Did anyone participate in the Dr. Busso Peus Nachf. auction earlier today? The prices for Roman Republican coins were phenomenally high. A long series of common types that usually sell for, say, 300-500 Euros, went for 1,000 Euros and up, some for as much as 2,000. And I lost out on the one coin for which I placed a pre-bid, a nice Roman Provincial bronze from Markianopolis with confronted busts of Philip II and Serapis, and a snake on the reverse. I simply couldn't justify going as high as 500 Euros at least, which I would have had to do.
I did not participate, but I looked at what the Greek coins went for, and most went for roughly what I would expect. There were a few that IMHO were high, and I didn't notice any real bargains. As you know, it only takes one individual with a similar mindset to yours to ensure an awful auction.
It was not as bad as I thought it would be, particularly RR and RE silver, though fantastic Macrinus sold for 2,000 euro I managed to win a solid Imperatorial denarius, though Greek Sicily Tetradrachms I was bidding on brought extremely strong prices…
I had thought about bidding but all of the Greek lots I would have bid on went for crazy prices. I'm glad I didn't waste my time putting a well prepared bid list together.
I think you made the right decision. Here's the coin, which hammered at 480 EUR: Very nice, but is it worth a bid 400 euros higher than the hammer for my example from Tomis (originating from the same mint)?
If someone collects the same coins as you, is interested in the same coins, and has similar or greater financial reserves, then your auction may suck.
Mr. (or Mrs) 6113 bet on 80% of the Greek coins and won about 50% to 60% of them I think. From the most modest obol and bronze coin to the EF syracusean decadrachm. Most of the time he was fighting against Mr. (or Mrs) 6874. I don't know what kind of collector profile this could be , a compulsive collector ?
I bid on a few lots but didn't win anything. That is partly due to me currently having to tap out when things become expensive, and partly because many coins went indeed very high. Not so long ago, reasonably nice Severan denarii typically cost much less than 100€ at auction...
Yes it is is - not objectively but subjectively. Some people have made the assessment that the coin above is worth a certain amout of money, which happens to be significantly higher than the price of the coin below and they placed their bids accordingly. There is no arguing with prices. Prices are the true and undisputable manifestation of preference (which is subjective and time-varying).
My experience was different. I won a number of coins at the auction, mostly at reasonable or even minimum prices.
Yes, or a buyer for a larger firm, or even agent only representing one buyer. People with money do not bid on stuff directly usually, they subcontract that stuff out. Many scenarios, all of which are about equally as likely. I hear the buyer agents representing the whales usually represent them exclusively if lots of lots are desired. This is to minimize internal conflicts.
Well, yes, if we define value relative to a moment and a specific set of potential buyers (the ones paying attention at that moment). That ends up being pretty much the same thing as price. But there are other notions of value, like (fair) market value, "the estimated amount for which a property should exchange on the date of valuation between a willing buyer and a willing seller in an arm’s-length transaction after proper marketing wherein the parties had each acted knowledgeably, prudently, and without compulsion." Donna and I are talking about value in that sense. (See value, market value, fair market value, fair value, and theory of value. Apparently a lot of ink has been spilled on these issues. ) No doubt the price difference between my coin and the Peus coin have a lot more to do with the particular buyers that were paying attention to the different auctions than anything else. I think I was a more prudent and knowledgeable buyer than the buyer of the Peus coin, but I may be biased.
Time and place utility has much more value than others ever give it credit for. This is what those who argue how farmers are shortchanged by wheat in a loaf of bread only being 10 cents of the cost of the bread. Consumers do NOT want to buy 10 cents of wheat, they want to buy a fresh loaf of bread conveniently near their home. We are all "suckers" if you believe time and place utility has no value. We all could go to a distributor and buy pallets of products at a time to minimize our costs versus buying one at a time at a store, (even this is not a good analogy, as I know customers who buy 50 truckloads a month get better prices than someone who only buys one truckload a month, and that one truck will be much cheaper than your pallet you bought. Point being, dealers who buy from auctions and others and sell to you later earn their money. They took the risk, bought the inventory, display it to you, allow you at your leisure to buy or not, etc. This can work "backwards" too, with a dealer consigning to a particular auction that has high interest of a set of buyers competing. In that case the auction earned its keep for time and place utility.
The concept of "fair value" is valid, but only for homogenous goods (bonds, stocks, crude oil, bushels of wheat etc.). In my view, there is no fair or unfair effective price of an ancient coin, each one of which is essentially unique. Auctions are the most efficient places for determining price/value. You imply that the price was "unfair" (i.e. different from fair), thus suggesting that the auction was inefficient (in economic terms). You suggest that only a few people looked at the Peus auction and that the unfair price resulted from the random compositon of this small group. I think with the modern auction aggregators, essentially the entire global community of coin collectors looks through each and every one of the major auctions.
For example, I didn't expect to win this coin for EUR 280 and was also happy to get this one for EUR 180 I also like this coin for EUR 100
And I can assure - very good acquisitions. Coming from someone, who sold the first two coins to the collector initially. I knew no other collector who choose the coins so carefully. Each and every specimen was inspected with utmost care. Condition was important, but never the utmost factor. Style was vital and a certain, indescribable "twang" which made a coin fit for this remarkable ensemble.