I love this story. I imagine you must have been pretty eager to see those coins, and then rather disappointed. Did you write to them «I’m interested in 194 Septimius Severus denarii», or something along those lines, that could have been misunderstood?
No I think you misunderstood the Keystone sale concept. It is not for cheap coins. It is to allow collections that are worthy of it, to be placed in their own auction. These are intended to be auctions that feature a single collection and collector. The value of the individual lots only matters in the respect that they would do better in electronic sales than print catalog sales. Keystone auctions were not designed to unload a bunch of cheap coins. As you stated, that's really not our best way to sell coins. Generally speaking, we are putting the very low value coins into group lots.
Yes I did! I thought it was a way to move the many common coins that you get when a specialist collection with great rarities came with a thousand supporting players. I would think the catalog could be a more profitable investment than the coins and would fear too many, too similar coins at the same time might glut the market. There are still people who value highly their copies of the CNA catalogs which listed the Wetterstrom Alexandrians but he did not have minor variations of common things (like Dattari). My gatherings are way too ordinary for CNG to handle but I have 27 variations on one Septimius reverse type and believe another member here has more than that. Perhaps there are specialists waiting; perhaps not. Usually I expect dealers to dribble such things out over a period of time to keep the appearance that you need to buy now. Not long ago CNG sold more coins of Claudius II in one sale than the rest of the major auctions have listed in 20 years. I'm sure the rarities did well but I wonder about the vast number of common and ordinary coins. I believe there was a similar holding of Carausius coins that were not only numerous but largely low grade as usual for his issues. I will be interested in seeing the first of these catalogs. I wish that idea were active to sell your incuse reverse holdings.