Pictures are worth more than a thousand words online, and these showcase Proxiblog award-winning companies Weaver Auction, Western Auction, Key Date Coins, Rolling M, James Peterson and Leonard Auctions, which have enhanced their already-sharp photography with a zoom feature for complete numismatic examination.

Weaver Auction won a best photography award earlier this year; Leonard and Key Date auctions, four honorable mentions across categories, including photography; Western, best consignment and three honorable mentions, including photography; Rolling M Auctions, a most-improved mention; and James Peterson, best consignment.

If you’re going to pay Proxibid, credit card and APN fees, and you snare a top consignment, you are only cheating yourself if you do not invest in clear, expandable photos of your coins. Gone are the days when blurry photos hide flaws in the hope that bidders will hunger for a bargain and take chances. There are just too many online savvy houses stealing new and return bidders with fine photography, and the new zoom feature as illustrated in the examples below will attract even more.

Also, by enhancing photography, you put more responsibility on the bidder, as this picture illustrates. Click picture to view.

Bidders access the zoom feature by clicking on the thumbnail followed by the lot photo and then clicking on that. In the lower right corner is a button for “full screen.” Click picture to view.

Some auction houses have an expand feature but no zoom when this button is clicked; others just reprint the same size photo. The zoom feature, however, lets bidders examine a coin in specific places as if holding a loop to the metal. To be sure, inspecting a coin in person is still the preferred method; but these houses (and others not featured here) have displayed photos every bit as informative as what might be found on the large houses such as GreatCollections, Teletrade and Heritage.

Before displaying their photos, some final thoughts:

• The better the consignment, the sharper your photos must be to spark bidding wars.
• The less you know about VAMs and other varieties, the more you need zoom features for bidders looking for these attributes
• The more you sell online, the sharper and larger your photos must be to stay competitive with houses such as featured below (click photos to expand).

In closing, you owe it to your business and consignor to display rare coins and precious metals with the digital photography that they deserve, especially as both the auction and coin business gravitate to the Internet. It’s an added cost, to be sure; but as these top houses know, a necessary one.

Weaver Auction

Western Auction

Leonard Auction

James Peterson

Key Date Coins

Rolling M Auctions

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.