Bidder 1 had a max bid of at least 9000. Bidder 2 placed a bid of 8500. In most other auctions, Bidder 1 would have won the coin at 8500. However, Leu automatically bumped Bidder 1 up to the next increment, so he won the coin at 9000. In my case, the next highest bid was 1000, so I won the coin at 1100 (my max). Presumably if my max was 1000, then I would have won the coin at that price (unless the other bidder decided to raise to 1100). Between these two cases the bidding patterns differed. For the Magas coin, there was a last minute bid from a new bidder at 8500. In my case, a bidder kept raising his offer until he gave up. Here's another bidding pattern from a coin I won: Bidder 1 440 CHF 09-Aug-21 10:50:20 Bidder 2 420 CHF 14-Aug-21 15:48:17 Bidder 3 360 CHF 08-Aug-21 18:12:13 Bidder 1 320 CHF 30-Jul-21 00:26:06 Bidder 3 300 CHF 08-Aug-21 18:11:54 Bidder 3 260 CHF 08-Aug-21 18:11:46 Bidder 3 220 CHF 08-Aug-21 18:11:41 Bidder 3 180 CHF 08-Aug-21 18:11:31 Bidder 3 120 CHF 08-Aug-21 18:11:26 Bidder 3 80 CHF 08-Aug-21 18:11:21 Bidder 3 65 CHF 08-Aug-21 18:11:17 Bidder 3 55 CHF 08-Aug-21 18:11:13 You can see I placed a max bid relatively early in the auction, because I was travelling to Italy and didn't know whether I could attend online. On August 8th, I was outbid. I decided I wanted the coin a bit more, so I logged in from Italy and increased my max to 460. Bidder 3, who had been incrementing his bids until he won, gave up. Thirteen seconds before the auction finished, a new bidder tried to snipe it at 420. This bumped me to 440, but I still won the coin. Here's one from a coin I didn't win. Bidder 1 600 CHF 14-Aug-21 13:00:59 Bidder 2 600 CHF 14-Aug-21 14:44:35 Bidder 3 420 CHF 14-Aug-21 09:20:01 Bidder 4 340 CHF 14-Aug-21 12:28:30 Bidder 4 300 CHF 14-Aug-21 12:27:52 Bidder 5 250 CHF 14-Aug-21 12:05:48 Bidder 6 200 CHF 14-Aug-21 08:10:54 Bidder 7 101 CHF 14-Aug-21 09:02:23 Me 90 CHF 30-Jul-21 00:25:28 Bidder 8 90 CHF 14-Aug-21 02:36:31 Bidder 9 60 CHF 24-Jul-21 05:09:35 Bidder 6 50 CHF 16-Jul-21 20:48:16 In this case, my lowball bid was quickly overcome. About 1:45 hours before the listing ended, someone bid 600. With about a minute in the auction, someone else tried to snipe at 600. In this case, the winning bidder wasn't pushed since his max had been reached, and so Bidder 1 took it for 600. While it's definitely possible to create a random shilling algorithm to accomplish this, my feeling is that's not what's happening here. Instead, the policy of automatically bumping the winning bid gives that impression.
I still don't understand why should bidder 1 get the coin at 8500 when he bid 9000 (at least) and bidder 2 bid 8500 after bidder 1 placed the 9000 bid. The bidding increment is 500 (not 1000) and the 8500 was not an off-increment bid.
This shows coin collectors are a pretty small community. I would assume than less than 1000 persons are collecting Greek coins. I would also assume that a couple of bidders won at least 10% of the auction.
Did you notice the prices for Artuquid coins in good quality? That blew my mind. I have a feeling Islamic coins are becoming popular, although there can’t be more than a couple of hundred collectors (if that many). How many ancient coin collectors do you guys reckon there are? I have thought perhaps 25-30 000, but I suspect that pprp’s estimation is closer to the truth.
In his book "Ancient Coin Collecting'" Wayne Sayles wrote that "we would speculate that 50,000 (active collectors of ancients) is not an unreasonable estimate, and that indeed may be a conservative figure." The number is based 1) on the number of coins dealers (in 2003) and 2) the number of people on their mailing list. He also recognizes that it is impossible to know the exact amount. Many collectors don't buy in auctions (especially overseas one), the market is now on sites like ebay where you can find a lot of low-medium grade coins.
Like others here, I'm leery of Leu due to their reputation for shill bidding and making up nonsense provenances. (For example, a former AMCC coin was once listed by them as coming from "a Swiss collection put together in the early 2000's", long before AMCC existed. ) I would add: plenty of unnecessarily re-patinated coins. But also like others, their offerings are too tempting sometimes not to bid. @dougsmit would rightly ask me why I give them my money. I suppose it's because I'm not sure if they're shill bidding, and I suppose I'm kind of sympathetic with the "old collection" provenances if that's intended to snub the super-dumb MOUs the U.S. has with various countries with backward antiquities laws. So I bid on quite a few (34 in fact)... low pre-bids in every case since I couldn't attend live online. I won two: Lot 165 TAURIC CHERSONESOS. Chersonesos. Circa 350-330 BC. Dichalkon (Bronze, 21 mm, 5.36 g, 7 h). Artemis Parthenos driving quadriga to right, holding torch in her right hand and reins in left. Rev. XEP Hoplite, nude but for conical helmet, crouching left, wearing round shield on his left arm and holding spear in his right hand. HGC 3.2, 2080. SNG BM Black Sea 734. SNG Moskau 3220-5. SNG Stancomb 464-5. I think 102 CHF was a good price for this, considering the detail on the hoplite. Here's how the bidding went (closing time was 12:22) - Me 102 CHF 13-Aug-21 08:15:47 Bidder 1 100 CHF 14-Aug-21 10:08:52 Bidder 1 90 CHF 14-Aug-21 10:08:31 Bidder 2 60 CHF 07-Aug-21 22:36:29 It's a bit odd that Bidder 1 didn't go to 110 given that they saw my max was an off-increment 102. Shill? Hard to say, but probably not, given that they bid 90 then 100 in quick succession. If they already knew my max was 102, why bother with the bid of 90? More likely they just thought 110 was too much. (One reason to place off-increment bids.) I liked the following coin for its cute moon-faced portrait (which may in fact be intentionally "sun-faced") : Lot 3691 ISLAMIC, Anatolia & al-Jazira (Post-Seljuk). Artuqids (Mardin). Nasir al-Din Artuq Arslan, AH 597-637 / AD 1200-1239. Dirham (Bronze, 30 mm, 8.67 g, 6 h), AH 633 = AD 1235/6. 'al-Sultan al-Mu'azzam 'Ala al-Dunya wa al-Din Kaiqubad Qasim Amir al-Mu'minin' in Kufic Large bare-headed and draped bust facing. Rev. In inner field, 'al-Imam / al-Mustansir billah / ✱ ✱ ✱ / Amir al-Mu'minin / al-Malik al-Mansur / Artuq'; around, date; all in Kufic. Spengler & Sayles 47.2. In this case, I won it for an increment below my max, so no evidence for (or against) shilling here. Yeah, no kidding! I won the coin above for 75 CHF, while this one: which was the immediately preceding lot, went for 950! It's not even that great quality, being fairly rough. Quite a few went over 1K, some over 2K, and a couple even over 3K. Nuts!
I placed bids on two coins and won both. Though bids went up in the last few seconds I got both one increment under my max. I did increase my max bid on both at the last minute. The counterbids on both were higher than my original max bids. So, unless shill-bids are automated and executed instantaneously, I think the chance of there being shill-bids in play is relatively small. Shill-bidding is hard to prove. My strategy in case I suspect there may be shill-bids at play is simply not to place pre-bids, but to attend live and place my bids in the last second (timed auctions), or just hit 'bid' when my lot comes up and hope the other guy gives up before me (going once, twice-type auctions). If I have grave suspicions about an auction, then I simply avoid them, of course. On a half-related topic: I get the impression that, as long as you steer clear of bling, hammer prices lately seem to be ebbing to somewhat more moderate levels. Still high, but not outrageously so. Does anyone share that feeling or have I simply and unknowingly become acclimatized to the 'new normal'?
It really varies from lot to lot, I think. There are trends in the market. I got both my lots for a good price; 160 for Trajan, 120 for Sabina. The Trajan sold for 220£ in 2013, so I’m quite happy with that one. But if I was looking to upgrade some of my Artuquid coins, finally get that Lysimachos tet (or any other tet for that matter), or a late Roman gold coin, I’d be out of luck.
In the recap, Leu featured a coin of Constantine II Caesar that started out at 50Chf but hammered at 2800. Whilst a rare coin, I am blown away by the disparity, for an AE3 nummus.
The following are my general impressions in areas I pay attention to: Alexander bronzes - increasing Alexander tets - decreasing, except for the top specimens Alexander drachmas - increasing Seleukid tets - decreasing Diadochi tets (Ptolemy, Demetrios, Lysimachos, Seleukos) - increasing
I agree in terms of the traditional view of someone bidding up the value in an auction room. However, when the auction house controls the “live online bidding,” it would be relatively simple to just use a maximum bid (or an increment below) and generate an underbid to “justify” the winning bid. Of course, I have no proof but become suspicious when “coincidences” keep occurring without exception. Obviously, I don’t avoid bidding with Leu because I’m willing to accept that I will always pay the maximum or sometimes an increment below whenever I win a lot.
Since we are discussing Leu auctions, does anyone have an estimate on how long it takes for Leu coins to reach the US once an invoice has been paid?
Last time I paid immediately with Wise.com (Leu gets it within a day) and my coins arrived to Oregon 18 days later. They must have hundreds of packages to pack and ship. Mine were not expensive coins and I would not be surprised if they packed and shipped more valuable shipments first.
Yes. You turned me on to Wise, and that’s what I have used it ever since for the few auctions I participate in. Have the app on my phone. Never a problem.
