Great Collections Bidding Process

I am interested in trying out Great Collections as they have some coins I am interested in. Up until now I have made almost all of my purchases on EBay and Heritage. I haven’t had problems with either, but have read a lot of good feedback about GC. Also the fees on Heritage are a real killer when adding 15 or 20 bucks for shipping on top of sales tax.

My specific question is in regards to the bidding process, as I wasn’t able to get a clear picture from their website. Does it work like EBay where the auction ends at a specific time and you have to anticipate how much someone else might bid at the last second? Or is it a live format like Heritage where you have a chance to increase your bid if outbid?

 

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The bidding ends for a specific coin at a specific time, the time is in the listing. However, eBay maintains a live feed so you see all changes automatically and in real time (subject to the speed of your internet connection). GC does not maintain a live feed. If you want to update the information, you must refresh the feed. Other than that, you can snipe all you want.

 

GC also charges a 12% buyers fee and taxes.

 

A small nit: It's 12% if you pay with a credit card or PayPal. It's 10% if you send a check, MO, or wire transfer. Shipping fees are not bad but they exist and might be important in the case of low-cost coins.

Very nice, attentive and business-like people to deal with. I have participated in and won numerous auctions and have never had any cause for complaint.

 

I appreciate the help! Just a couple follow up questions:
1. Is the buyers fee added on afterwards to the amount shown in your bid, or is it already figured in?
2. How soon after the item ends can you find out if you won it?

 

1) Buyers Premium (BP) is always added after the final auction bid (also called the "Hammer" price). So are all other costs such as shipping, handling and taxes.
2) You will know immediately if you won.

I have won a bid and paid for it within 60 seconds after the end of the auction.

Dive in on something of relatively low cost to get a feel for how it works.

 

If you win, do you have to pay your max bid or does it adjust to the increment above next highest bidder?

 

It will only increment to the next higher bid, not your max bid.

 

Thanks everyone! I’ll give it a try.

 

Great Collections is awesome.

 

Well, I just made my first purchase and I’m very happy with it! It’s a type I’ve been wanting for a long time that doesn’t come up problem free very often in my price range. Not a low value item, so I’m grateful for your advice prior to bidding.

 

I am confused, if this your “first purchase” why do you ask for our “advice prior to bidding”? It looks nice, but my min grade for any coin is VF30. If I can’t afford a VF example then I’d have to sell some coins first or forget about this type of coin.

 

Nothing to be confused about, he asked for information about GC and how they handle things and bid on a coin he wanted.

 

Yes, I just wasn’t sure about GC’s process as opposed to HA or EBay as those are the only auction venues that I have used until now. My questions weren’t regarding any specific coins.

I guess we all have different minimum standards for grades and they are all relative. For me it’s good or better in a straight graded first world holder. For some people fair details holed and harshly cleaned may be okay, while others may not touch the same coin below MS65...

I think I may start using GC more often as I love the low fees and the bidding is very transparent. Their software seems more bare bones and therefore less subject to bid sniping although I may be wrong.

 

Their official stance is sniping programs are blocked, whether or not one has found a backdoor I have no idea.

I personally never understood the bad rep that sniping gets in auctions. If someone beats you at the last second with a bid and the person was willing to big higher, they should have had a higher max in already. You can also still snipe by hand even when programs are blocked. A lot of the times people set the programs to just bargain hunt anyway which is a win for everyone as opposed to things really really selling low

That said I would definitely keep looking at GC and eBay and all the others. There's really nothing to lose besides some time looking over all of them as a buyer and if really just limits themselves if they ignore one.

 

I've only had good experiences bidding at GC. First rate customer service.

 

I have nothing against sniping per se but it makes the process a bit more stressful. Although sometimes the stress makes it more fun. There are lots of different ways to design the game and all of them can maximise prices in their own way.

 

To me the programs could make it less stressful. Say someone has an interest in multiple items that end at basically the same time but they only want to bid at the last second. That can basically be impossible by hand, but a program could get it done.

I'm really just a proponent of allowing all bidding options if I can't see any significant advantage of doing so. If multiple people snipe the high bid between them wins, if someone didn't put their fully high bid in normal bidding that's on them, hand bidding you can only have so many windows open at once especially on venues where things are ending at identical times and so on.

 

That is a disadvantage come to think of it. I found that I had to choose between coins of the same type due to them ending a few seconds apart and could only bid on one. I don’t have the funds to win multiple coins that are a grand a pop.

 

That's really my objective to banning them when people then have to choose, and if they lose the one would have gone to the other but time ran out and they can't. I do wish some of the stuff was spaced a little better time wise on some sites too. While this post won't change anything I do think there could be improvements that help all sides.

I'd definitely be open to hearing why a program shouldn't be allowed, but I really struggle to find a reason for it especially since I think the sites that ban it would be even better with it. As an example whether buying (could be in on more things), or selling (possible/most likely higher price), and of course the site where higher prices are higher fees so it's a win win win for the most part all around