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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;AncientJoe, post: 2705506, member: 44357&quot;]I had a wonderful week at the CCE, spending time with a few forum members and getting some early insights into upcoming auctions. The venue was beautiful and couldn&#039;t have been more convenient for me which is a nice change from needing to travel far to shows.</p><p><br /></p><p>As has already been discussed here, the auctions were a mix. I had a sizable number of coins consigned to the Gemini sale: the ones that sold, sold well but about 2/3rds went unsold. There is something to be said about momentum in an auction: comparable coins of some of the same types sold for very strong money the next day at Heritage. While it probably shouldn&#039;t, the &quot;feel&quot; in the room does have an impact on prices realized (for better or worse). I first assumed it might be tax time budgetary impacts but Heritage saw some incredible prices, so that can&#039;t be the sole factor.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;d also wager that photography makes a significant difference. My consigned coins looked better in the printed catalog than online but they look <i>far </i>better in-hand. I&#039;ve heard that HJB has taken the mentality of ensuring their customers are pleasantly surprised when they receive their coins; perhaps a middle ground could be reached with better but not idealized pictures. Some of the estimates were high but there were definitely deals to be had. That said, I think the new owners of some of my coins will be very happy, especially if they didn&#039;t have a chance to lotview themselves.</p><p><br /></p><p>But, in the end, one sale does not a market make. And, contrary to comments made in another thread, this was definitely not &quot;investor class is selling all the high end Greeks they bought during the economic downturn almost all at once&quot; - it was a comparably small sale - only about $1.8M in total estimate, or around 1/5th the size of an NAC sale. It would have to be several tens of millions of dollars of coins to indicate a firesale situation.</p><p><br /></p><p>Without further ado, the coins! These are my first attempts at photographing them and I will undoubtedly reshoot them again.</p><p><br /></p><p>Phanes trite: This series is among the earliest of coinage, and the first coins on which a legend appears, with the staters &quot;I am the badge of Phanes&quot;. This trite carries the more concise &quot;ΦANEOS&quot; in retrograde.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/itC3GYF.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Brutus denarius: I was offered this coin two years ago for almost 5x what I paid for it this week at Heritage. I&#039;d have to attribute this to a terrible picture, a slab which made for poor viewing conditions, and a lost pedigree which wasn&#039;t mentioned in the sale. I was quite happy to see it come back around and, needless to say, had a considerably higher bid than I ended up needing.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/hKOljyc.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>COL NEM: I have wanted an example of the popular Nemausus dupondius ever since I started collecting but since my more recent focus on quality over quantity, it&#039;s been very difficult to find the &quot;right&quot; coin. Not any longer! While this was only 1/10th the price of the Phanes trite and the type is probably 1000x more common, it&#039;s my favorite purchase of the week, again from Heritage and again with a terrible picture which didn&#039;t come close to showing the quality of the coin. Lotviewing is <i>well </i>worth the time.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/FSjkOzR.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Thanks for looking! Please post any related examples![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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