.

The three hunnic coins indeed have countermarks. However, all do. These types of coins started out as countermarks on Peroz sassanid coins, then they made their own when those ran out but still countermarked their own coins.

The late Tom Mallon's site has some about these, or at least listed.

 

Well that's because you "sleep bid". Some of us sleepwalk, you sleepbid!

 

I like the type but the cash value as show seems way below those examples. Few I have seen were what you'd call high grade.

 

Interesting. Thanks for the information.

 

Doug, are those Latin letters on the bottom of the reverse of your examples?

 

You know, I've been getting a little bored with my Constantine collection. There's only so much I can learn about him. The three Hunnic drachms in this lot might inspire a new collecting interest. There's certainly a lot I can learn about them.

 

Oh man, it could have gone way wrong lol At least it stopped at 730.

 

Well, let me know. It is one of my original subcollections. I have all of the major references and a few hundred coins from various huns, both white and red.