CNG revealing all proxy bids

There's an entire spectrum to choose from and ultimately their preferences will determine what governs a significant enough difference to justify keeping/acquiring.

In US collecting, some people collect by die state... taking this to the n'th degree, that would need to include every single coin for completeness!

 

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This may be a bit too philosophical (but as freedom has been touted here, I don’t care).
Limitations creates opportunities. Ok, so us ordinary people were outbid on 70% of the coins. I’m usually outbid on 99.9-100%. I have to find the way to numismatics that is open to me. In many ways that can be more interesting than to be able to buy whatever you like. On the rare occasion where I can buy something flashy, it feels bloody miraculous. It’s often a result of research and patient poaching too, so it even feels a little «deserved».
The saxophone player Jan Garbarek rose to fame during the freebag years of jazz in the 70s and early 80s. At that time, playing «whatever you want» was the new big thing. From the mid 80s he changed style completely, staying inside the far more limited pentatone scale. He explained that he felt more freedom and more meaning when operating within set borders. I think that relates to many areas of life. I don’t think I would have been a happier coin collector if I could have bought any coin I wanted. I know there’s always one more coin with my name on it out there, that’s good enough for me.
My experience is that all auctions have their «blackout» moments, where a room full of wealthy people don’t bid on a great coin. That’s when the poor man has to be ready with his paddle and victoriously take it home.

 

I guess it depends on what you consider to be "absurd" prices. The competition for the very best Republican silver is at least as fierce as it is for top Seleucid. My pockets are distinctly finite, but I am willing to seriously compete for the top coins. I'm able to win probably 75% of the coins I seriously target.

Phil Davis

 

I used to as well. But the prices seen in the last few years (And the last few months have rocketed) have gone up 5 to 15 times for the same coins. No way I can compete any longer.

 

Markets change. I used to buy early Thai coins but then the market caught up with me and priced them out of what I wanted to pay. I collect many areas, and move back and forth as relative prices change. Many here I am sure would be horribly mad if they were Roman Egypt collectors before the mid 90's when they went parabolic.

No Constitutional right to collect anything. If prices in one area go crazy, find something else like I do I guess, and covet what you already own.

 

I don't know that any of these collectors are collecting by die. But I think die varieties are fair game. Like you, I collected incuse coinage by die variation. When I sold my collection I had just over 100 different coins from Magna Graecia. But I never collected by die. I suspect there are as many collector themes as there are coins for many series. I just think we've placed way to much blame on a couple collectors who aren't frankly impacting many of us directly. I might add I don't think either of them are collecting Roman by die control marks. One doesn't collect Roman at all. The other has a Roman collection that is fairly complete.

 

How is that even possible?

 

Its possible. There are more coins out there than you think. All coins for sale in the last decade MIGHT be 1% of the population in collections sir. I know a man, @MSG 78 probably knows him, I know Vic England did, who has been collecting since the 60's on a DR salary. He has a XF Eid Mar, FDC lifetime JC portrait, one of the most complete Roman Egypt collections in the world, (rivaling Kerry Wetterstrom's), and just THOUSANDS of high end Greek. That is just one US collector. Think about all of the stuff sitting in old European collections.

Heck, for my little humble collection I have AU/BU SL halves by the dozens that hasn't been for sale for 30 years now, an AMERI.chain cent, etc, and this is stuff I haven't looked at in decades. Not to mention my ancient stuff, 99% of which I never post here.

 

Has this really happened more than very occasionally Mike? I've never bid online in a Heritage sale, but I have done it often enough in NAC and elsewhere. I've never once had the system enter more than I intended to bid. Maybe it's more likely if you're hoping to psych-out the room by waiting till the last nano-second before hitting Bid? (Moral: Don't do that!)

Phil Davis

 

Clio probably bought some thousands of roman coins, that's how...

 

This has happened to me several times on auctions this year. I have noticed as my finger is almost at the bid button that it «glitches», and when I hit bid, it registeres as 2 increments up from before. It is because someone bid the nano-second before me, I believe.

One thing that makes me less enthusiastic about the current coin rush, and I wasn’t too happy about it to begin with, is that I think starting bid has increased for quite ordinary material. Looking at the upcoming vcoins auction for example, it’s just very uninspiring. Auctioneers ought to have the cojones to set starting bids low. At least in such a bullmarket.

 

The critical question would be what percentage of ancient coin sales goes through public auctions and which via private unrecorded sales. Where did your coin goblin get those thousands of high end coins from?

 

Well, like I said I know the two largest private collections of Seleucids were bought in their entirety privately. That should give you an idea.

 

I'm bidding in the CNG auction that ends tomorrow. I had to enter three bids in the course of 1 minute to get to "winning bid" status on the same coin, during which time the price doubled. Curious to see what will happen in the next 18 hours. It is an exceptional coin, though.

 

That's my point. There are so many coins out there how can one collector ever have a complete collection. An example of every single coin. Mind boggling!

 

Thank you for relaying this @ab initio

I'll go with this explanation on face value. This process needs to be worked out in the future and clearly Mike & CNG are committed to fixing it.

 

Obviously it's impossible for some coins for which only a couple of examples are known, like the two of Silbannacus, unless one of these people happens to be the owner of the one that's apparently in private hands! But I think it's close to impossible as a practical matter even if you exclude such coins. Does anyone have a rough estimate of how many different Roman coin types supposedly exist? Sear lists close to 22,000 in his five volumes, and ERIC II lists more than 60,000. I don't know how many are listed in all the volumes of RIC, many of which are decades out of date. And then if you started adding all the known Roman Provincial coins, how many more would that be?

And, of course, any answer depends on how you define "different." What if you started counting every difference between two dies and every different die combination as a separate type (as in differentiating how much, if any, hair does Marcus Aurelius have on his chin in a given example of RIC III Antoninus Pius 429A [see the discussion at https://www.cointalk.com/threads/be...portraits-under-single-catalog-number.354332/] -- going well beyond draped vs. draped and cuirassed vs. draped on the far shoulder vs. draped on the near shoulder vs. "seen from behind" vs. "seen from the front," which some people think goes too far to begin with? Then there would be hundreds of thousands of "different" Roman coin types. Not even a billionaire could live long enough to track all of them down!

 

At first I thought we might just add up all the final numbers in RIC and add a few thousand for those not in RIC but some of us care for officinae sets and the new RIC V online update has several times the coins listed in the original (famous for lumping together a dozen variations of one number. I would never use the word complete but I do know a few collections I would term 'comprehensive' which I would define as all anyone would want without being a specialist. After all who in their right mind would like to have all the Eastern denarii of Septimius Severus that maridvnvm has except myself (clearly not in my right mind).

 

I forgot about adding all the possible different coins from the various officinae. Wildwinds tends to number them separately, but I don't think RIC did.

 

Sheesh...

What a spoiled bunch. Ancient coin collecting used to be considered the hobby of primarily kings/royalty.

Don't like the current economics of the ancient coin market? Raise an army and become a king/queen. Otherwise, be content with the scraps plebs.