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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 3085025, member: 19463&quot;]A sales method I have not seen for quite a while was once more common at shows.&nbsp; The seller would have a bag of similar coins, lets say denarii of the third century.&nbsp; They were offered at, lets say, $20 each you pick or five for $75 if you took what he pulled from the bag without looking.&nbsp; There was no guarantee or refund if you did not like the blind picks.&nbsp; Usually there was also a lower price each if you took all that were left in the bag.&nbsp; I usually took the high price option and selected coins that appealed to me.&nbsp; A beginner who had no coins of that description might do better taking the five.&nbsp; Today, would there be any demand for blindly picked ancients?&nbsp; Would you be interested in coins knowing that the bag had a lot of Gordians, a few Philips and two or three women from that era mostly in VF or better but no real dogs?&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>eBay had a sales option 20 years ago called Dutch Auction.&nbsp; The seller would show a pile of coins, lets say 35.&nbsp; Bidders would say, &#039;I&#039;ll take 3 at $20&#039; or &#039;I&#039;ll take one at $10&#039;.&nbsp; After the sale, the bids would be examined and the most expensive would be pulled at random by the seller (you had to trust him).&nbsp; When it got down to coin 35 - last one in the group, the price to everyone was set by the bid on that last coin.&nbsp; People who bid less got nothing.&nbsp; If you bid on 35, your offer would set the price for the bunch so you would pay a lot more.&nbsp; On group of 35 had a coin I really wanted so I bid $30 on 34 of the coins hoping that the next bid would be low.&nbsp; It was $10 so I bought 34 for $340 and the other bidder bought one for $10.&nbsp; He might have bid on more or even all 35 but he only got one.&nbsp; I was betting with the odds that the coin I wanted would be in the 34 not in the one pile.&nbsp; That was a nerve racking day.&nbsp; Soon I got a note from the seller saying that the buyer of one really, really wanted the Elagabalus in the lot and would I mind if he sent it to him rather than doing a blind draw.&nbsp; The coin I wanted was a Domna so I agreed and got my coin and 33 others of which I immediately resold 27 for less than $10 each.&nbsp; Since then, I have sold a couple of the others but I gained a few acceptable (to me) denarii and the one I wanted.&nbsp; We no longer see sales like this.&nbsp; I would love to know if the buyer of the Elagabalus still collects and still wants that coin.&nbsp; Can you imagine sales like this working today?&nbsp; I can&#039;t. I know sellers that I would trust but I suspect the concept would strike enough people as a lottery that it would be called illegal gambling now.&nbsp; Most coins offered in this way were all the same in someone&#039;s mind - wheat cents, war nickels etc.&nbsp; The concept did not fit ancients as well but those were the early days of eBay and details of how things worked were still being worked out. </p><p><br /></p><p>How could we now sell ancients not worth individual attention?&nbsp; Is there another way?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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