May 18, 2012

Proxiblog this week was sponsored by

Leonard Auction

(Check out Leonard Auction Coin and Currency sale on Proxibid, scheduled Friday, May 18, at 6 p.m. central time. )

Leonard Auction, located in Addison, Illinois, is a premiere Chicago auction house and estate liquidation firm that has won multiple awards on Proxiblog in such categories as photography, lot descriptions, consignments and overall best house. Leonard Auction also has detailed consignment policies that secure some of the best coin lots on the Proxibid portal. The company not only knows numismatics but also protects buyers, as this post illustrates, noting the Leonard policy on coin authenticity and emphasizing why Leonard Auction ranks among the most trusted on Proxibid.

Leonard Auction has a reputation for experience, integrity, and superior technology–core values of founder and appraiser John Leonard–that propelled his house to the top echelon of auctioneering. The company’s first auction house in Naperville, Ill., opened in 2006. Business boomed, prompting the company a year later to relocate to its current site in Addison, Ill., featuring more than 8,000 square feet for ample display.

Leonard Auction’s onsite prowess combines with digital savvy to bring the excitement of an auction to coin buyers on Proxibid. The company conducts a series of auctions each month, generally on the third weekend. Its Friday night Coin & Currency auction features 300-400 lots of high-end collectible coins, currency, gold, silver, platinum and stamps.

We thank Leonard Auction for sponsoring Proxiblog’s scholarship fund to help ease student debt and create the next generation of auction-house bidders!

Leave a Comment

Filed under The Block

Tagged as

May 17, 2012

Pet Peeve of the Week

One Proxibid coin auction posts hundreds of lots each month in a mega-session, opening most of its bids near retail (or at retail when buyer’s fee is added). On select lots, however, it opens with a reasonable opening bid. The trouble is, shortly before the auction begins, it reviews those bids and adds “Reserve Not Met”–even though those bids were met initially. Click and expand pictures below.

Why isn’t this a violation of the Unified User Agreement, minimum bid, requirement, which states: “Items may be offered with a ‘minimum bid,’ in which case, the Seller agrees to sell the item to the highest bidder who bids at or above the minimum bid price” (5.9)?

This auction house not only views maximum bids and allows auctioneer bidding, it also typically has hundreds of passed items in every auction. The Unified User Agreement also warns against this in 4.c: “Passed Lot Fee. If Seller conducts bidding for any lot within an Auction Event without allowing Buyers the opportunity to bid using the Proxibid Services (a “Passed Lot”), Proxibid may in its sole discretion charge Seller a fee per Passed Lot.”

We support Proxibid’s quality control operations. If you have a pet peeve on the Portal, email customer service.

4 days later

Leave a Comment

Filed under Pet Peeve of the Week

May 16, 2012

Big Shout-Out Kudo to GWS Auctions

Last week GWS Auctions was notified that it had listed several fake California gold replicas on its site. The auction company not only removed those lots from the Proxibid block but also telephoned Proxiblog to thank us for informing them. This is in stark contrast to how some other auction houses responded.

For the basics about how to tell fake California gold from the real deal, see this article. Above all, if you are an auctioneer selling coins regularly on Proxibid, we once again recommend a subscription to PCGS CoinFacts. Nothing is as authoritative as this in providing data for you to combat counterfeit replicas or know the most current auction prices for authentic coins. CoinFacts has listed hundreds of examples of California gold, replete with rarity information.

As for our articles on California gold, we not only share our numismatic knowledge with Proxibid auctioneers but also fact-check what we post with some of the top numismatists in the country.

The biggest giveaway that you are auctioning a replica is a bear on the reverse.

Some Proxibid auctioneers continue to offer these fake replicas, gold-plated or brass, even after being informed. Proxibid should take notice of that. Bidders should take notice, too. We have won dozens of lots with companies in the past; if they did not respond to our alert, nor remove or properly identify the replicas, and we will cease bidding any more with them or just bid on coins in holders by PCGS, NGC or ANACS.

In this post, we warned Proxibid auctioneers that replicas from eBay will be flooding Proxibid, as eBay had banned replica sales. Some heeded the warning, some continued business as usual, listing what consignors told them. It is not enough–repeat, not enough–to call a counterfeit replica a “gold token” or “coin,” especially when the auction house has been informed.

Some fake tokens or “charms” indeed are made of gold, but hundreds more are not. If you have tested the lot with a sophisticated precious metal tester (cheap ones say “gold” when a item is “gold plated”), then state that along with the karat designation in the Proxibid lot description. Some 10- and 22-karat charms between the mid 1870s through the 1930s were made of gold, produced before the Hobby Protection Act went into effect.

Some auction houses listing replicas as real are members of the National Auctioneer Association and the Professional Numismatics Guild, among others, with distinct ethics codes. Moreover, it is illegal to sell counterfeits when you have been informed, even if those counterfeits were made in the 1930s (as many of these fake California gold pieces were).

And we applaud houses like Fox Valley Coins, Leonard Auction, Capitol Coin Auction, Weaver Signature Coin and Currency Auction, Western Auction and Silvertowne–just to name a few–for correctly identifying authentic and replica California gold pieces. And we will patronize houses like Christy’s Auction and GWS Auctions for having the integrity to remove lots when informed.

Proxiblog will continue to protect the hobby by raising awareness of our viewers. We value auction houses who appreciate our efforts. We know the hundreds of bidders who visit our site do, based on personal emails to this site.

Proxiblog is an independent entity with no connection to the auction portal Proxibid. Our intent is to uphold basic numismatic standards as established by the American Numismatic Association and the National Auctioneer Association and to ensure a pleasurable bidding experience not only on Proxibid but also on similar portals such as iCollector and AuctionZip.

1 Comment

Filed under Best Practices, News

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

May 15, 2012

Weaver Auction Plans Online-Only Budget Collector Series

Weaver Signature Coin and Currency Auction plans a series of budget collector auctions especially geared for beginning and youth hobbyists or bidders with modest expendable incomes.

“We think there is a market for budget collectors,” says Cheryl Weaver, co-owner of the family-run business. “We have scheduled budget auctions through the rest of the year alternating with the Signature auctions.”

These will be live auctions rather than timed ones, she added. All of our auctions are “live” rather than timed but the budget auctions will not include in-room bidders. We will operate everything including the auctioneer as usual without the in-room bidders.

The budget series will feature an array of coins, even gold and key dates, rather than only low-cost clad rolls and mint/proof sets. “We end up with a lot of material that isn’t appropriate for the Signature auctions, but of course the seller deserves to have us try to sell consignments, so the budget auctions also fill that need.”

Dave and Cheryl Weaver also have considered specials with budget auctions. “I think we’ll see how the first one goes before we try that. We did stick with flat 5 & 10% BP rather than tiered with the 13%.”

She noted that her auction house likes shipping specials “as they greatly decrease the labor on our end (no looking up individual costs). They generally end up as a break-even deal.

“Sometimes just the difference of a flat rate vs. a box that might seem a more appropriate size for the items makes a lot of difference on the buyer’s shipping cost.”

Proxiblog applauds the Weavers for scheduling budget auctions. The house typically leads our rankings to the right, based on innovation and customer service. This new initiative focuses on a special kind of bidder.

As Cheryl Weaver noted, “Not all of our buyers have deep pockets.” Dave notes that “there are a whole lot of buyers out there that can afford a semi-key date Morgan as example, in Fine rather than Mint State.” We have been able to offer some wonderful items on our Signature auctions and will continue to do so.

“In these more difficult economic times we are going to offer all buyers the chance to purchase key or semi-key date coins at an affordable price. The grades won’t be as high but neither will the cost. We are not lowering our standards, just offering an alternative venue. We hope the buyers will respond positively but as with all changes we’ll adjust if we need to.”

Proxiblog is an independent entity with no connection to the auction portal Proxibid. Our intent is to uphold basic numismatic standards as established by the American Numismatic Association and the National Auctioneer Association and to ensure a pleasurable bidding experience not only on Proxibid but also on similar portals such as iCollector and AuctionZip.

Leave a Comment

Filed under News

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

May 13, 2012

On the Block: Southwest Bullion Rolls Out 0% Buyer’s Fee, Flat-Rate Shipping

Southwest Bullion, located in Houston, Texas, has rolled out a 0% buyer’s fee with flat-rate USPS shipping, APN clearance with no maximum-bid-viewing or consignor bidding.

By Justin Quinn, licensed auctioneer

The coin market has for many years been stricken with a BUYERS PREMIUM fee structure that supposedly only really benefits the seller, but in our opinion, leaves buyers with a bad taste in their mouths. Being one of the nation’s largest coin buyers ourselves, we know first hand how high buyer’s premiums, as well as minimum lot fees and excessive shipping and handling fees, affect our own buying and the negative effect those “fees” have on the personal enjoyment of coin collecting. We realized recently how much time we spend “backing out” buyers premiums and fees from our bids, fiddling all through the auction with the calculator.

Like most others, our business started as a hobby. We simply enjoyed collecting coins, but that hobby soon turned into a full-scale business with customers, orders to fulfill, customer service needs, and most of all the need for more inventory to supply our steady demand for quality products. In order to keep up with the demand we started buying from auction sites ourselves and companies (most all having a buyers premium).

As our business grew, we tried to find a sales model that would work for us, and frankly it was easy to NOT “reinvent the wheel” so to speak, following suit to our competition and their methods. We too charged a buyers premium (with minimum lot fees) and followed that industry standard for awhile, but that’s NOT what our customers or even dealer/customers wanted.

They didn’t hesitate to tell us either!

So, as customers continued to complain about our BP & fees (just as we complained about those same fees at Heritage, Teletrade and others), we realized that what the customers really wanted was for the seller to pay those fees just like on eBay! Let’s face it, without happy buyers, we as dealers wouldn’t have any business at all.

We want our customers to feel comfortable buying from us with the knowledge that we will not be charged outrageous buyers fees, shipping fees, or other hidden fees on invoice after the auction. We also want our buyers to know that they can bid without having to calculate fees on every push of a bid button. We want to bring back the hobbyist and the collector who like attending auctions for the enjoyment with a fully transparent market.

The reason so many people use eBay is due to eBay policy forcing sellers to pay the sales expenses and allow their customers to buy with an “all inclusive bid,” which equates to a wider customer base who are willing to buy products for the product itself (at full market value), instead of always searching for the least amount of fees associated with an item they want to purchase.

Over the span of our auction operations on Proxibid, we have expanded our catalogs from just offering a few bullion coins to a very wide variety of coin and bullion products, as well as jewelry, comics, sports memorabilia and other collectibles. From copper two cent pieces, to rare Morgan dollars, to kilo lunar series coins, we want to bring our broad base of products to the entire collecting and/or dealer community by giving them the ability to buy from a trusted seller, one who keeps their needs as buyers foremost in mind, all with easy no-hassle pricing.

We read recently that the two largest names in the coin auction industry just decided to INCREASE buyers premiums to 17.5% and minimum lots fees to $14-$25/lot, because its better for the “consignors/sellers.” We think that focus is not where it should be! Without happy buyers and bidder participants, those consignors have no market to sell to, and as a buyer ourselves, frankly we’re mad as hell at the fee increase. Not only we will no longer buy from those giant auction houses, but we decided to go 180 degrees in the other direction in our sales effort.

For all the problems eBay presents representing tens of thousands of sellers (some of which are unscrupulous) and a badly abused feedback system against honest sellers, they got this fee structure part right. Fees should be borne by the SELLER, not the buyer, and the growth of the on-eBay coin market proves it. Shipping should not be a profit-center either, and any hidden fees are just unacceptable. We were none to happy to have $40 “shipping and handling” recently added to our “major auction house in Dallas” order the other day. We just feel strongly that these continued high buyer fee arrangements are unacceptable, and know that vast majority of our customers feel the same way we do.

On our upcoming Proxibid auctions, we have decided to employ an ongoing list of catalogs that are “type coin specific” in order to make our auctions more enjoyable to collectors of certain types of coins or bullion items. This is especially important for buyers who don’t want to spend hours waiting for their coin-type lots to come up for sale.

As a buyer, there are certain coins that are generally the area of interest to any particular collector or dealer, and most times they will have to surf through multiple auctions to find just the right coins they are looking for while not being able to be totally interested by one single auction catalog chocked full of their favorite type of coin. We want to give our buyers the ability to sit in one auction with their own area of interest and not miss the lot they want because the entire auction is an area of interest focusing on that specific type of coin.

We are planning to unveil a schedule of catalogs that will cater to almost every type of buyer from the U.S. cent buyer to the rare world bullion buyer, and hopefully in doing so we can gain the business and confidence of all Proxibid coin customers.

Proxiblog is an independent entity with no connection to the auction portal Proxibid. Our intent is to uphold basic numismatic standards as established by the American Numismatic Association and the National Auctioneer Association and to ensure a pleasurable bidding experience not only on Proxibid but also on similar portals such as iCollector and AuctionZip.

Leave a Comment

Filed under The Block

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

May 11, 2012

Proxiblog this week was sponsored by

GreatCollections


Coin Auctions & Rare Coin Sales

    Coin Auctions & Rare Coins at GreatCollections

View GreatCollections Coin Auctions



GreatCollections offers collectors an extensive selection of certified coins ranging in price from $25 up to $10,000s. All coins have been professionally listed and imaged by GreatCollections expert staff and most are certified by the leading third-party grading companies including PCGS and NGC. Since GreatCollections has possession of all items being offered for sale, GreatCollections will ship your auction winnings and purchases to you securely and promptly. Sellers consign to GreatCollections to take advantage of our low commission rates, which work out in most cases to be cheaper than if they did all the work themselves.

Among the advantages of dealing with GreatCollections are these considerations:


  • Unlike all of our competitors, GreatCollections discloses the minimum bid/reserve from the moment the coin lists on our website. There are no hidden reserves, ever.
  • Professional images of every auction, no matter if it’s a $20 coin or a $75,000 coin.
  • The lowest fees, whether buying or selling, of any major house–10% buyer’s fee and low or zero seller’s fees.
  • Fast shipping of orders/auction wins. Most orders paid by 12:00 noon Pacific Time will ship same day.
  • For consignors, the fastest turnaround of any coin auction company. Coins list in a matter of days, and payment is routinely sent within 7-10 days of auction.

Why not visit GreatCollections today and register with them to have full access to their site?

Auctioneers, publications and dealers are invited to sponsor a week of Proxiblog posts. Simply send a jpeg of your company and a 100-word description about your business. We’ll post sponsorships on Friday on our home page. On Sunday evening, the post will transfer to our “On the Block” page, remaining in our Proxiblog queue. This way your promotion will remain on Google and other search engines as long as our site remains online. We do not charge for such promotion and have the right to decline and/or edit submissions. However, after your promotional sponsorship runs, we ask that you visit our scholarship fund account and make a tax-deductible donation to ease student debt. Send you promotional submissions to mjbugeja@yahoo.com

1 Comment

Filed under The Block

Tagged as

May 10, 2012

Pet Peeve of the Week

It pains us to see slabs like this proclaiming MS66 Superb Gem status. A Morgan dollar with such a designation is breath-taking and can sell for hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Our compliments to this auction house for noting that the coin is cleaned. (It also appears scratched.)

We value auction houses like this that identify flaws in over-graded coins, but we recommend grouping such coins into one miscellaneous lot–”silver mix”–rather than showcasing them with three or more photos.</font?

Click to expand picture and see a comparison of self-slabbed vs. PCGS MS66 1890-S Morgans.

4 Comments

Filed under Pet Peeve of the Week