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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Roerbakmix, post: 6626849, member: 100731&quot;]I took the liberty to redo the calculations, taking into account:</p><p>1) inflation, using data from <a href="https://www.in2013dollars.com/switzerland/inflation/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.in2013dollars.com/switzerland/inflation/" rel="nofollow">https://www.in2013dollars.com/switzerland/inflation/</a> </p><p>2) standardizing to number of coins per auction</p><p>3) bids per coin</p><p><br /></p><p>Overall, Leu held 15 Web Auctions, starting June 2017:</p><p>2017 - 2 auctions</p><p>2018 - 4 auctions</p><p>2019 - 4 auctions</p><p>2020 - 4 auctions</p><p>2021 - 1 auction</p><p><br /></p><p>In these auctions, a total of 29.250 coins were auctioned for a total of 10.045.252 CHF, on an estimate of 3.049.685 CHF (average ratio hammer:estimate 3.29, meaning that, on average, every coin hammers at 3.29 times the estimate). These 29.250 coins attracted a total of 208.322 bids, which resulted in an overall average percentage sold coins of 96.5%. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>First, the correct graph showing the data corrected for inflation:</b></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1267515[/ATTACH] </p><p>This graph is obviously very similar to the graph posted here before. The cumulative price change of 2017 to 2021 is 2.04% (meaning that every CHF of 2017 is now worth 1.0204 CHF). In other words, the increase is flattened just a little bit compared to Leu&#039;s graph. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>Second, the data standardized for number of coins per auction</b>.</p><p>Obviously: including more coins in an auction will result in a higher gross hammer price. For this graph, I divided the hammer price (corrected for inflation) by the number of coins in the auction, and the estimated price (corrected for inflation) by the same number of coins included in auction:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1267516[/ATTACH] </p><p>Now this is somewhat different! First, the average hammer price per coin stays more or les stable over time (between 256 CHF and 437 CHF), but the average estimated price per coin decreases over time (from 170 CHF in the first auction to 82 CHF in the final auction).&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p><b>Next, lets look at the number of bids per coin</b></p><p>Leu might show a graph like this, illustrating the explosive interest in their coins!</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1267518[/ATTACH] </p><p>... however, if we again standardize to the number of coins included in the auction:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1267520[/ATTACH] </p><p>... then, this effect is less exaggerated, with an average of 6.88 bids/coin. If we exclude the first two auctions (when Leu was the new kid on the block), the number of bids per coin was 7.19, which is not that much less than the 8.46 average bids per coin during the COVID pandemic. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>Finally: what would be the correct graph?</b></p><p>In this final graph, I combine above graphs:</p><p>1) prices corrected for inflation</p><p>2) standardized for the number of coins included in the auction</p><p>Thus, we get a ratio of the estimated and hammered price, corrected for inflation <b>per coin included in the auction:</b></p><p><b>[ATTACH=full]1267523[/ATTACH] </b></p><p><br /></p><p><b>What does this learns us?</b></p><p>1) Estimated prices remain low and even decrease over time, regardless of &#039;the high demand for antique coins during the pandemic&#039;. High demand would result in higher estimated prices, yet estimates have only dropped since the first Leu auction (except for one auction, auction 4). </p><p>2) Hammer prices indeed increased, but less dramatically so than Leu wants you to believe</p><p>3) The number of bids have increased as well, but only marginally so</p><p><br /></p><p>This little exercise demonstrates how easy it is to play with data. None of these graphs are faulty, but they all present part of reality. Still, even a graph presenting data corrected for inflation and standardized for the number of coins auctioned, is incomplete: the higher demand may well be explained by higher quality collections auctioned. Ask yourself: would you auction your top-dollar collection to a company that only just started selling ancients? (As an epidemiologist, I would be hesitant to sell my coins to a company that incorrectly displays their data, though). </p><p><br /></p><p>Next, it may well be that the <i>composition</i> of the auction differed: e.g. Greek coins usually attract less bidding than Roman coins. A better analysis would be to standardize on quality of the coins, the type (ie. Roman, Greek, Celtic, etc.) and known provenance, amongst others. </p><p><br /></p><p>In conclusion: prices of Leu may have increased, but less dramatically than Leu wants us to believe. We really don&#039;t know what caused it.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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