Heritage raised minimum value for coins to be in Signature auctions

Heritage has two types of auctions: weekly internet auctions and Signature auctions. Signature auctions are usually held in conjunction with large shows. Coins in Signature auctions fall into two classes: more expensive which are sold in live floor auctions and less expensive that are sold only on the internet. Coins sold only via the internet in Signature auctions get listed in the paper catalog (most without pictures) and on the Heritage website with pictures. Coins sold in weekly internet auctions are listed only on the website (with pictures).

Recently Heritage raised the bar for coins to enter a Signature auction to $1,000. I'm not sure what price guide they use. They used to have their own price guide, which I found to be accurate, and stated the value of coins to be auctioned using it and other price guides. Lately, they only state values from other price guides, but may still maintain their own for internal use.

I'm guessing they made this move in order to lower the cost of publishing paper catalogs. At some point, paper catalogs for all auction companies may disappear completely. I get a few, often don't look at them at all, and use auction websites. I download catalogs into my digital library for future reference. My book shelves are full enough without a bunch of coin catalogs that can be referenced more easily on my computer. I donate the paper catalogs to the local library, which sells them.

We'll see how coins that used to qualify for Signature auctions, but now don't, do in the weekly auctions. If you're considering consigning to Heritage, your coins need to worth at least 4 figures to make it into a Signature auction and paper catalog.

Cal

 

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Good to know. Thanks.

 

Interesting

 

They seriously are doing everything they can to ensure that I don't consign my coins to them. The $500-$1000 range is right in my wheel house for my upper end coins and I certainly don't want them in a Tuesday online only auction.

 

I wonder how much money they are spending on the booklets ? Not only are they pricey paper stock...in color....and glossy...but shipping them across the country a few times for FUN/Long Beach/ANA/Others must be pretty expensive.

If they only brought them and gave them out by request...or to high bidder VIP-types....they'd save some serious $$$.

The PLATINUM NIGHT book with the 1927-D is like an encyclopedia....tons of information on lots of items....sometimes multiple pages....and it's 500+ pages long !! The Heritage U.S. Coin Auction book has more items with shorter descriptions for the most part....400+ pages. The World Paper Money booklet is just over 200 pages; there was another book but I didn't get it.

I saw them at FUN -- and grabbed a few for myself -- and they EACH were 1-2" thick...in beautiful glossy paper....with tons of information on some of the coins, like the featured 1927-D Saint-Gaudens that went for $2 MM.

Printing those books -- they must have had a few thousand there -- may have been overkill. How many people were going to look at more than 5-10 items there in person via the book instead of the Website or the Hereitage App ?

I grabbed 3 of the books as a remembrance of my 1st FUN Convention, plus I was in attendnace as the 1927-D got auctioned (winning bidder was there, too).

I haven't gone through these books yet so no idea how many items ultimately sold for less than $1,000 but I venture if they lower the threshold they can cut back on the printing expense.

 

Maybe, maybe not. There can also be price savings by printing a lot, and a short print run can sometimes cost more than a longer one.

 

You've seen the books, right ?

I think they had 4 of them at FUN.....it's got to take alot of manpower (and womanpower ) to put the thing together....for just 1 coin and a few pages, there's history of the 1927-D Saint-Gaudens...nice photos....auction results in the past.....etc.

Even with alot of this stuff computerized and on PCs, it had to take tons of hours to put them together. Takes alot of time an $$$.

No wonder they need the 20% BP.

 

The photos and catalog descriptions are the same as those used in the online listings. So that money is already spent. You would need someone to organize the layout of the catalog but that isn’t enough to cause this change.

And yes, I have seen the books, I am a legacy client. I have hundreds of them. Honestly, I wish I could sell them on E-Bay.

 

The recent ones you are talking about, no. But I have seen similar catalogs. Now the thing is all that expense doing the research, the writing, the photos, the layout design etc is the same whether you print 100 copies or 10,000 copies. More copies means the cost is spread out over all of them.

 

Maybe for most of the listings...but for the featured items, there's alot more detail. The 1927-D, for instance, had a 1984 letter from some collector to Steve Duckor. 6 pages of stuff (ex-photos) which is way more than the online text comprised.

Good point.

They're a great source of data, sure you don't want to keep them ?

Is there a copyright thing against selling them on Ebay or you just don't want the bother?

I believe Heritage charges you if you ask for the catalogs to be mailed to your home for online auctions, unless maybe you're a Legacy/Preferred client ?

I was blown away by the quality of the catalogs at FUN, Lehigh.

 

Printing the things has to be expensive.

A club I belong to has a soft 8x11 pamphlet with maybe 20-25 pages of glossy photos/text and it costs us at least $2 each for printing. So the raw cost for those books has to be close to $50 each if it runs 400-500 pages (or it would cost that much approximately in the NY-NJ area). Maybe they use a very cheap source but the paper and photo quality are very high.

 

Well, I've won about a dozen items over the last 6 months (mostly currency but a few coins) and haven't gotten anything from them in the mail except an Intro Package with some 5x7" marketing book about coins/numismatics and estate planning, wills, cost basis, etc.

Only books I have I grabbed at FUN.

 

I'm pretty sure Heritage and other auction houses don't base the decision to send "free" catalogs on the number of coins purchased in the previous year. They base it on the dollars of business done with them in the previous year. You would not have to buy a single coin if you consigned 5 figures-worth of coins in the previous year in order to receive the catalogs. However, if you purchased five $100 coins, you'll probably get squat.

Cal

 

I received some squat, 1st Class Mail, sent from Heritage.

Seriously, I have spent a few thousand dollars and bid alot more. I guess, based on the VIP Lounge at FUN, that I need to be spending 5-figures or more with them.

 

Yeah, but they like my American Express card !!!!

 

They have a section of their website for catalog orders. The annual subscription for all of the US Coin catalogs is $175 (see link below).

Heritage Catalog Orders

I don't know what the monetary threshold is for getting free catalogs. In order to become a Legacy Client, you need to spend over $100K lifetime, but that isn't the threshold because I have been getting free catalogs since 2003 and I didn't reach the Legacy Client threshold till much later.

As it turns out, I was doing a little spring cleaning today and discovered my 2020 Long Beach catalogs still in their box. I unboxed them and put them on my bookshelf.

 

Spending untold thousands of dollars on marketing especially mass mailings is an un-necessary necessity in the minds of most Directors and Board members of any business and generally a huge line item. Somewhere along the line some geniuses have convinced annual budget-makers that it is the only way to get there issue before the eyes of the masses. Duh? the www? Until all of the old cronies in businesses have died off, nothing will change. Sounds eerily like politics........

 

Great, at my current rate of auction wins, I look forward to becoming a Legacy Client sometime in or about 2043 !!