Roma Auction XX started about an hour late plagued with computer glitches . They are presently on lunch. Many lots have sold for less than estimate , & high rollers have picked up some bargains . Pictured below is the highlight so far, the famous Naxsos Tet that hammered for 220,000 Lb. We are all holding our breath for the Ides of March aureus, lot 463 .
What is Lb? The Roma page shows that it was hammered for £240,000. Still 40k more than the estimate. For me the highlight so far is the Katane tetradrachm which is one of the most beutiful coins in the auction which hammered for £190,000 https://www.romanumismatics.com/221...-ar-tetradrachm?auction_id=75&view=lot_detail
That was a bit of a shock... it last sold for 30K GBP in 2012 in a strong market. Otherwise I agree that the prices have been far less "bubble-esque" than recent sales which is nice to see. Many of the coins have also been purchased relatively recently at strong prices which has the dual impact of them not being "fresh" to the market and for the winning buyer not bidding. So, if the underbidder found an example in the meantime, the price falls to the second-underbidder who might be considerably lower. I was still outbid on my couple lots which still sold for a few clicks more than I was anticipating which often seems to be the case.
My computer doesn't have a character for British pound, so I abbreviate with Lb. Looks like i missed the last increment on the Naxsos Tet .
So is 240,000 if you are from the part of the world that uses the dot and comma differently. CT is an international community with members who differ in some things that are not always immediately obvious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Countries_using_decimal_comma Is 2,40,000 a lakh of pounds? There is a lot to be learned from associating with people not exactly like yourself. This may be one of the best parts of Coin Talk. Who here is old enough to remember when we had to be careful to define the word billion?
Unfortunately, the hammer prices seemed to be very reasonable up to the point of the 2nd technical problem which forced them to have the lunch break half an hour earlier. After the lunch break the calling stations from the US woke up and the auction resembled to the recent LEU especially on EL coins. I really regret my decision to buffer my budget for lots after the lunch break as I could have won at least 2 coins I let go before the break. Nevertheless, I managed to get one coin from a mint I was trying for some time and so I am quite happy
Nice win! I noticed the same thing. It seemed like things started getting inflated again after the break. I was quite bummed by that since I REALLY wanted to win this piece. It sold for the equivalent of $4,400 USD after conversion and buyers premium.
2.7M GBP, so roughly $4.2M+. An amazing price, although not quite 25:1 of the ancient exchange rate between denarii and aurei!
I won't say it was a great deal, because I couldn't even afford 0.00000000001% of it, but I will say that I expected it to go for 4-5 million GPB. I won a little republican denarius, but it is too cheap for this forum
Watching the Brutus aureus auction-off was the closest thing to a sexual climax I've had in years . I thought it would go over $5,000,000, but it did set a record .
Hi Al Here's a suggestion: I simply open a Google tab, type in british pound symbol. The symbol should appear on the opening page. Then, it is simply a matter of copying the symbol to the clipboard, and pasting it where needed in the post. £ An alternative is to use the abbreviation BP, for British pounds. As for the Auction XX, I bid on one lot and was successful. Now it is a matter of shipping the coin safely in the midst of the pandemic, economic crisis, shutdowns, and political upheaval. Here's the coin, a nice example of this type:
This unique and numismatically important coin estimate 15K actually hammered for 9K. Maybe it got lost in all that electrum stuff.
thanks for recording, it sounded like there were at least 4 late bidders and no one wanted to offer a cut bid, a video of the bidding room would be interesting
It was interesting that the auctioneer thought the increments were going up by 100k when in fact it was only 50k. Though in his defense, I would have expected 100k increments too once it hit well over one million!! Would have loved to have a view into the room when that confusion was sorted out as it messed up with a handful of bids. Seemed like someone was bidding live on the Roma site and was the high bidder at £2.1M when the increments were incorrectly supposed at 100k, and then just stopped bidding all together when the mistake was noted and corrected, resetting the high bid to a slightly lower amount. I would have expected that bidder to jump back in and get the price back to the £2.1M but he/she just disappeared. Wonder if that spooked the bidder? Seemed odd.
I guess you meant 1.1 instead of 2.1. I think they had immediately more in the room so this participation was unimportant for the outcome...
Hey same here, congrats! I managed to grab lot 325, not the nicest of the type but a well centred example I feel, despite the less-than-ideal surface, and a good addition to my other 'sophytes' hoard coins. At least now I can show off the catalogue and say I won something in there!