Leu Numismatik is becoming quite wild

Sorry for the bad form posting in this thread before the auction was over. It drives me nuts seeing people posting about auctions and or coins I'm interested in before they're up (there's a post here everytime Frank Robinson farts!).
Anyways, I did get blown out of the water. But while watching a lot of this auction I did see lots of sniping (which I'm not against). The concern is reading this thread, as well as warnings beforehand, that Leu appears to "take advantage" of their customers by bidding them up. When I over pay for a coin I like to think it's from my own hubris and NOT that I'm getting swindled.
Though I love their coins, I think next time Leu has an auction I'll do my best not to look at the lots.
To keep it legit, here's my only ex Leu that I'm aware of, which, funny enough, I purchased from a nomos Obols:

CILICIA, Mint Uncertain
400-350 BC. Obol (Silver, 10 mm, 0.58 g, 1 h). Female head facing, turned slightly to left, wearing earrings, necklace and flowing hair (Arethusa?). Rev. Facing head of Bes. Göktürk 44. SNG Levante 233. SNG France 486. Fine metal and attractive on both sides. Very fine.
Ex: Leu auction 4 Ex: Nomos Obolos 14

 

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Trick: post about coins you’re not interested in, maybe it’ll distract people away from the ones you are

 

I'm assuming you're talking about the pius drachm of aries? If so, that's not unexpected. Leu seems to purposely deflate the starting bids on a lot of coins compared to their actual worth.

For example, recent solds:
https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?lot=180&p=lot&sid=4495 (Much better, but hammer 14k EUR)
https://cngcoins.com/Lot.aspx?LOT_ID=4027 (much worse, hammer 400$)
I'm not too sure about the relative rarities of the zodiac types, but 240 seems really low unless it's really worn or the most common of them to me.
https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?lot=421&p=lot&sid=2463 (worse, hammer 300 EUR)

 

Yeah that's the one. Since I am an Aries (birthday March 30) I thought it would be cool to grab one of this series. (To be clear I do not believe in horoscopes). What I am really looking for is the coin depicting the entire zodiac wheel. (Figure that will be $8k or so)

 

Yeah the wheels are definitely expensive, particularly from Alexandria! I'd love one as well, but ponying up the money is difficult

 

Very interestingly, there is a zodiac wheel in the temple of Esna (Khnum the Potter) that dates to the same period, post-Ptolemaic in the Roman Egypt era. There is some speculation that the wheel on the ceiling of the temple is similar to what is depicted on the coin.

 

I surprisingly won a few lots, but nothing that I was serious about - mostly just tangential adds.

I had high hopes for some of the group lots, but had to drop out, as bidding went way to high on most of them IMO. Especially the world coins - who the heck pays $10 per coin for a bunch of world coins, even 19th century/silver ones?

 

What an exhausting auction. I hope they don't do 5000+ lots again! Way too hard on us generalists!

I had zero success with prebidding, or with any mainstream Greek or Roman - prices were just too high. I must have formulated 100 bids, managed to place 66 of them. (The others exceeded my max before I bid.) All my wins were snipes, usually in the last two seconds, and none of my bids were strong. (I do worry about shill bidding. Leu also seems to relist quite a few coins that were sold. Are they buying their own when they deem prices to be too low? Probably I should avoid them but I failed to resist this time.)

Here's my haul (8 coins), I'm quite pleased. Feel free to ask about any of them!

 

I believe the majority of auctioneers today do not worry that collectors will stop bidding in their auctions. Just read again what you wrote above. Whatever is/was the (objective or subjective) wrongdoing of the auctioneer, the addicted collectors will come back again. It is their right to have reserves, but if they do, this should be mentioned in the auction rules. Or even better the reserve to be posted like what HA does. I would not be surprised if the bidding systems execute the reserve prices as last second bids. In fact I thought in the past that the bidder handle "Clio" was the reserve price, but people here said that he exists and that they have met him.

 

At one point, my "current bids" hit almost 8,000 CHF. Ended up winning a few lots, all for under 100 CHF each

A nice Peroz Type II crown


A sharp Philip I tet


A nice issue of autonomous Hatra, imitating coins of Roman Antioch, depicting Shamash and inscribed in the Hatran variant of Aramaic


For my small Nabataean collection - a pseudo-autonomous issue from shortly after the annexation by Trajan


Another rare Malwa OM Gadhaiya


And another "SriLa" Distinctive Nose gadhaiya


I tried for some of the large lots, and got curb stomped. People were bidding like they were specialists and wanted to pay full price for every coin in the lot!

 

Some of mine, very rare tet of Maximian, two chunky provincials of Caracalla, anonymous civic issue (time of the Severans)

 

Apart from the two more common ones, I thought the prices for the Zodiac drachms were about right. Admittedly, my opinion is probably biased as I was underbidder on one of them (the Cancer) and won another (the first Aries).

 

I also won one coin. It was the only one I had my eye on, but the price shot up in the last 10 seconds or so.

 

Congrats on getting the Aries. Since I didn't get up til around 6:30 local time I missed the bidding window. I had also expected the prices to go much higher than 200 CHf, but was still the high bidder for a week or so. Things didn't heat up until a day or two before hammer time.

 

Congrats! It's a lovely example!

 

Leu always has those ridiculously low start prices. In other words, you are on your own and you have to decide for yourself how much you want to pay max. The first time with Leu, this was mighty frustrating. But then I won one of my most beloved coins for - not too much money (Celtic imitation of Philip of Macedon).



In this last auction, I won thirteen coins of various areas, all for acceptable prices, 130 CHF was the highest. A little Khingila bronze (Huns of the 5th century), a Roman Seleucia Pieria bronze with an attractive design - a striking thunderbolt resting on a chair,


a nice Alexandrian drachm of Hadrian with elephants, three varied tesserae from this large Egyptian-Anatolian token collection (that was assembled by a well-known Dutch collector in the early 21st century, if I'm not erring), two excellent 12 nummi coins from the Persian occupation of Alexandria (618-628 AD) and a mirror imitation of the same century



- and finally two beautiful Great Mongol coins proving that these Genghis and Möngke coins are not all as expensive as one expects nowadays.

 

Just had some interesting wins with Leu Numismatik. Had to drop out on the entire Imperatorial theme though, the balance between quality/rarity and value seemed to have gone completely in this section. None of my wins were snipes, the Cleopatra VII which I won (last week thread) was acquired by some serious arm wrestling. Enjoy the game and challenge of outbidding any other collector fair.

Shill bidding is a serious accusation, it's foul play. Some facts: auction houses do not screen the customers thoroughly (time pressure). They can slip through and create 'ghost bid accounts' and with those are they able to drive up prices of some lots belonging to friends/family/associates. If in that process it happens that the 'ghost bidder' overplays the hand it will end up in a won lot. Each time it happens will the won amount be deducted from the ghost bidders credit and like this will its role be played out and its difficult for 'high end' coins. The reason is simple, the initial credit on the new account is often insufficient to drive up the prices of the high demanded pieces. Nevertheless can they cause to drive up prices in the low range/mid range.

When the auction house does send the final invoice will this lead to a unpaid invoice, the lot remains unsold and can be auctioned.

If a auction house does sell their own stock out of their vault and have some associates creating shill bid accounts to boost up the prices would this be a serious offense!

 

I’ve debated emailing auction houses after close to say if the winner of a coin doesn’t end up paying I’d take it off their hands at the hammer price. Not sure if it’s kosher to do.

 

Haha, I believe the auction house will embrace you. During the auctions did it happen a few times that I was the highest bidder, I won but later on the coin went to another bidder. So I got fooled by the webclient. It also happened that I got outbid, I stopped bidding when I thought that the max was reached by reason and let the other bidder win the lot.

Did it occur that I received a telephone call a month later, I was the winning bidder... How I did want it shipped? I did try to explain that there must have been a mistake, somebody else won the lot. Was I fooled by the webclient again or was the winning bidder not as serious... Anyhow the coin is at my desk in the envelope and I did not pay one Swiss Franc till so far... Off course will I pay them. Just amazing how things can go, auction software is not free of bugs and people working for auctioneers make just so any mistakes as well.

Last month was I bidding on a rare and expensive coin, a stunner, did I receive an e-mail of being outbid. A few second later a confirmation of my new maximum secret bid... What happened they received a fax with a bid, when they confirmed it did they send it accidentally to the counter bidder (me) instead of the highest bidder. When I called the auction house with this mistake they were not amused, showed great gratitude to come forward with this. I am invited to visit the family, once I travel to their country!

 

That same thing happened to me with my lion quadriga denarius of Julia Domna. I was outbid according to the website and a month later they called me on the phone as if I were a deadbeat demanding payment. I told them I had been outbid. They said the coin was still available and asked if I wanted it and I told them yes.