In the case discussed here, a seller opens with an $85 bid, which is already $16 above retail for the exact coin being offered on the portal. Because the lot is slabbed by NGC, we were able to secure the certification number and find the retail price on the site: about $70.

But this seller isn’t satisfied with making an 8% profit. He charges 18% buyer’s fee and 7% sales tax on top of $15 shipping.

To justify the 60% mark-up, the seller cites “low and high estimates” for the coin. Did he simply fabricate those numbers? Did he look at recent auction prices?

Let’s do that now using CoinFacts for a range of NGC prices in the past few months for the common 1885-O Morgan dollar at Mint State 63.

Auction prices at major houses sold this coin at this condition between $53-$65, or between $20-30 over the Proxibid seller’s opening bid.

Look at the situation from the seller’s perspective. If he gets one bid, he makes a nifty profit. If he gets no bids, he says “sold on site” and uses Proxibid technology for free, only to re-offer the coin again in a future “live” auction, until it sells.

Luckily, that’s not the case with the majority of Proxibid auctioneers. Watch for tomorrow’s post about one of the most competitive on the portal!

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.