I got shut out The coin that I had targeted, went triple over estimate.....that seems to happen more and more. Hopefully others had better luck.
I think I may have - I was originally planning on bidding on one of the Richard I Cyprus coins, but just couldn't convince myself to spend the money. I bid on a Celtic coin instead, and I'm still listed as the high bidder, but have no idea what happened in the live auction.
Well, I hope you ended up winning that Celtic piece! I was after the Arelate Mint/ FDC Solidus/ Valentinian I. Went way over estimate.
I decided to give Roma another chance after a discussion I had with one of their employees and just barely won an interesting and rare Roman Republic silver issue with a max bid 1 increment above the price it sold for. Not quite ready to share it yet because it needs more research and discussion with experts, but I will post it soon. There were some really great coins in the sale though, and I am especially envious of whoever picked up this beautiful oath-taking scene gold(hammered for £130k!).
I didn't find anything I wanted that was estimated in my range. Looks like they had a fairly large number of unsold coins.
i can relate panzerman, the prices of coins are going through the roof. i'm really glad i got some in the past years while they were still affordable. i haven't been able to buy one coin in the last couple of months that i'd like and when i do bid i get beat. but on the other hand what i have is worth much more than i paid. mixed emotions.
Yes, what was with those prices? Is it the time of year where dealers have lots of money to throw at coins? Does this mean that now their bank accounts are depleted, the next auctions will have more reasonable prices? Is there a time of year when it's better to find bargains? TBH I don't like the format of pre-bids over the Internet, then floor bids, and I rarely participate in these. There were quite a few coins I wanted, selling for much more than I thought was reasonable. I particularly coveted Zenobia, Priscus Attalus & Leo II.
It seems that "perfect" eye appealing coins are going thru the roof in every auction. I can understand this, since I like them too. One auction had a "mint state" Julia Domna denarius, estimate 150 euros/sold for 800! Today in the Rauch auction, I went after a 1/8 AV Dukat Josef I 1706 Vienna Mint, that tiny coin fetched 2200 euros, estimate was 800. Its kinda sad, but these will only go up and up.....
I lost too. The one coin I bid on went beyond my already stretched budget and hammered over 1K----a Cistophoric Tet of Anthony and Octavia.
I noticed this as well. The one I purchased was not one of those bright hoard coins. I probably paid to much for it but it is an interesting stylistic variety(and a die match to the RBW coin):
Simple. This is the time of year when generally the best material is offered. All the nicest collections are sold January to March. The best time of the year to try for bargains is summer.
I noticed that coin in the sale. Congrats! The small H variety is considerably rarer than the larger. I'll share with you a discussion I had with Andrew McCabe over the issue: "It has entirely different style Dioscuri, longer legs, slower paced, smaller cape, and with a small H without positioning dots rather than a large H below the horses. The obverse Roma is also different with a rather larger and lower relief head and with a series of spikes at the back of the helmet. The differences are so significant that the coin may not be associated with the RRC 85 series at all, or there may be two series within (the bronzes also occur in different styles)" Here's mine:
Very nice and thanks for sharing! I've been discussing this coin with Andrew as well and he commented that this may be part of the same issue as the other H quinarii(and as we now know - denarii and sestertii) but right at the tail end of the issue. I began "tracking" the type a year or two ago when I bought my first example of the more common style H quinarius and have recently begun trying to tease out the various die pairings and whatnot. Should be no shocker that so far I have found no link between the two. The hoard evidence I can find seemingly suggests a similar story. Hopefully I will get enough free time to complete my investigation and do a full writeup once the coin comes in.
I second the summer being a time for auction bargains based on my admittedly limited experience. John