NIGHTMARE at the AUCTION

Tuesday July 27th. I was impatiently awaiting the arrival of the date of the CGB internet auction of July 2021. For more than a month, I have targeted 2 coins I badly wanted to add to the "family". These are the highest bids of my whole collector's career (for my limited budget). I even retain myself to participate in other auctions to save my money. My agressive pre-bids were registered but I had a little space to bid more. The fixed hour finally arrived, I was all set but couldn't log in for the live bidding...dang computer...tried with my Ipad...same result...I could feel the blood pressure getting at 180, the heart beat around 160.
After a half hour without any results, I gave up and hoped my pre-bids would do the job. In the evening I checked the website for the results and saw that:



What? The closing of the auction was postponed for 1 week ? I emailed CGB for an explanation and this morning I received this answer from Joel Cornu himself (translated from French) :

"Yes, indeed we encountered difficulties accessing the website from the start of the "Live" phase, the delays were significant and collectors could not access the sale. Our team of IT specialists and developers tried to find immediate solutions to restart the sale as quickly as possible. After 20 minutes of unsuccessful research, it was better to interrupt the live closing phase and postpone it to the following week. (...)

Well aware of the inconvenience, I apologize for this dysfunction."

So, I'll have to wait another 7 days to get fixed about the result. Sadly I won't be able to attend the auction "live" next week, all of that because of these technical problems. But a similar situation can happen to anyone, right ? Please tell us your Nightmare Auctions!


An Aurelian/ Vabalathus coin won in another nightmare auction. (My only Cohen 1)

 

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Well, you did not win today, but on the other hand did not lose either. One extra week to save some additional cash and raise your pre-bid. Or ask a buddy to help out?

My nightmare auctions are plentiful. Where a few bidders have extra cash to spend and bid ridiculously high on every lot, including that 1 lot you've been looking for, for a very long time. Just knowing that the other bidder who who wins your target for a ridiculous amount wont even love it like you would (well thats what i think anyway)

 

In the older days of "dial-up" internet access, I was shut-out of several key auction opportunities...either no/delayed access or just so slow during entire process...and they weren't cancelled or postponed, rescheduled, etc. More recently, a couple of bids have not "registered" (been received) in time (so they said), even though they appeared to be received.

 

Leu

 

You're a man of few words ! Details please ?

 

Lol, just every Leu auction. You get excited, have 35 lots on your list, day before you have 20 you still think you can get, and by the end of the auction most of the time I won zero lots. I fall for their artificial low starting prices and quality coins EVERY TIME. EVERY Leu auction breaks my heart in the end, but I always eagerly await the next auction posting.

 

Well, you get another chance next week, @Ocatarinetabellatchitchix .
Could be worse.

My embarrassing nightmare: timed auction, great coin, 10 seconds left, ridiculously low bid. I want it. I need it! It's mine! Bid. Now. Hit!!! HIT!!!

Turns out, bidding works better when you're logged in.
Only takes about 20 seconds...

Not my proudest collecting moment. Took me days to get over it.

 

It has happened to all of us. Mine was back in March, a very eagerly anticipated lot in a British auction - and then my internet flatulated for about 20 minutes as the lot was coming up and I missed out.

 

I could call the last Savoca auction almost a nightmare for me, although in the end it was OK somehow.
I was mainly targeting 3 coins I really wanted and they were the reason for participating:
- a Divus Vespasian denarius with foreparts of capricorns (foolishly lost a much nicer example in a recent auction, with an extremely decent hammer price but I was staring at the ceiling in that time)
- a DAC CAP Trajan denarius
- a Trajan's column denarius, both top of the wish list coins for me.
I was optimistic regarding these 3. Conditions were not super so I thought I won't have much competition. I was prepared to offer realistic bids.
Triple fail, even if my bids were, in fact, bigger than in my worst case scenario (after each lot I realized losing is not such a bad thing given the circumstances). Frankly I don't understand what happened, only explanation is that somebody wanted those coins badly.
By pure inspiration, I noticed another Column denarius I hadn't observed, slightly lower grade, coming after a few lots. Surprisingly, I won it with less than I was prepared to offer. Joys of auctions...

I also managed to lose an Aurelian + Vabalathus nice antoninianus, I noticed it, of course, after the end of the auction.

But when it comes to pure nightmare, I have a very nice example.


This was an auction in 2019. I wanted to offer this coin as a present for a friend who wanted it badly as this is his collecting area.
My pre-bid - 250 EUR, accepted by the house - winning bid 230. But I lost the coin, if you could imagine that.

After trying to discuss with the house (they initially claimed somebody else offered a bid higher than mine), they came with this brilliant idea.
"Unfortunately we can only apologize you. We decide to give you an discount 2% buyers fee for our next action." (good English skills, a good house overall)

2% buyers fee, oh, joy.
Whole situation proved me I was dealing with morons.
I am very glad that particular house is no longer listed on Biddr, probably they managed to screw other coins/auctions too.

I also have a history of browser crashes/mouse failure when clicking Bid.

Good luck @Ocatarinetabellatchitchix next week, hope your pre-bids will be enough.

 

I had this happen to me with CNG a couple of times. I thought I was logged in, it looked like I was logged in. Not logged in.

 

Lol, been there. Even worst, forget to register for the auction and it now starts in 10 minutes.....

 

Yeah .. been there, done that. Plan auction bids weeks ahead of time, set up Google calendar to get e-mail reminder, day of auction set up iPhone timer for live bidding ... still forgot to bid due to being away from computer/phone doing some low-importance errand.

 

I don't know if I can call this a nightmare but the last Nomos Auction there was this coin. Segesta Didrachm 412-400 BC. 8.40 grms 25 mm. I thought this coin would be a interesting addition to my collection as the war between this city and Segesta was the main impetus for both the intervention by Athens (415BC) and Carthage (410 BC) into Sicilian affairs. The latter intervention had a massive impact on the coinage of Sicily. Checked AC Search and did not really find anything that would be a major concern over price. Being in Switzerland that means for me it is up with the birdies. Night before NO sleep. An hour before went out for breakfast ate and got a big glass of Coke (full of sugary goodness) and readied myself for the auction. Made a mistake. Auction actually starts an hour later bummer. Try to take a little nap Finally a bit of sleep wake up Auction has been on for at least 50 minutes rush to get to computer Get it going. Missed coin Decided to see if I can find out what it went for. About three times more than I thought it would Not only was I not in the ball park but not even in the town that the ball park was in. Should have stood in bed. Oh well I did get another coin from this auction.

 

My latest nightmare story actually has a happy ending. This one was on US ebay, but from the only dealer who lists there (a European) who's consistently worth checking for medievals. He had an early 11th-century German royal /imperial denar, partly imitating a penny of AEthelred II of England. I was poised to bid on it --and that's when the keyboard for my antiquated desktop, with advanced electro-neural dementia, decided to go on the fritz. Had to reboot; took four minutes; it closed Too low.
Fortunately, I had solid rapport with the dealer; wrote him about it (with an apology for not bidding ...higher than he got), and asking him if he could list another one some time. Before too long, he did, and I landed it; easily within condition range of the one I lost (and since posted here, somewhere). And the closing price wasn't even enough higher to matter over the long term.

 

My nightmare with an auction firm happened a little over a year ago. I got up early to log on live to an auction taking place in London. Well, I was a little too early and they were auctioning off some antiques / artifacts. I started to doze off at my computer when my new kitten at the the time decided to jump on my lab to wake me. I didn't think anything of this until she became fascinated with the flashing green light for "last call". Yes , she tapped the light with her paw and was the successful highest bidder on a very unattractive Cambodian terracotta bowl from C. 1000 BC. I started screaming for someone else to outbid me (or outbid her) to no avail. I guess that only happens when you want a coin. The cost... a little over $500.00. Yes , I still have both the bowl and the cat. No, I did not win the coin I got up for in the first place.

the culprit with a $500.00 antique bowl...

 

This wasn't a nightmare for me, but another collector on this forum.

A few years ago I had a 1-on-1 meeting with the CEO of the company I was working for on the morning of the Triton RR session. I'd been really hemming and hawing over a particular coin, and my estimate from previous auction speeds lead me to believe the meeting would be right around the time my coin went across the auction block, plus CNG charged a lower commission for prebids versus live bids at the time, so I placed a pretty significant prebid(the highest bid I'd ever placed, at the time) right before they stopped accepting them and happily saw that I was winning with only a single increment over the previous bidder.

After a restless night I got up and drove to work early with the phone hooked up to my car speakers so I could listen to the auction progress. To my surprise my lot got there quicker than expected, right as I parked. To my surprise and relief it didn't get a single live bid. Another collector I'd been IMing with congratulated me and I made a pretty vague comment about the win on CoinTalk(just mentioning the denomination and lack of bids, basically) and headed into my meeting.

After the meeting I saw an email from a friend titled "You are sooooooo lucky!". Apparently he'd been the prebidder under me and intended to bid it up to 50% more during the live auction but when the coin came up and he clicked to bid the site never accepted his bids. I'm not sure if that's what happened to others or not, but I was quite happy with the situation, however it happened.

 

@octavius, congratulations on forgiving the kitten! ...Could you bring yourself to post a pic of the bowl, ...just, Anyway? The combination of Cambodia and c. 1000 BC is kind of, well, intriguing, to say the least....

 

I only buy slabbed coins, so Heritage is pretty much my only place to shop. They use Buyer's Fees, which makes every auction an aggravating nightmare!