Now THAT'S an auction catalog!

Unexpectedly received this in the mail today. Huge, hard-bound catalog with a dust jacket and a silk ribbon bookmark, full-color. I have no idea how much it cost to print and distribute these, but I'm not the well-heeled collector they think I am.

 

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I just received my copy yesterday. I doubt I'll have any money to spend at that auction, but I have to agree, it's a gorgeous catalog!

 

Just opened mine. Quite impressive.

 

ha! I was shocked to get one, too

 

Very nice, top notch stuff.

 

I got the first one. Hopefully I will get this one too.

 

I bet they make for great reference material.

 

That's an overkill. They should probably target to consign better coins rather than investing on fancy paper catalogues. The vast majority of greek coins are mid-class and the more rare ones have several technical defects.

 

printing costs depends on qty, printing is very cheap, only to make the machines ready is expensive, so how more you print the cheaper, this catalog cost around 50 cents, yes so cheap, the printing business is a difficult business with much competion

 

Maybe I'm missing something here, but my impression is that these fancy paper catalogues help to attract buyers as well as consignors to an auction house. Certainly, if I were wanting to sell my best coins, I would look for an trusted auction house who would also give them their best sale presentation.

I was going to respond seriously to this incredibly sweeping statement, but then, I realised that I simply couldn't take it seriously. Sorry .

 

Please do. When the most common word in the catalogue is "otherwise" you can't claim top quality. See the most highly estimated ones: no101 is full of scuffs, no77 is off center, no 76 is smoothed, no57 is smoothed, no 63 arethusa looks like she got chicken pox and the charioteer's head is smashed, no65 the flan is almost split in two because of the intrusive crack. Even the most common Athenean tet is full of horn silver. Compare to NAC/NOMOS/CNG/ROMA etc. The catalogue is a definite overkill and I am sure it comes at the expense of higher consignment fees and buyers' commission.

 

You should. I got mine over the weekend. Looking forward to finding the time to sit down with it.

 

Where do I subscribe to get auction catologs?

 

I deal with several European houses, but I ask them not to send paper catalogs. They were fun to get for many years, but they quickly begin to pile up. I'm content with online images, which I archive in Word docs when needed, and tend to skip sales that aren't online. When it comes to important writeups, referential value is easier to store electronically in isolated files then it is to recall which of the 100 catalogs on the second shelf has the notes I'm after.

Reference books are a different matter, but that's another story.

 

I can't argue with your comments on those lots as, indeed, most of the issues are actually noted in the catalogue descriptions for those coins. On the other hand, I would be surprised if any of those lots would somehow "not make the grade" for a NAC/NOMOS/CNG/ROMA print auction if the coins had been consigned to them. If you're suggesting that they're somehow not worthy of being featured in a catalogue like the one Leu produced for their customers, well, I guess I'm just glad that there are venues happy to offer "mid-class" coins to mid-class folks .

As far as I know, all of those auction houses you mention have 20% buyers' commission for their print auctions, same as Leu. I don't know what Leu's consignment fees are, but if you're quite sure they're higher, perhaps you could share the information with us.

 

For many years when I was younger, I benefited from knowing people who looked at past auction catalogs as scrap paper that piled up and cluttered their lives. I learned a lot from the catalogs they gave me. Later, I started getting catalogs of my own because I started bidding and winning a few coins in sales. I still took the cast offs that were offered me. Today, I will not be in any danger of getting this catalog since I do not bid in European auctions but I would pick up any catalogs for those sales that turn up at the coin club 'free' table.

I suspect that there are those here who would pay postage (not International) for a flat rate box full of things that have piled up at some of our houses.

In my case, the piles might include books, too. There are books in my attic that strike me as worth less than the postage to send them to someone across the state. I wish there were a way to distribute such things to the people currently at a level that they might appreciate them but the only winner I see here is the post office. Some of us have sold coins through John Anthony's auctions but sending books to him to resend to someone else would only make sense for books of the value I am not yet ready to get rid of. Is there an answer? I can't bring myself to put piles of old price lists and books in the recycle bin but that may be where they must go.

 

Like me. I brought home two boxes of these last week. Although I saved postage by picking-up the lot!

 

Where do I get some of these. I may not purchase a coin but I would love to read them

 

I received mine too. It’s very well done. I look forward to reading more tonight.

 

The catalog doesn't cost $0.50 each...it's basically a hardcover book with high-end glossy paper.

The cheapest a softcover catalog would cost is about $2; with 300 pages like some of the ones I have it might be $5 or so for top-end glossy paper.

Hardcover might run $10-$15 depending on the # of pages.

Softcover vs. hardcover....number of pages....paper type (I assume most are glossy paper for the color photos)....and print run (a few hundred ? Or a few thousand ?)....those all determine the cost per catalog.