Anyone Bidding in the Frank Robinson auction?

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by ancient coin hunter, Feb 1, 2018.

  1. zumbly

    zumbly Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana

    Mine was the less eye-catching Thasos stater in the lot before this one. In hindsight, I thought I had overpaid a little in 2014 at roughly 10% less its listed MB in this sale. I guess I was wrong? It was also listed in the cheap list, but the price shown there indicated it had already received a bid that was above the MB.
     
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  3. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    I would not pay $300 for a foot but that one does have a clear hoof which is often off flan on these but identifies the male figure as a satyr rather than just an ordinary human. Mine below has normal centering. It was $264 (all in) from CNG in 2016.
    https://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=319744
    That struck me a cheap and I could not explain why I got it. There is NO sense in auction results. None!
    g30712fd3339.jpg
     
  4. zumbly

    zumbly Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana

    The hoof was what attracted me to that coin in the first place, but I like yours much better for about same price.
     
  5. zumbly

    zumbly Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana

    The sale results are out. 154 went unsold, and 153 went for its $300 MB. Now, to see if I actually won anything!
     
  6. Roman Collector

    Roman Collector Well-Known Member

    No--that's for Auction 102, from NOVEMBER 20. He has yet to post them from auction 103.
     
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  7. zumbly

    zumbly Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana

    Try refreshing, the results are out...

    RESULTS

    AUCTION 103, 2/6/18

    Shown for each lot is both the high

    bid and reduced price realized.

    Unsold lots are listed at the end,

    purchasable at the minimum bids

    plus postage.
     
  8. Roman Collector

    Roman Collector Well-Known Member

    Cool!! I was successful on 6 lots!!!
     
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  9. zumbly

    zumbly Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana

    4 out of 6 for me... I'm pretty pleased.
     
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  10. zumbly

    zumbly Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana

    Out of curiosity, I plugged the published results into a spreadsheet. Of the 478 lots that received bids, 16 lots were won by bidders whose max bids were more than twice what they won their coins for. I haven't taken a very close look at all of them, but just at a glance, there were certainly some headscratchers there!

    Here's another interesting (trivial?) bit of data that came out of the spreadsheet : for as long as I've known, Frank has always had this statement tagged at the top of his auctions - "Nearly all bids get reduced, by an average of over 15%". Well, for this auction, the total winning bids amounted to $55,879, on a maximum bid total of $66,174. The average reduction = 15.5%. Just about spot on!
     
  11. Ken Dorney

    Ken Dorney Yea, I'm Cool That Way...

    I'll let you in on a secret us 'old timers' sometimes take advantage of (but only with an old fashioned auction like this). If you see a coin you really want badly, just bid a silly high dollar amount. Say it is a $200 retail coin on average opening at $120. You then enter your high bid of $1,000. Now, maybe some other 'blind bids' come in, maybe they dont. But if someone asks the auctioneer personally, 'whats the next bid necessary for me to win the lot?', the response will be 'ah, $1,100'. Of course that will scare off everyone making you the winner, maybe even at the opening bid thus giving you a nice bargain.

    Back in the late 80's I learned of this via a CNG auction (well, back then they were "Classical Numismatic Auctions' or some such name). There was a supreme Hadrian semis I wanted badly which opened at $60. I called Victor and asked that same question and the response was that it needed $650 to beat the high bidder. I was surprised to see the sale result at the opening bid of $60.

    Neat trick, but it can have a downside. There might be a 'blind bidder' with the same idea but who bids (in my example) $900, bumping me up to one increment above that (and maybe four times what the lot may be realistically worth).

    Its not for the faint hearted and could result in disaster.

    So, how did I do in this auction? I bid on three lots, won two. One I think I made a mistake on (not overall, but as a dealer I paid about what it was worth so there will be no profit). The other I bid $250 and won for $212. Realistically its worth $150 but I wanted it for my collection so I am happy with that.
     
  12. lrbguy

    lrbguy Well-Known Member

    I debated about bidding on a Sabina upgrade for lot 235, but couldn't pull the trigger. Lucky for me. It sold for almost $100 over the start on a high bid of $550. Not a lot, but that's another I would not call an entry level coin, Doug.

    How'd I do? I placed my bids by phone on the last day. I placed "entry" bids on five lots and adjusted them as necessary after hearing how things stood. In one case the bid was going to be more than I was willing to go, so that one was out. In another case I had bid more than twice the start bid, and he laughed and gave me the increment I would need to top the other bidder who had tried the same strategy. I decided to up the ante a tad more than necessary and hold my breath on that one, just in case a later bid came through. None did, much to my relief. So in the end I got four out of the original five lots I was after.
     
  13. ancient coin hunter

    ancient coin hunter 3rd Century Usurper

    I won all 4 of my bids. I panicked at 7:00 PM Pacific time and emailed Frank and he advised to place the maximum I was willing to pay for each coin. So I did, luckily in each case I was the high bidder by a significant margin, but I'll get each coin for probably 60% of my high bids. Notable amongst the coins I bid on was an Antioch silver tet of Elagabalus and a nice denarius of Maximinus Thrax. Also won a Vetranio and a Magnus Maximus adding to my LRB stuff. I also didn't have an Elagabalus yet or a Thrax so that also filled 2 holes in my collection.

    I'm pretty pumped this morning!
     
  14. Mat

    Mat Ancient Coincoholic

    Bid on nothing, scooped up the Diadumenian Denarius from the unsold though.

    Another emperor I never thought I would own in silver.

    Even with its flaw, still seemed like a good deal.
     
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  15. Smojo

    Smojo dreamliner

    Ok, so I've been at work since 3 am with 4 more hours to go before I can really disect this sale.
    I did get the 2 I hoped to get, 1 was the Plautilla at # 279 so $73 maybe a bit much but I've been wanting the type for quite sometime the other was a JD apperently nobody else wanted. Over all I went 2 for 5 but stayed way under budget that only means a few more coins in the near future for me.
     
  16. Kentucky

    Kentucky Supporter! Supporter

    So, bid on 6 ended up with two. One of these was the turtle (#1) which was a kind of bucket list coin for me, and a Constantine II with a nice wreath back (#393).
     
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  17. Nathan401

    Nathan401 Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

    Looks like I scored 1 of 3. Excellent!! I'm glad I'll have a new coin coming!!
     
  18. Severus Alexander

    Severus Alexander find me at NumisForums

    I picked up:
    312 Gordian III as (I like middle bronzes and the Farnese)
    341 Postumus ant (probably paid too much, but I've been looking for a nice Postumus portrait and was willing to pay extra for Aesculapius. I hope I'm not disappointed when I receive it, Frank's photos are not the best.)
    436 Wiglaf penny (he sucked me in with the "presumably" before "fake", and now I at least have something to put in that previously empty Mercia slot!)
    465 Islamic ID fun!

    Here are some I was surprised by, though I wouldn't go as far as to say "what were they thinking?" After all, the winner might be a CT coin-friend, and I respect the wisdom of all of my coin-friends. :)
    151 Tarsos, Mazaios stater $310 on 351 bid
    160 Trikka obol $185 on 304 bid - this exact coin sold for $70 + fees in July
    162 Aes rude $111 on 150 bid (I bid 35!)
    188 Caesar elephant denarius $695 on 750 bid
    193 Augustus posthumous dupondius $1375 on 2000 bid (wow!)
    340 Macrianus ant. $450 on 450 bid (nice, but is it that nice?)

    Nice sestertius!! I'm glad I didn't bid you up on it, I certainly came close to doing so.

    Um, yeah, maybe we should refrain from all this chit-chat next time. :)
     
  19. zumbly

    zumbly Ha'ina 'ia mai ana ka puana

    Congrats! I think that’s a great catch for the price.
     
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  20. Mat

    Mat Ancient Coincoholic

    Thanks

    I was surprised no one bought it from unsold. Was over 12 hours before I got online and saw it.

    Also, hope to get better pics obviously.
     
    Alegandron likes this.
  21. ancient coin hunter

    ancient coin hunter 3rd Century Usurper

    I agree great catch on that one...
     
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