In the last to months I went to 2 coin auctions. People were paying $75 for Ef common date morgan and peace dollars. Someone bought a 1962 dime for $10 in AU condition. $150 for a beat up 1864l penny. $450 for a F 1914d penny. $20 for AU mercury dimes. And a grand for a ten dollar cornet in a common date when it was only worth $800 in gold. On top of all that you had to pay a 10% auction fee. Why do people over pay so much.
This topic comes up about once a week around here. I've seen it too. Auctions attract everybody including the uninformed. It seems the uninformed have more money than sense so you see the result. I've seen it too. Even though ebay is world wide, there's so much on there, that there may only be you and another person looking at a particular silver dollar. At an auction, you might have 10 to 20 people looking at one that have been standing around for hours waiting to get something. Nobody wants to go home empty handed. I think mostly people want to feel like they didn't waste their time there and simply want the gratification of taking something home and showing everybody else they can do it. The rest of us realize you may as well sit at home on ebay at your leisure. You can find better deals and they'll ship it to your door. Save your gas, time and money by staying home next time. It only takes one greedy person at an auction that doesn't know what they're doing. Guaranteed they are there at every one. The odds just aren't in your favor. I won't go to them. It's never a matter of "nobody here knows what something is so it goes cheap". It's always "Everybody thinks they know things are more valuable than what they are." It goes for more than just coins too.
Wow! I could get four or five at the moment for melt! they might even be MS, but I didn't pay attention to those when going through the "junk" silver.
Also someone payed $50 for a 1876cc dime and $1000 for a cleaned beat up 1876cc trade dollar. Both in horrible condition.
Many auction companies seed their auctions with material designed to draw bids from the gullible. We do not ordinarily have tutorials in how not to be deceived so we have an entire subculture designed to scam, deceive, lure people into buying what they do not need or overpay for things that the shrewd buyers would turn up their noses at! I think people could be undeceived with a nice cold shower, a few slaps to their clean-shaven faces, and a tough talk by experts equally as sharp as the auctioneers! But there isn't any money in it. We could do that all day long without earning a GD red cent!!! So why do it? It is so much more amusing to have people come to this and other sites sharing their miserable hard luck stories!!!:smile:yes::thumb:
I'd just like to point out how wonderful it would be to sell coins at this auction. My personal collection would become vastly improved...
I'm loading up for an auction in a couple of weeks... rolls of pre 1940 wheats, pre-1940 Canadian pennies, pre-1940 rolls of Canadian nickels, one pound bags of foreign, some world banknotes (duplicates of what I have) just to see what kind of moola I can make.
I spoke with an elderly gentleman who had bought an uncertified 1795 Flowing Hair dollar at an auction for $4000. He sent it to NGC, it came back VF details, scratched. I told him maybe he should try it at PCGS. The two scratches were old, and the humbling experience left him saying he just wanted to get his $4000 back on the auction purchase....I doubt he will be so lucky. No doubt the auctioneer knew what he was doing selling the coin raw.
This is part of the education you now have. Don't be upset that others are not knowledgeable, just be thankful that YOU ARE! Just don;t let your education go to waste by paying that much.
Very smart advice Marshall. The most recent auction I went to (and go to yearly) have many of the same collectors each time. THIS time a distant cousin was there selling a few misc. items that were not coins, but said he was there to "watch" items 1-72. Now understand this is a MASSIVE consignment auction that has 4 auctioneers selling at one time. Everything you can imagine is at this place. So back to the story, my cousin had coins 1-72 typed out with "minimum" bids. He was doing the SELLER a "favor" and protecting those coins! The SELLER was a helper with the coin auction so couldn't bid. This same guy had bid me up on several coins the year before.. bottom line......BUYER BEWARE......... grudge bidding and buying mad because that "one guy" keeps buying everything could very well be overpaying for a reason...and it's not because he like coins
There are many problems at auctions. 1. Bullion buyers who like to power trip. If a gold coin has a melt value of $200. Your bid is $180, they will outbid you by $15, even if they only make $5. I see this a lot. They do this to discourage you. Since they typically have thousands of dollars (yes most bullion buyers do). They will outbid you on a lot if silver and gold coins. You get discouraged from getting outbid and give up (well that's what they want you to do). Never go to an auction expecting silver or gold coins for less than melt. It RARELY happens. 2. People who have no clue what coins are worth. They are too cheap/lazy to purchase a redbook. While the rb is not the best price guide in the world, it gives you an idea. 3. Numismatists who are greedy. They are worse than the bullion buyers. Because not only do they buy silver and gold coins, they buy copper/brass/etc coins as well. There seems to be uber competition in coin buying. Or at least there is in my area. People who have $1000s try to run people up extremely high on several auctions, although this is a loss to them...they are hoping that they discourage the other person from coming back buy constantly outbidding. This happens a lot here. The dog-eat-dog competition has gotten so bad that it makes me turn to eBay for my coins most of the time. If it were a perfect system...say there is 100 coins at auction. 5 buyers. So each buyer picks out 20 coins they want. Each buyer gets a handful for a low price since they didn't have to outbid. Sadly as greed becomes a bad habit of a lot of buyers, the throat cutting keeps getting worse. Here is my #1 bit of advice: NEVER go to an auction expecting to buy something. If you see every coin there and think you will own it, you will be sadly mistaken. Basically go to an auction, see what stuff brings, and if the price is right, hope to win it. You cannot expect to get what you want every time.
Detecto..... When you go to an auction the first thing you do is go to the preview and examine the lots. This gives you the opportunity to look at the items closely. Then you go home and do your research and determine what you are willing to bid on them. At the auction, you bid to your maximum bid and that's it. If you get into a bidding war, that's money being burned. That's all there is to it. I've been to auctions where I didn't buy a single item that I had hoped to. At other times, I've bought almost the entire auction. (It was a book auction and no one seemed to know what the items were worth. - I made a killing in the end, lots of first editions). If I go to a "cash only" auction, I take $1,500 - $5,000 (depending on the auction) even though the items I want may only be a small fraction of that. You have to be ready for unexpected opportunities. (I bought a 18th century armoire for $1,200 and sold it three hours later for $2,500. It was carried over from the previous auction and not advertised for the one I attended). Go to auctions with a clear head. Drink de-caf. If you go with a chip on your shoulder, you're going to be disappointed. You can't win 'em all.
Sound, Sound advice! The preview is the most important part most times. I feel like I worry the crap out of the auction people looking at the coins, but when there are literally hundreds of dollars between grades, types, years, errors, etc., I want to get it right! Preferably the FIRST time.
