My first Coin Auction & 90% purchase
 

I went to my first ever coin auction today.
I didn't know what to expect & here are my first impressions.

I initially saw the add in the newspaper & was interested because a few gold pieces were listed as well as 90% silver lots.
The preview was at 3:00 so I dropped by to check it out. It doesn't look like much when you walk in. About (8) 8foot folding tables were covered with coins & maybe 10 oldsters were checking out the coins with their loupes & redbooks.

I'm only about 3 years into bullion & am clueless as to numismatics, so I did a quick search on ebay for closed auctions on the gold coins for recent sales & came up with a value I thought the gold might bring. I left & ran some errands & came back at 5:00 for the auction start time.

Now the room was full of about 125 oldsters. (maybe 10 were 30yrs or younger, & 3 women)
Everyone looked pretty intense/serious. Not a lot of good ole boy joking like at estate sales etc.

I bid on all silver bullion lots , but quit at $19.00 per ounce. (Eagles brought $22.00 & proofs more)

The gold I couldn't touch:

1911 $2.50 Indian Unc. $270.
1908 $2.50 Indian MS61 NGC $410.
1907 $20. Liberty $1375.

I did however bid on & buy my first ever 90% silver.

6 separate lots of mostly $10.00 bags of Roosevelt dimes.
Total face value bought $43.90
My average price paid was about $11.50 per dollar face.
Coinflation.com tells me I over paid a bit as melt is $11.14 per dollar face.

In PA no sales tax is collected on coin auctions.

My average buy price should have been a little better because one of my bags was short counted.
While marked 26 dimes, It only contained 16. (all the larger bags were accurate)
Next time I will count before I depart.

Re: My first Coin Auction & 90% purchase
 

Well, you got some, with the recent dip dealers have been reluctant to go under 12 times face.:wavey:

Re: My first Coin Auction & 90% purchase
 

"...My average price paid was about $11.50 per dollar face.
Coinflation.com tells me I over paid a bit as melt is $11.14 per dollar face."

A point of discord in grandma's & my marriage. She loves to go to auctions...is willing to sit for hours waiting for something to go on the block that she's interested in.

Not me...and in my 50-years of off & on auction experience, more than 95% percent of the time items I want are bid beyond what they're worth....which equals beyond my common sense = go home without them. And this is particularly true of bullion and jewelry (melt) gold and silver bullion, coin, and sterling tableware and other items together with coins.

IMO a person can't beat a local dealer who has decent prices and sells out the door cash & carry - no name or other paper work. If I were a gambler I'd bet that minimally the auctioneer got your name, address, and driver's license #, together with a permanent list of what items you purchased. Forget "won"..."nobody "wins" anything at an auction. The term is an old auctioneer's scam that psychologically implys getting something for free. Bull! The only way a person gets anything at an auction is when s/he is willing to pay for an item, more than anybody present and anybody who is absent but left a bid with the auctioneer (called a "left" bid).

Too, think what constructive things you might have done with the time you sat listening to items you wanted being bid out of reason.

All this said, you did ok in dollars traded at 11.5 x face value for 90%. Coinflation's amounts are a bit high..they quote amounts for uncirculated (.723.4 oz. of silver per dollar face vs. .715 oz. per dol. face) coins...and forget about spot. 90% hasn't generally traded at spot for some time now. Dealers have been paying other dealers more than spot for good 90%, and many now price differently W-L, Franklin, and Kennedy halves, and Wash. quarters, and Merc. & Roos. dimes.

A good local dealer with whom you have established raport will let you dump 90% out of a bag onto the counter and pick out what specific coins you want.

Locate and establish raport with as many local dealers as you can.


...I am not a dealer - never have been and never will be.

Re: My first Coin Auction & 90% purchase
 

Listen to the WISDOM above - take it all in - and smell the roses and the coffee.

Goldminer GOLD 101 - the BEST instructor - bar NONE! :23_28_100s:

Re: My first Coin Auction & 90% purchase
 

Do they charge a buyers premium like they do at estate auctions?

Re: My first Coin Auction & 90% purchase
 

No Buyer's premium at this auction.

In my area, about 1/4 of the auctions (storage unit, estate, industrial, whatever) charge 10% buyers premium.

It seems the auctioneers make their own policy in that regard.