CNG 463 auction your feeling ?

I followed the same auction. Did you wake at 4AM to place a bid? I did only to find my max bid was well below the hammer for all the lots I watched. I did sneak in one bid before it went above my max. I wondered if the Berlin coin show closing increased interest in online auctions.

https://www.kitco.com/news/2020-02-28/Berlin-ITB-trade-fair-canceled-due-to-coronavirus.html

I followed cast bronze in both auctions. I think the market in both auctions was strong. There were not many Aes Grave coins, but that is not unusual. I bought some in other auctions, and coins sold above and below recent history. The CNG aes formatum cake, 1750 gr, hammered for $850. GM's cast bars, 1414 gr, hammered for 1025 euro. Both are above my chart of aes wt vs price, see below.

Buying at a fair price is a function of how often an item comes to market, what the seller is willing to take and competition for the item. Most of what I want only hits the markets I watch a few times per decade. I then get to decide if I have the resources to buy the item.

 

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I live in Europe, so I could sleep past 4am
I bought coins today at a lower price than I bought similar coins for 15 years ago. I agree with what you say above, but what I believe has changed is that more material is available now. Hence lower prices.

I also have an impression that you find better material in large lots now. Or I have become a better buyer, who knows.

 

As more dealers increase the minimum price they have for handling a coin, we should see more expensive coins grouped. The price of decent VF coins has not increased as much in the last decade as has the premium for EF specimens so a collection full of what used to be 'nice' coins will include more items not worth paying the minimum charge for handling. Some sellers will sell a $50 coin but they will charge $40 to do it so the number consigned will drop. If I have 500 denarii of one ruler each worth $50 retail, it may be hard to find a dealer interested at any price. If I have one coin worth that same $25k, there will be a line waiting to buy it. For some of us, large lots may start looking better as fewer people sell those coins individually.

 

I think you nailed at least one aspect there, Doug.
Another thing is that coin collectors is an aging segment. I don’t know if the number of ancient coin collectors increase as much as the coin supply increases.
I bought this lot for 130 euro plus % a few weeks ago:


And this for 260, illustrating the point that Doug was making:




So it seems like supply trumps demand for gVF coins and cheaper EF coins. The top tier coins will remain expensive for now, though.
Being a coin collector, my hopes and feelings toward this are different than if it was the stock market.

 

Most of dealers are aging too with big stocks that they want to sell particularly common dinarii. So doug is really in the reality. Good VF or near EF will be sold more and more on group.

 

Actually, it has always been that way. When I started collecting 50+ years ago, I was aware that there were coins that I simply would not ever own but I felt that it was OK to be interested in ancient coins. Back then the coins I could not own were medallions (I would love to have one of the bimetallic types), extreme rarities (like the Phanes, Carausius triple bust and Noah's Ark coins) and the extremely rare fleur de coin examples of rare coins that I might afford in normal grades. Today, the list of coins known to me to exist has grown and the inflation of price for high grade coins means now I am aware of more coins I can't expect to own BUT the number of coins available to me has also grown. Unfortunately many of those coins have been declared to be uncollectable junk by so many people and costs of doing shows or running a store front has made it harder for underfunded collectors to start in the hobby.

As far as I'm concerned, the hobby needs a way to get the new, the young and the poor together with the supply of decent, midgrade coins that are easy to read (not uncleaned blobs) and educational. I have no problem with those who have money to support dealers who charge a minimum of $40 to handle a coin but I hope we find a way for FFIVN and his generation to spend his allowance on coins like those shown by svessien (several of which I would love to have).

 

It will be very interesting to follow the development of my daughter and her generation, collecting-wise. Collecting is in our blood, and I see them collecting stones that they find beautiful, clothing that they have grown out of, but are connected to memories, etc. The question is, however, will they collect coins? What will their connection to coinage be? We hardly spend coins any more, and if we do, the coinage is rather ugly. I imagine they will reinvent collecting, suited to their generation. Until they discover the wonderful world of numismatics, that is. Coin collecting will never die, I'm sure, but we may have a decline in interest for a while, like the stamp collecting is doing now.
I guess the market will influence this too. If coins become cheaper, the entry will be even easier.

Svein

 

The stamps market drop a lot even for classical stamps except the 5 or 6 figures ones. Stamps under catalog price under 500 USD have no more value than 10 % or 12 % of the catalog and you can find them even at 8%. Very high exceptional quality stay stable around 40 % and even for some top ones over the catalog price particularly stamps before 1914.

old and new collectors switch to postal history not stamps.