Thinking on consigning some of my Ancient coins and was wanting to get some of your ideas on the best way to go about it, who would you recommend here in the U.S. , best way to send them and what to expect and any thing else I should now. Thank you for your advice.
@Severus Alexander hosts an auction as AMCC. I've consigned with him, he's great to work with, and offers the best rates for CT members. CNG is great to work with, but with my "lower" level price points for my coins, it isn't financially feasible to really consign with them myself.
It really depends on what you're selling. If you're selling high-grade coins in the three-figure range, you'll want to go with different firms than you would with lower-grade, two-figure coins. Do you have anything of extreme rarity that would benefit from advertising that fact to a specific tier of collectors? Are you trying to sell a few items or an entire collection? All of these questions affect the answer.
I would think almost all would be over $100 and most around the $200 $300 range a few maybe $400 to $500
I do have some experience in consigning coins to auction having consigned close to 3000. I have used Severus Alexander's AMCC, CNG , Goldbergs, Naville and Triskeles The last is now not operating. The first thing I would say is. 1. Contact the auction houses and find out what is their consignment fee structure. 2. Be absolutely ruthless with your appraisal of your coins. If you can look up your coin type in the search engines and see what they are doing in auction. This may help in choosing which auction house to send your coins. Also be prepared to use different auction houses for some of your coins. 3. Put as much information as you can in the documentation of your coins. Reference number weights If the coin has a pedigree definitely put it in. Coins with any kind of pedigree will often do twice as good as those that don't 4. In your mind place a realistic value on the group of coins you are sending. No matter what you send out some coins will do well others will die. One coin I sent out, a coin that I thought should make about $200 suffered from Ghastly picture disease. The picture was so bad I could not believe that it was my coin. It went for the opening so needless to say I lost money. However the group almost doubled what I had hoped to get so I was happy. Somebody got a decent coin for almost nothing. I could probably think of other things but I am a bit tired and I think I covered the main points. So okay one of the coins I bought with the proceeds of my sales. Ptolemy I Ar Tetradrachm Alexandria 306-300 BC Obv Head of Alexander the Great right in elephant skin headdress, Rv Athena Alkidemos advancing right Lorber CPE 74 Sv 176 15.75 grms 27 mm Photo by W. Hansen
@Terence Cheesman wrote a very helpful guide. I can share my n=3 experience: I sold a rare (only 2-3 known) Cnut Danish penny via CNG, but first emailed as many auction houses I could find. In the end, I chose the one with the highest estimate, but, in hindsight, should probably have chosen the auction house with a slightly lower estimate but more specialized in Anglo-Saxon coinage. The coin had an estimate of 2000 USD, and sold for 1900 USD in the featured auction- the auctioneer told me beforehand however that he wouldn't be surprised if it sold for over 3000 USD. A nice, but not rare, Aethelred penny was estimated at 200 USD and sold for the estimate - which was a bit too low in my opinion. I am currently consigning a few ancients with CNG, and I should note that the seller premium (15% at CNG) is negotiable.
Some very good advice above. I’ve consigned with Leu (only 10% fee) and also with AMCC, and I’ve been very happy with the results of both. You should definitely not limit yourself to US auction houses. Very easy to send coins internationally...maybe an extra $15-20 on shipping, but that shouldn’t make much of a difference on your bottom line.
