I bought from them several times when I worked a project in Dallas. I am not an active mail order or auction buyer. Of course, they are the third-largest auction house in the world behind Christie's and Sotheby's, so they do not do a lot of walk-in business, but they do some, especially for big buyers. They made time for me because they knew me from my work at Coin World and from meeting them at conventions. Their principal, Jim Halperin, wrote two science fiction books that I reviewed; so we know each other as writers. I am not usually a buyer at their level. They offer world class numismatics. That necessitates a volume of buying that brings them the best items, but leaves them with a lot of mid-range inventory. So, they have "clearance sales" where dealers bring their vans and take out the Buffalo Nickels, Indianhead Cents, and other coins that flow through a million US Type collections. Among their many famous offerings, I got to personally see several of the finest known set of Mercury Dimes before it went on the block. They were stunning, true eye-knockers.
I have been the winning bidder on several coin from Heritage Auctions over the past year. I consider Heritage’s website (http://www.ha.com/) to be one of the best coin buying websites that exist. There is a great assortment of categories, filtering, sorting, searching, and browsing available which can be implemented in a variety of ways to best locate coins in the varied methods of their massive customer base. The HA website also allows users to save a want-list, and keep track of their HA purchases via a limited inventory / collection manager. I do not recommend this option, but for someone who buys more frequently on HA would probably find it beneficial. HA coin images are quite good, and better than most coin dealers. There high resolution version of each coin slab makes checking for errors, varieties, and distracting marks quite easy. Lack of adequate images never seems to be a problem with HA. I have never seen manipulated photos that left me disappointed when the coin arrived, whereas some other dealers “juice” their photos. Quite the opposite, I have always been pleasantly surprised or it arrived and looked exactly as expected Of the coins I have won on HA, I kept two for myself and I am very pleased with my purchases. 1883 FIVE-CENT PIECE - LIBERTY HEAD, NO CENTS NGC MS65 CAC 1864 TWO-CENT PIECE LARGE MOTTO PCGS MS62 BROWN CAC Bidding, tracking, and paying all work very smoothly on HA. I have never had any problems in this area, nor have I ever had any web access problems, as I have with some other high traffic auction sites. Coins were well packaged and shipped in a moderate amount of time. They are not as fast as other auction company and coin dealers I have dealt with, but they are not horrible either. As a collector who enjoys purchasing CAC coins, I appreciate that Heritage Auctions has such as vast selection of CAC coins in each Auction, so there are always affordable and expensive CAC inventory to choose from. I have no complaints to write about, and I plan to purchase additional coins from Heritage Auctions in the future as my funds allow. I highly recommend you check their site, even if you have no plans to bid on coins. By registering, you get access to one of the largest and best “auction prices realized” databases and coin image gallery.
