Hello everyone, Recently, I've been tracking my bids and strategies in order to understand what strategies work best and whether shill bidding exists. The following are my results: Auction Company 1 - Sent a pre-bid for my max for one coin. Won it at my max. Auction Company 2 - Sent pre-bids for two coins, both with medium to low offers. I won one coin at one level below my max. The other coin went for over twice my max. I then bid live on two other coins and won both at their opening prices. Auction Company 3 - I entered pre-bids for ten coins. Four coins I won at my max and one coin I won one level below my max. I lost on the other five, including one the impressively went for 6x my max (which I had thought was strong). Auction Company 4 - Bid on one coin live. Won it at 70% of my max. Auction Company 1 (different auction) - Planned to bid on 13 coins live. Three I never bid on because they went higher than I wanted before bidding began. I bid on 10 other ones and won 5. Of the 3 coins I really wanted, I won all three. I was massacred on coins I wasn't as willing to go deep on. Some facts None of the coins above was Roman. I pretty much stick to Greek coins from the time of Alexander the Great and the Diadochi. The way I collect is I have a list of what I'm most after. Every coin I was determined to win, I did. Most of the coins I lost were because It was on the list, but super common so I could be patient It was on the list, but I knew of a dealer with a similar quality coin, so I stopped bidding when I knew it would be cheaper at the dealer. The coin wasn't on the list, but I kind of liked it Therefore, the coins I won were strong bids Auction Company 1 is on Biddr. Auction Company 4 extends the auction by a few seconds when there's a new max. Auction companies 2 and 3 end immediately at the designated time. Some observations I don't have numbers to prove this, but it seems that pre-bids are much more common for Roman coins than Greek. I didn't bid on any Roman coins, but it seems like a larger percentage of them reached their hammer price during pre-bids than for Greek. There's a very strong market for Greek bronzes right now...or there's one or two people who are after the exact same thing as I. Greek silver ironically doesn't seem as strong. Sure, if you're after a Lysimachos tet, you may have to sell a kidney, but many of the less well-known types are reasonable. For some reason drachms have been realizing high prices. Tetradrachms have been more reasonable. I know that drachms are actually rarer than the tets, but for some mints the price hasn't been that far apart. Shill bidding conclusions At first, I was convinced of shill bidding due to almost always having to pay my max offer. I'm no longer so sure. At the last Auction 1, prices were very high. I honestly thought I'd be able to grab all 13 coins based on prior prices, and I was shocked how aggressive the bids were. For the coins I won, I think I did all right, and there were still some deals I noticed. The following are what I believe are the reasons for the competition I'm seeing: There are more buyers out there. I did see some unwise bidding - offering way more for a coin than one can get at dealers. Those would seem to indicate less savvy buyers with excess cash. There are also a decent number out there who are very familiar with the same coins and are after the same things as I. I do think that my list provides an advantage here. If the coin's on the list, I fight for it (unless I know I can get it cheaper elsewhere). Otherwise I let it go. So, I don't think there's shill bidding out there, but I'm still not going to put any more pre-bids. Auction Strategies I honestly believe there are advantages and disadvantages to live vs pre-bids. It also depends on the type of auction. For those with a sharp end time, sniping (bidding max at the very end) makes sense. The primary reason for that is below. For bidding live on a site like Biddr, there's a huge disadvantage in that it can get emotional. The other party sees that he's bidding against someone else, and one can get very possessive over that coin. These wars can drive a coin beyond sense. Similarly, pre-bids can also cause wars. One receives a notification of outbid, and there's often ample time to rethink that max and reset it. Research is still key. At the last auction there were five coins from one ruler on my list. Four were blah to meh, while one was excellent. My research indicated only one coin (a meh) was minted during his lifetime. The top quality coin was bid up madly (higher than dealers' prices), while I won mine for a fraction of that. I've therefore come to the conclusion that to win a coin at minimum price, one must minimize that psychological obsession. The best way I've found to do that on Biddr is to place my max bet right before pre-bids close. When the coin goes live, the other party will keep bidding it up, but every time he'll see an automated bid. The higher the bidding goes, the more he has to think. Even though it is another person, it doesn't have the same psychological meaning since there isn't a physical person continuously raising the bid. That last strategy did help me with my top target at the last auction. I was extremely worried since similar coins were going very high, and this coin was very difficult to come by. I was willing to go very high, but I was scared of paying that much. On two other coins I got into back and forth wars that brought them way higher than they were worth. Luckily, I backed out of both and let the other party pay too much. So, I used the exact strategy above, and sure enough the other party bid the coin up rapidly, then slowed down as the bids got higher. Eventually he gave up, a good deal below my max and lower than I'd lost the other coins at. I'm convinced that I could have paid double if I'd gotten into a war.
Respectfully, i have to disagree with your conclusion on Greek Silver - its a highest commodity these days, with the most insane price points. The Greek and Roman bronzes- especially provincial, alternatively, very reasonable, and cheap because there is just not much interest in these.
With all due respect, and I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly. Pre bids are not the best way to win a coin. You don't have to take my word for it. Just watch any live auction session by an auction house specialising in ancients.
So, in summary, the only pre-bids you won were at your max or one level below. If the auction houses were NOT "shill bidding" then you'd expect a mix of outcomes: 1) win some below max 2) win a few exactly at max (not very likely!) 3) lose some above max Other than extraordinary bad luck, there can only be one explanation why you are only seeing outcomes 2) and 3), and never 1). The moral is: don't pre-bid.
Respectfully, I believe my post may have been too wordy and you missed something. Although I placed pre-bids, I don't intend to do that in the future - nor do I advocate it in the post. Really, the only reason I placed so many pre-bids (didn't say this in the original post) is that I was on vacation in Italy and wasn't sure what my connection would be or whether my family would appreciate me watching auctions there. The main reason I don't recommend pre-bids is it gives the other party too much time to debate raising you.
From what I've seen, it depends on the coin. The most popular ones that everyone's heard of are going for very high prices. Lysimachos, Ptolemy elephant headdress, EF Alexanders, Demetrios tets, etc are all going high. But, many of the less famous ones aren't going that high. For example, I've picked up several VF and gVF Alexander tets lately for reasonable prices. Even my Seleukos tet wasn't too bad, since it was the war elephants one and not the Susa Victory coins that are more popular. Similarly, I've picked up Antiochos I Soter and Ptolemy II Philadelphos tets for reasonable amounts since they're not as popular. In terms of Greek bronze, check out decent quality Alexander shield coins. One went for over 600 CHF at the latest Leu. They've all been going for very strong prices lately. In the past I wouldn't pay more than 100 dollars/Euros/CHF for a Greek bronze, and that's becoming a lot tougher.
While I agree with not pre-bidding, one interesting facet I didn't mention above is that - for the coins that were similar - I paid less when I pre-bid than when I bid live. The sample size is small, so who knows...but it's interesting.
In the last Leu auction I won a number of Roman provincial bronzes, some of them quite rare. Went for a bit over the asking price. Of course, on the really cool Alexandrian drachms from Antoninus Pius' time (various zodiacal types, one with an Egyptian god in legionary armor) I was blown out of the water as the coins went for 10x-15x the asking price. It seems like a lot of folks are looking for these rare types, no matter the condition. I did win a scarce Maximian tet reverse type for 3x the asking price, but it doesn't have the eye appeal of the coins from the Antonine period. Admittedly I had wondered in the past if there was some kind of shill bidding going on but I believe that the evidence from my provincial purchases suggests (fortunately) that this was not the case.
I was noticing that I was winning a lot of lots at max bid. I then noticed there was a 'proxy bid' option on biddr which doesn't tell the auction house the bid until they need to know basically... and since then I haven't won a single coin at max. That makes me suspect the auction houses are misusing the data they are supplied. Anyway its not always reasonable to expect people to attend auctions live, I personally have a bad habit of sleeping through and or completely forgetting them.
