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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Finn235, post: 7699088, member: 98035&quot;]I&#039;m not pretending to be privvy to the inner workings of how major auction houses sort through their lots, but I have been buying rarities from auction houses for a few years now. If I had the discipline to part with everything I said I was going to part with, it would be a reasonably profitable venture, even getting hit with a 20% markup from the seller and eBay&#039;s 14% cut on the way out. When an auctioneer is going through a lot that they&#039;ve been instructed to sell wholesale, I really don&#039;t know how many of them (if any) will call the consignor up and say &quot;Woah buddy this is a $300 coin - are you sure you want to sell it like this?&quot; Maybe because they have a guaranteed profit margin they simply don&#039;t care?</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ve noticed some trends between auction houses -</p><p><br /></p><p>Leu tends to take time to arrange the coins carefully to maximize the sale potential - placing coins carefully to hide culls or imperfections etc. I got burned by this a couple of times before I learned my lesson.</p><p><br /></p><p>CNG is the total opposite - they seem to have a policy of only photographing all of the coins if the lot has 10 or fewer coins, otherwise they choose a few at random and dump them out haphazardly. More than a few times &quot;and others&quot; meant $100+ coins that weren&#039;t photographed or even mentioned. I&#039;m usually pleasantly surprised.</p><p><br /></p><p>Roma and Naumann take good, high-resolution photos of both sides unless there&#039;s 30+ coins in a lot. Rarely do I get a surprise (good or bad) from them.</p><p><br /></p><p>All three have included incredible and rare coins in group lots - conversely I rarely find anything good in the more &quot;budget&quot; auction houses&#039; group lots, e.g. Savoca Blue, Zeus/Ares/Papillon/Demos etc. That makes me think that some houses do at least sift through the consigned large lots.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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