http://cgi.ebay.com/1950-Mexico-Mex...740?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35b1b8626c Mexican 1950 25 centavos coin. It has a little silver but not much. The book value is 60 cents. This one got 14 bids and sold for $15.50. I honestly don't understand how this happened.
I've wondered about that too, but I've bid on a lot of other low silver content coins in the last few weeks, like British 3 pence and Mexican 1 peso from the 1960s and still gotten them for decent prices, so I don't think that explains it, unless there were two really ignorant bidders who got in a bidding war over this. This seller really lucked out. I won a recent auction in the last two months where I got two coins just like this for about a dollar each.
Exactly! My guess is a great pic and inexperience leads to larger than life bids. Oh and all that equals ebay!
Maybe some of the bidders thought they spotted something that made the coin a scarce variety, but more than likely, they were just bidiots. Chris
Maybe in other areas of the world its relatively rare, but in the US, since we are so close to Mexico, you find these in abundance. I have 8-10 of them and have never bought one on purpose. All of them simply from group lots I have bought over the years. Considering the mintage these are common here, as I think a large percentage of them were saved at the time. I just think a couple of overenthusiastic bidders. It happens very commonly on Ebay. I have seen those 10% silver pesos go for over $10 many times.
Unfortunately they don't always work out this way. A few weeks back I sold, individually, about 20 Mercury dimes on eBay. Some went for 4-5 dollars, but others were below spot at about $2.75. I decided to sell them online instead of at the coin shop because I was hoping people would want some of them for the numismatic value and that might drive up the price. In some cases it did, but in others I would have been better off at the coin shop. Unfortunately it was hard to predict beforehand which would be the hot items. But I really do think this coin is hard to explain. I collect Mexican coins and I don't know of any varieties. It's not in super high grade condition and the silver content is very low. You can find other 25 centavos for sale on there at much lower prices with no bids on them.
Ebay is a crap shoot, truly. A friend sells there, and he says he needs these oddball bids to help even out the bad auctions, liek you had Hiddendragon. Saying that, I still buy there, knowing that my knowledge will make me money over many other bidders, but I will lose to someone more knowledgable than I.
I got a coin just like this today - same year, similar condition - at my local coin shop for 25 cents out of the value bin. Just sayin.
