US Treasury Dept: confiscati... I mean auction
 

Re: US Treasury Dept: confiscati... I mean auction
 

Holy Crap, what a treasure! It looks like they went to a large coin shop and confiscated everything.

Re: US Treasury Dept: confiscati... I mean auction
 

Looks like they pinched a Canadian coin shop.

Re: US Treasury Dept: confiscati... I mean auction
 

Didn't pay their taxes or, money laundering. Those two will get you every time.

Re: US Treasury Dept: confiscati... I mean auction
 

ah, the irony. :banana:

Re: US Treasury Dept: confiscati... I mean auction
 

Crap, this is the wrong coast. I am on the East coast, so no joy for me. :favorites21: :cry:

The Great Ag

Re: US Treasury Dept: confiscati... I mean auction
 

Louisiana is a little distant, but honey I gotta go Ouest l'cote. A PM nuts wet dream, buying cheap stuff off the IRS.:applause_

Re: US Treasury Dept: confiscati... I mean auction
 

I'd love to sift through the silver dollars. The small beads 1966 variety is valued in the thousands, and could easily been slipped into an 80% bag by someone who wasn't looking for varieties.

In fact, I'd like to look through everything. There are probably dozens of coins of interest that most would miss.

Re: US Treasury Dept: confiscati... I mean auction
 

Funny how some of the lots show photos of a half-dozen silver coins or so, but then the fine print says "10 lbs" or more.

Re: US Treasury Dept: confiscati... I mean auction
 

Wow ! they take American Express.
http://treas.gov/auctions/treasury/g...ermsofsale.pdf

it is a lot of nice stuff, BUT - in a way it's stolen property. stolen by the US gov.

one other note - on one of the lots labelled as all silver, the coin shown is a non-silver date. i understand that if you're processing 100,000+ coins that minor mistakes will be made, but - to what extent can you trust the US Treasury to accurately label the auction lots ?

i can only conclude that DYDD applies doubly here ... which means that to bid, you have to make that lovely drive to Riverside.

Re: US Treasury Dept: confiscati... I mean auction
 

That's how they got Al Capone!

Re: US Treasury Dept: confiscati... I mean auction
 

In an auction like this, how do they allow inspection of the goods ?

I've been to electronics auctions where you were allowed to wonder un-escorted around the warehouse. But I can't imagine they would allow that in a situation like this.

On the other hand, it's logical that they would allow some sort of inspection.

So I'm thinking, they have employees that escort customers and the way the logistics works out, you have a Treasury Dept. employee (or whoever that manages the auction) who walks around the warehouse with groups of customers.

so, I wonder in that situation - what if you want to weigh the box yourself ? Will they let you do that if you bring your own scale ?

I don't see how it could work logistically to allow customers to sort through the coins with their hands, too many sticky fingers.

But - how about eye-balling & rolling the box around to make sure there's not a bunch of clad coins stashed under a layer of silver coins ? "Swish it around", so to speak.

Ultimately I would imagine part of the answer lies with the individuality of the Employee who leads these tours. Some will be more tight-ass than others.

Anyway, any enlightenment on the inspection process at an auction like this would be most appreciated.

OH YEAH ... a question about the "remote bidding".

They let you make a bid by mail, where you send in a cashier's check along with your bid.

Let's say it's lot #43, 100 Canadian Dollars, Silver, 80% Silver that is ... according to the auction document.

That makes the math easy. Loonie Silvers are .6 troy ounces each. 100 Canadian Silver Dollars = 60 troy ounces silver. So you bid accordingly, let's say you do a mail in bid for 1/2 the silver value, $8 per coin, $800 total.

Then - how do they work that into the auction ?

Normally, in an auction, and part of what makes them worthwhile, is they start at a low price. And then work up to a much higher price through sequential bids.

So is there another auction employee who monitors the bidding activity & raises the flag or whatever when the mail-in bids they're holding are the high bid of that particular lot ?

Or, do they start the bidding at the highest mail-in bid ? That seems like a total waste for the personal who mails in the bid. 90% chance or better that they'll be out-bid, and they have to let the Federal government hold their CASH for a month - or until those oh so nice Fed's return the cashier's check.

I'm having a little trouble understanding how they work mail-in bids into an auction scenario. I've seen real estate auctions where people can participate on the internet, so I guess there one of the auction employees is monitoring the web-access bids.


PS they do start the bidding at the highest mail-in bid.