A Lesson in Salesmanship

Auctioneering typically features a snappy lingo meant to instill excitement so bidders go to war to claim an item they just have to have. Proxibid has dozens of auctioneers who fall into that traditional category. One, however, has his own style, slower, more informed and friendly. His name is Corey, auctioneer at Silver Trades.

To begin with, Corey knows his coins. Check out his online auction and see how he fills out lot descriptions. Here’s an example:

    A Beautiful Deep Mirror Proof Like Carson City Morgan Dollar. Terrific heavily frosted devices and nice deep fields. The coin has Superior eye appeal with wonderful light golden rim toning on the obverse and rainbow rim toning on the reverse. It is also the VAM 5A which has the Repunched mintmark and the Dash 8 in the date. Its a Rarity 5. Coin World’s Coin Values lists ms64 DMPL as $600 and The Wholesale Greysheet lists ms64 DMPL as $475. Estimated Value $500.

Hobbyists frequent his auctions because the auctioneer seemingly doesn’t want the Proxibid and iCollector sessions to end. You won’t find him texting, “Auctioneer moves fast–bid!” or “Gotta go!” Instead, he will say, “Do we have an opening bid on iCollector? Oh, yes. Our good friend, Jim. This Carson City dollar is gorgeous. You won’t be disappointed. If it comes back as ungradable by any major company, I will give you my personal buyback guarantee. Ah, another bid–thank you, Coinfinder.” Then he lapses into what I affectionally call Corey’s aria, a song that let’s you know he’s going to strike that hammer–Going once, going twice–is that all? no further advances? Any others? [pause four seconds]–SOLD! … to Coinfinder with the good eye.”

(My 9-year-old son has the cadence down pat and sings with Corey on Proxibid audio.)

And yes, in case you missed it, Corey’s salesmanship extends to citing Proxibid user names, circumventing the “You/Internet” rule discussed in this post. But he makes you feel welcome, part of his special coterie. And he interacts, too, with bidders in the auction window.

Last week we had a shaky Internet connection. We heard about a snowstorm in New Jersey. We wanted to text, “Sister says big snow in Garden State.” After the first word, “Sister,” the connection glitched. Corey didn’t flinch. “Sister? Hmmm. I wonder whether Lady Liberty is his sister. Oh, yes. Here’s the full text. Yes, we had snow here.”

You gotta love it.

To be sure, Proxiblog and Corey have had their debates in the past on any number of auctioneering and numismatic topics. But that hasn’t dampened our enthusiasm for his salesmanship, one of the best, if not the best, on Proxibid and iCollector.

We’re bringing him to your attention to show how an auctioneer can think out-of-the-block, as it were, and create his own social network. Bidders register just to hear his expanded numismatic descriptions and aria voice.

Beware, however, if you intend to bid on Silver Trades. Corey is such a good salesman that you may go over your limit.

Been there. Done that.

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.

Advertisement

2 thoughts on “A Lesson in Salesmanship

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s