I find it hard to believe all these other sites -- FB, IG, Whatnot, Redditt, Etsy, etc. -- have folks who own high-end coins AND others willing to buy off the sites. I get Ebay -- even with all the unscrupulous frauds -- doing big coin business because it was a legit auction place dating back to the dawn of the Internet in the late-1990's. Surprised these others do business in any coins where serious $$$ are at risk.
I have seen high end coins offered on IG and facebook. Quite a few sell (nowhere near the quantity of eBay but still a decent amount). Whatnot, from what I hear, has a lot of activity too and some dealers sell a ton there (even some bigger names like Trader Bea and Witter).
Low 5-figures the upper limit for those sites, ddddd ? Unless the selling costs are so low that knowledgeable buyers/sellers are going there to avoid the 22% HA or 12.5% GC fees, I'm surprised high-end buyers/sellers are using the sites. The more selling sites, the more the word spreads about our hobby.
I've been seeing some of the action on facebook. It seems like there are a lot of people there who are eager to pay pretty strong prices. I thought about trying to unload some clad proof sets there, because I noticed a few people willing to pay above retail for them one day. I'm not familiar with selling anything on social media though, so I'm weary of potential problems.
Strong prices relatively -- in other words, above FMV but still under $300 for most sales, Adam ? Maybe the buyers (or sellers) are knowledgeable numismatists who know what ungraded raw coins/sets should go for and they're getting a good price.
Yes, to your question. That mostly seemed to be the case. There are a lot of sellers there, many of whom definitely know what they're doing. I could only speculate about the buyers. But I saw enough that I was tempted to dip my toes in the water. And no ebay fees is a perk too.
As soon as I joined one fb coin group, a lot of others popped up. I was surprised how much action there was.
I would say low 5 figures is as high as you see but then you I don't see many coins above that level on eBay (those high dollar items tend to go to the big auction houses like Heritage). And Facebook plus IG have no fees (just PayPal fees if using that as the payment method). Whatnot I believe has different fee structures based on how big the seller is (volume of sales).
I think the new sites COULD be a place where folks look to sell/buy and maybe save some $$$. If a coin is graded, alot of the risk is taken out. Or if you have any raw coins, if you have a savvy buyer and seller, again, chance of fraud is lessened. If you know what you want then saving the 22% that HA charges or even 12.5% that GC charges can be substantial. If you are buying a 5-figure coin -- let's say an MS-63 MCMVII HR -- you can save a few thousand dollars easily. And if the coin was previousley sold on HA/SB/GC, you can establish pedigree and FMV in the past and be comfortable that you are not overpaying/underselling.
I've never used HA or GC, because someone told me both the buyer and seller pay a vig fee. Is that true? If so, that's a hard lump to take on both ends of the spectrum.
There is a buyer fee and a seller fee (the seller fee is subject to negotiation at HA). As a bidder, you have to count the fee when bidding. As a simple example, if you are willing to pay $120 and there is a 20% fee, then only bid up to $100 (or a little less if you want to account for the shipping fee too).
Wait a second....you telling me that HA and GC get 22% and 12.5%....PLUS a seller's fee too ? How come that isn't listed when I see the bidding instructions....it just tells me those fees and I see it added to the hammer price ?
GC gets 10% (check/non-fee) / 12.5% (credit card) from the buyers and 5% from the seller for anything under $1k. If the item goes over $1k, then the seller pays no fee and it is just the buyer portion. HA has the 22% for the buyer and potentially another amount from the seller (I don't think they specify anywhere what it is). However, with big consignments, they give the seller some of the 22% and don't charge any seller fee. So a 100k item means a buyer pays 122k (22k in fees) and the seller could receive some of it, say $7k-$10k (with HA keeping $12k-$15k).
If I understand you correctly, GC sucks for the buyer, the seller gets a fair deal. With HA, they buyer really takes it up the caboose, the seller comes out smelling like roses. That kind of explains why I see so many low ball prices for certain high quality coins historically sold on HA, the buyer gets screwed, and they bid low accordingly.
Neither is necessarily bad or good for buyers or sellers. Some items go for more at one place while others go for more at the other. Many buyers take the fee into account when bidding. So on a $200 coin, they would bid 164 at HA (164*1.22 = ~200) while they would bid 182 at GC (182*1.1 = ~200). With the seller's fee of 5% at GC, the seller would net ~173. If the coin was part of a large consignment and the seller received 5% while HA kept 17% of the 22% fee, then the seller would net about 172. This just shows a scenario where there is basically no difference for the buyer or the seller. In actuality, some people forget about the fee and that could lead to a higher overall result at HA. Or some people avoid HA because of the fee, less people end up seeing the item, and it sells for less compared to GC.
