I was looking at their auction and I found a coin that I'm interested in. I registered with the site and I am considering placing a bid. If you have used Stack's Bower before how was your experience? Does bidding go right to the end? I was just planning on placing the bid I thought I could live with and let it go. My only thing that bugged me was that they don;t have a past auction result list like heritage. They also use suggested price data that for the coins I look at has been high in the past. How is the shipping and handling when you win, is the turn around quick?
SB should have a terms of service (TOS) page to read and this will answer some of your questions. While SB is very well respected, the website gets hammered by folks who have a hard time finding features and using it smoothly. In truth, I also dislike their format very much. If it's a coin in a live auction then bidding will not end until after the auction goes live on the auction floor.
No, it isn't like the Heritage archives. But you can look up anything you want - http://www.stacksbowers.com/Research/CatalogLibrary.aspx
Stacks isn't a bad outfit. My only issue with them is their website, but that's a topic for another discussion. For their weekly auctions, the time they post is when the auction officially ends and you win or lose the coin based on that. Some people wait for the last minute, but it's not as bad as ebay in regard to sniping. They have other auctions that follow the pre-bidding / auction setup. It's pretty well stated, but when this happens you place your bid, but could still be outbid in the live event. Other than that, it's a standard 17.5% buyers fee and fairly reasonable shipping prices. I have yet to have an issue when dealing with stacks.
Shipping is higher than elsewhere but not too bad. You just have to factor it in along with the large buyer fee. It takes them a few days to get around to shipping.
