Bizarre auction prices ...

Yes, certainly scarce, but the condition premium was still very surprising to me !

I'm curious what set(s) you collect that makes this so desireable for your collection ?

 

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Ooof, I had no idea they were so rare. I recently bid in a local UK auction (and won a couple of decent lots), and this comment reminded me that there was a London mint Helena in one of the other lots that I noticed and was going to bid on, but, for whatever reason, didn't.

https://www.stroudauctions.co.uk/lots/622734d4b792ba78dff25e23
(Top row, 2 across)

It was in worse condition than the Roma coin, but it only went for £120 (and it had 29 other decent coins in it, including 2 borderline perfect Trier Helena's).

That said, I won 2 lots of about 120 good condition but cheap nummi for eBay, a nice Severina ant for myself, and a Domitian as snack (the lot it came in was £30 total).

 

None of the Julius Nepos solidi brought strong money. I'm wondering if they weren't so nice in hand.

 

If you are bidding for clients, you probably don't want to risk a laggy internet connection or getting distracted and missing a lot.

 

There may be many reasons for an agent to use a phone to bid. One of them might be that the agent is in direct contact with his client on another line orchestrating his bids. I should make a note here that three of the most active agents within the community are women. Another factor may be the problem with computer glitches. On two occasions within the last year I had my computer freeze during a bid and I lost the coin. Yet another factor may be that the agent is bidding on behalf of a number of clients. During a live auction at the 2020 Triton XXIII I saw one agent with something like seven different bidding paddles. This was done so that each client would receive a separate invoice from the auction house. It was not that long ago that auction houses like Kuenker out of Germany did not have an on line bidding platform, and in those cases I had to use a phone. (or employ an agent.) A coin I won with the assistance of an agent who was most likely using a phone.
Hieronymous Ar 10 Litrai 215-214 BC Obv Head right diademed. Rv, Thunderbolt Holloway 27d This coin HGC 1567 8.51 grms 23 mm Photo by W Hansen

This coin was sold in Kunker Auction 326 Lot 662 back in 2019. This was before Kunker had an on line presence. The agent was able to confirm that the coin was a nice looking specimen and that it was from the Prinz Waldeck Sale back in October 1935

 

Or too many in one auction. I find Roma coins look even better in hand/ as Künker.

 

I'm curious about one detail when they were calling the auction live... the auctioneer would identify where the bid was coming from (room, telephone or biddr.com), and seemingly always whenever a coin was won by a room bid, she would then say "sold to commission"...

What does "sold to commission" mean here? Is it an indication the room bidder was an agent rather than a customer?

 

Means the "book" won. Any presale order is a commission bid. It doesn't matter who is the bidder.

 

..dang you John....now i've beany babies on my feed... (do you need a rabbit?!?)

 

Thanks. So I suppose "commission" in sense of "order" not payment.

 

Crazytown.
This is why I rarely bid in auctions these days. eBay is a much better to venue to acquire coins at reasonable prices (provided you know what you're doing, and have time to trawl through pages of low quality garbage and fakes).

So the Helena was from London Mint and therefore rare. I don't really understand the fascination with mints, when you can get a great looking Helena far cheaper from Constantinople, Antioch, Nicomedia etc. But i guess there's a bit of OCD is all of us. We are collectors after all.

 

When you see some of the crazy prices people are forking out for Marilyn Monroe memorabilia/ VHS tapes/ so called art/ old comics/ sports cards....
Coin prices seem to be more realistic. If ancients/ world coinage were hammered at prices same US coin would fetch/ then the prices would be off the wall.
Example 1932 Double Eagle upto 80 known, one just hammered for $156,000US

 

Auctions are usually very unpleasant places to acquire coins. The prices are often sky high, and collectors, who have looked for certain items for years, have to pay through the nose or lose out to some "investor" who has little idea of what they are buying.

The buyers' fees only make it worse. Many bidders ignore them. If I could tack another 20% on my sales prices, I could afford to have the body guards and movers that would have kept me on as a dealer. Getting into and out of the shows safely was the toughest part of the job.

I think it has gotten worse since the pandemic. People learned that they could sit at home and bid instead of going to a show or their local dealer.

 

I don't entirely agree with this. I've purchased a number of coins at auction at far lower prices than one can achieve through dealers, and I know I'm by far not the only one.

IMHO it's a mistake to only rely on auctions or to only rely on dealers. Certain coins are cheaper to obtain at each. The rarest coins come up in either. Most of us here utilize both.

Certainly, though, if one doesn't do the homework on a coin before it comes up for auction, it's very easy to overpay.

 

True...
I have gotten some excellent coins from Andreas Fenzl/ other German dealers on MA-shops.
But, just in recent Roma XXIII/ XXIV auctions some tremendous coins too.
AV Mint state Solidus Tiberius III 950
AV Mint State Solidus Anthemius/ Roma Mint 3200
AV Supberb EF Solidus Basiliscus & Marcus "Salus Reipvblicae" rev. 2000
AV EF Florin d'or ND Château-Renault François de Bourbon 1605-14 1000
Even though graded EF its nicest one I have seen/ the Heritage ex. graded NGC MS-61 looks more like a FINE.

 

I only buy from auctions. And I rarely overpaid on a coin - on 2-3 occasions I really wanted that particular coin so I paid more than I was expecting.
But I am a bottom feeder so this is not dramatic (including the fees, and indeed many people don't consider them).

The best fun in auctions, for me, is identifying rare coins (even if far from mint state) and hoping nobody else spots them. I know this is not a correct strategy when you think about profit in the future, but personally I don't care about this.
I bought many coins, most of them presentable (for my standards) and below market "normal" price.

Some auction houses do not provide full attribution - just city for Greek and emperor and city for imperials and provincials - this has helped me a lot to learn how to identify coins as usually before an auction, I browse the offer and try to find out more about the coins I am interested in.

For a while I am staying out of purchases but here is an example of a very interesting coin I saw in an auction this weekend

Posted in the Republican section - described as
Q. Titius 90 BC. Rome
Denarius AR

So a very modest and quite common RR denarius, right?

Wrong. It's a Trajan restitution issue (RIC II Trajan 776) and the difference is that it has a reverse legend. As far as I know, extremely rare and desirable even in this condition.

2 collectors noticed the error and started a mini war. Hammer - 460 EUR + taxes.
I wouldn't pay this sum on this coin, but this is the kind of situation when you hope you are the only bidder who noticed that ... the owls are not what they seem.
I think a dealer would have spotted this and the price would have been bigger.
I found no examples on acsearch or coin archives and only 1 example in sixbid archives

2700 EUR + taxes in 2012.
Indeed, much better example, but I still think many collectors would have loved a Trajan Q. Titius restitution (perhaps at the price of a modest RR, but it wasn't exactly the case )

My impression - for coins in medium/sub medium condition, you have a better chance to win them in auctions at decent prices (I certainly did this a lot). Unless some other collectors want them badly. But an attractive and scarce or rare coin will get lots of bids and you might find them at better prices in dealers' offers.
But when I browse Vcoins I often see normal coins in average conditions at high prices.

Just the first example that came in my mind. I looked for DAC CAP denarii currently available in Vcoins.

For me, both prices are too high compared to what I usually see in auctions, perhaps the one in the right is closer to the truth but I think you can find a similar one at a better price. They are pretty common.
The only Trajan denarius from MA shops with the Dacian sword in exergue (my favorite from these types)

271 EUR
My recently acquired example in an auction - 60 EUR + 18% fees

Theirs is better but I think for 1/4 of the price it is a much better deal, judging after the condition. Again, my 2 cents.

Anyway, even if you are a collector of 2, or 3, or 4 figures coins you need to do your homework properly to avoid overpaying or missing very good deals.

 

I have not done that over the past five years. People come out of the woodwork to bid in auctions these days. They think they are "protected" because other people are bidding. What they don't know is that auctions can very often be "a ship of fools."

 

I think it depends a lot on what you are looking to buy. I can often get a coin cheaper at aution than at a dealer, but those coins are usually not top tier quality or rarity. Those coins go for extreme prices at auctions nowadays, and I guess those are the coins you @johnmilton are looking for?

A somewhat disrupting trend has occured the recent years, however: Common coins like Corinthia staters and Thessaly drachms go 3-4 times over what I consider fair value. And Macedonian tets and Lysimachos tets sell really good too. It seems there are quite a lot of new buyers who want to fill a list of «100greatest ancient coins» or something. I noticed on the Roma auction that there were a lot of bids coming from China. I personally hope this trend wears off, but if there is a growing interest for ancient coins around the world, we may not be as spoiled in the future as we have been in the past, with respect to being able to buy 2000 year old coins in EF for lunch money....

 

I have only one Helena, and it is kinda gimpy.


RI Helena mother Constantine AE Follis Securitas Nicomedia mint 325-326 CE 19mm 3.3g RIC-95 Sear 16619



RI Constantine I AVG Follis Votive XX seated captives 2.69g 18mm RIC VII 191 London

 

This was a great watch, svessien. Thanks so much for posting.