What percentage of your auction bids are winners?

I miss the good old days. I remember one seller who advertised an auction (I think just a collector selling off his stuff). Just a simple photocopied list sent in the mail (this was late 80's - early 90's). No pictures, just descriptions. Lots of First Century sestertii. I bid on quite a lot, and was surprised that I won everything! I guess nobody else bid in his sale. I remember the sestertius of Nero I won, good VF-EF, temple of Janus. No longer have it of course, but similar in quality and patina to this one:



I got it for a little over $300. Today it would probably go between $5,000 and $10,000. Hindsight. Does us no good, doesnt it?

 

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... it's always 20/20 looking back..

 

This one isn't the 80's or 90's; this one is June 17, 2017.

 

My success rate seems comparable to everyone else----depending upon how seriously I bid it ranges from 0 to about 30%

 

I think success rate is a function of how much I (you) want an item and how deep your pockets are compared to the pocket of the next high bidder. How often do you see folks here complain about being Clio'ed? Clio is an example of a deep pocket bidder and your success rate against him (her?) will be loooooooow.
I normally like to bid live and do not bid when I know I will not win. When I can not watch live, I bid on an item just before the on line bidding closes. My success rate is usually high (25 - 50%), but I only bid on pieces I have a good chance of winning. I am watching a RR denarius with rare symbols that started at a low price (less than $200). When I did a bit of research, I found the few that sold and were listed on acsearch or CNG, sold for ten times that. At least two folks are bidding on the coin and have taken the price above what my pockets allow. I will not bid on the coin. Was my success rate 0%, or did I just not bid on a coin above my budget?

I think your success rate of 25 - 33% is pretty good.

 

Thee and me

 

I often try and remind myself, there is another coin...now for Ancients, admittedly, this is not as true as for other issues.

 

well, out of the 12 total coins i bid on, i was really only serious about 4 of them, most of the others i just put in low ball bids to see if i could get a could pull off a surprise win.

it is awesome to throw in some turd bid and see that you actually won!

 

So that's like when you care about the first bid and the second bid, but not the turd bid, right?

 

Something similar here I guess

Q

 

Yeah, but I was bidding on something on e-bay while I was reading here and missed making a winning bid...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

I don't bid a great deal. When I do, it's for a particular coin on my planning list and I have researched the price and know what my maximum bid will be. I haven't kept stats, but I'm the winner over half the time.

 

I usually win ... but I'm pretty fricken awesome

Yah, I didn't always win, but I'm pretty good at it lately

Oh, and I'm also super fricken modest!!



Ummm, I think I bat around 500 (but I'm no stranger to bidding "MAX" if I really want something) ... lately, I've been very good at scoring stragglers

SIDENOTE: BEWARE of CLIO!!

 

I just participated in JA's auction and won both bids, giving me a 100% success rate. That was with a limited number of participants. It was my first auction I've been in in quite some time. In the future I guess the success rate will be 10% or so.

 

Last year, I was about 40% successful in auctions, although many of the ones I missed I didn't have serious enough bids. This year has proven to be much tougher so far, winning about 10% of what I've wanted, and I've been pretty aggressive.

A more interesting statistic is how often you're the underbidder. I was the underbidder in 2/3rds of the lots I wanted in the most recent sales. It's much easier when I'm blown out of the water but watching them go by when I could have justified an extra bid is tough. Granted, there's no knowing if the winner would have given up a bit higher.

 

Quite honestly, the number of "new" coins I see on this site make me wonder how it's possible that there are any coins at all left for the likes of me! You guys are maniacs! You buy coins like I buy groceries! LOL

 

I only bid on 2 coins in a major auction and won 1. so 50% for me too

 

Hmmmm..... tough to say for me. I usually have the "Play to Win" approach when I REALLY want something. So, on those items I bid, there are very high odds of me winning. Perhaps 80-90%.

I generally research pretty hard on an item that I REALLY want. If I lose, it is generally because I got "blown away", and I totally missed the value.

When I just want something, but really do no feel that I HAVE to have it, I may be 10% successful.

I do not buy to resell. I buy for my "wants" of holding placemarkers in History.

 

I am 100% in agreement here. The underbidder is the one that sets the price. Winners might be consumed with desire for a coin and have bid ten times a fair market value but the price paid is set one increment over the underbidder.

My success rate in JA's last auction was 70% but I was on the other side of the fence - the consignor who sold 7 of the ten coins offered. I really only considered one of the lots a success because only one got more than one bid. We have shown here on CT that many seem adverse to bidding on a coin that already has a bid as if we were stealing from a friend. As a seller, I'd rather there were fights in the aisles. That was once a problem on eBay so they stopped posting openly so we did not know who was our competition. I believe on occasion certain sellers might consider me a great customer even though I bought nothing. My personal best was a sale about 20 years ago where I was underbider on twelve lots. I had to wonder if someone decided to bid one higher on everything I had bid on figuring if that cheapskate (me) wanted it, the coin must be worth more.

I do believe that the question of win percentage is a bit meaningless because many of us have two levels of bidding. Back in the day when we sent in written bid sheets, I might bid a low number on many lots fully realizing I would not win them all (hoping even since that would have blown the budget). I usually would win a few at bargain prices. That worked on what we then called unreserved auctions (an almost dead breed now). Some eBay sellers still start lots at $1 and occasionally get burned but the fact remains that some people will bid $$100 on a coin that started at $1 but ignore one that was reserved at $80. Unreserved auctions only work when you know there will be a lot of real customers viewing and bidding. A sale seen by 10 potential buyers
Perhaps the question is how many coins do we win when we bid what we really believe is a full and fair price for that coin.

Who remembers the day when you could send in a bid sheet and mark it to stop bidding when your expenditure had reached a certain limit? I even did that on the 1990 NFA mail sale we talked about in a thread here not long ago. I sent about $3000 worth of bids but ask they stop bidding when I had passed $1000 in winnings. I got some nice coins in that sale but left some making me wish I had said to stop higher. Maybe I am the only one who wants a coin at $50 but has no interest in it at $100. Not being able to do that now means I bid on far fewer coins and often see one that I would have bid on had I known it was going that cheaply.

 

You definitely not alone here.