Tag Archives: John Leonnard

Boos & Booyahs: Best & Bad Auctioneer Lot Descriptions

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It’s important to be in sync with the Proxibid technology to showcase your photos, hone your lot descriptions, and highlight your consignments for top bids on the leading portal! In the latest installment, Proxiblog laments bad auctioneer lot descriptions and praises the best in recent auctions. (Be sure to click pictures to expand and view lot descriptions below.)

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Booyah BidAlot Auction! for noting that this U.S. Mint product comes without a box. It is important to state that with Mint products, especially GSA dollars.

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Boo! to this auction house for stating that this coin is MS67 when it clearly has been cleaned, is porous (right field) with rim damage (3 o’clock).

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Booyah Leonard Auction! for noting cleaning. Leonard Auction ranks among our favorites because of the honesty of the owner, John Leonard, coupled with his numismatic knowledge. He’s one of the best on Proxibid, period.

openingbid

Boo! to this unnamed auction house that really isn’t an auction but an online “Buy It Now” company that ensures with opening bids and 18% buyer’s fee that it will never lose money for any coin it sells on Proxibid. Recommendation: Bidders are better off on eBay.

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Booyah Braden Auction! for noting significant flaws in this lot, including plugging and polishing. Now, if the company only provided photos of obverse and reverse, it might have a shot at our favorite auction rankings.

replica

Boo! to another auction house for calling this a restrike when it is a copy and most probably only gold-plated. A restrike uses the same dies as the original. We guarantee that the US Mint didn’t have “COPY” when it struck the real coin in 1849.

restored_A new day
Booyah A New Day Auctions! for identifying acid restored Buffalo nickels. Watch for a post about this in the future.

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Booyah SilverTowne Auction! for noting rim damage on its coins. Would that more houses did the same!

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Booyah! Jewelry Exchange for noting a scratch on this coin. Hard to see in the photo but glad to see in the lot description. Truth brings return customers. Hiding the truth brings dispute resolutions.

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Booyah Star Coin and Currency! for noting that these Confederate dollars as replicas. We’ve seen copies on Proxibid not designated as such. Yet another example of Best Practice!

Viewers can point us to other candidates for our “Boos & Booyahs!” series. Just leave a comment but follow our rules–all in good fun as a way to inspire accurate lot descriptions on Proxibid. Tomorrow we will showcase the best lot descriptions. Stay tuned!

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.

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Capitol Coin Auction tops list!

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Competition among top coin-selling houses on Proxibid has become even keener, with only fractions separating one favorite company from another. Only one scored a full 25 points in all categories: quality consignments, detailed descriptions, quick and inexpensive shipping, superior photography, expert grading, reasonable buyer’s premium and other value-added considerations. Not only is competition growing, our audience is too, surpassing 1,600 views for the first 28 days in April.

Capitol Coin Auction continues to feature some of the best numismatic estate auctions on the portal. Every few months it schedules an auction with key date coinage and holdered rarities. Moreover, as we noted in this recent post, Brad Lisembee ranks among the best graders in the business along with John Leonard of Leonard Auction.

Also high on the numismatic grading list are Dave Nauert of SilverTowne Auction, Justin Quinn of Southwest Bullion and Coin, Dave Weaver of Weaver Signature Coin and Currency Auction, and Sean Cook of Liberty Shops Auctions.

These were ranked ever so close behind Capitol at 24.5 each out of 25, along with Western Auction (one of our personal favorites) and Fox Valley Coins.

Returning to the portal is Kaufman Realty and Auctions, with strong consignments, numismatic lot descriptions and good photography. If it shipped more quickly, it would challenge other top houses in our rankings.

Darron Meares, one of our favorite auctioneers, elevated his company to the top rankings, too, with great consignments and much improved photography. Engstrom Auction continues to improve with better consignments. Its photography has been good, and its customer service is fine, too.

Essentially, you should have an exciting time in the spirit of traditional auctioneering bidding in any auction by these top-houses.

Rolling M Auctions is one of our favorite houses. Mark Murphy is going a fantasic job for Rolling M. with great consignments and fine pre-auction advertising. We think he can still do better with sharper photography that captures luster and provides an onsite view for the Internet crowd.

Key Date Coin continues to showcase the best photography and auctions always worth a look. We advocate for better consignments as Eddie Caven knows how to feature premium lots. Star Coin and Currency continues to impress with improving consignments, neat photos and numismatic lot descriptions.

New on the list this month are Atlantic Auction Company and Cannon Auction whose Honor Roll features include 15% buyer’s fee, good photography and numismatic lot descriptions.

Online buyers expect:

  • Rapid shipping with professional packing.
  • Sharp, expandable photos of both sides of a coin.
  • Accurate lot descriptions.

That said, our rankings are reviews of favorite houses based on our buying and/or selling experience and numismatic expertise. Your experience with our top houses may differ from ours. Our intent is to educate and praise whenever possible–to our own buying detriment, at times! We have seen when we showcase an auction house how bidding becomes more intense, often edging out our own bids.

Perhaps this is due to the rise in our viewership. As the screen shot below shows, more than 1600 page views were logged in the first few weeks of April alone.
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The favorite and most accessed page? “Boos and Booyahs.” The all-time most favorite post? “California Gold: Real, Replica and Fake,” which gets on average 100+ views per month from all over the world, indicating once again that auctioneers need to take care before they label those tiny yellow tokens “gold.”

Also becoming more popular are our “Find the Flaw!” features, designed to improve grading skills.

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.

Boos & Booyahs: Best & Bad Auctioneer Lot Descriptions

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It’s important to be in sync with the Proxibid technology to showcase your photos, hone your lot descriptions, and highlight your consignments for top bids on the leading portal! In the latest installment, Proxiblog laments and compliments best and bad auctioneer lot descriptions during the past week. We will name the best, but you will have to search Proxibid for the bad. (Click pictures to expand and view lot descriptions below.)

One Big Booyah to Liberty Shops Auction not only for one of the lowest buyer’s premium’s on Proxibid, 8%, but also for accurate numismatic lot descriptions so that bidders know what they are winning and can place maximums accordingly.

Boo! to this unnamed auction house and consignor. The seller misidentifies on the flip a Morgan 1898 dollar for a rare 1893. (The 8 and 3 do look alike, but on expanding of photo, the two 8s in the date match. The auctioneer copies the flip information without checking. That’s not the case with all auctioneers. Take a look at the next item.

One Big Booyah to Kaufman Auction! not only for checking the date on the Morgan dollar but also for correcting it twice–on the flip and in the lot description. These seemingly small courtesies go a long way in establishing trust.

Booyah Leonard Auction! for noting artificial color on an expensive Isabella quarter. One reason we always bid in Leonard auctions is that we know what we are trying to win. John Leonard provides excellent photos, professionally accurate numismatic lot descriptions, and is well known both in dealer and auctioneer circles. We bid with confidence here.

Booyah Midwest Coins! for noting a rim ding on a desired lot. Rim dings are often missed in scanning a coin for flaws. By identifying them as here, bidders know precisely the condition of the coin, especially if they had plans to send it in for professional grading.

Booyah Munda Auction! for noting that this key-date dime has a flat spot–typically a sign of alternation or, perhaps, damage. The dime’s surface area is small, so the auctioneer once again is providing not only a courtesy but a service to online bidders. We’d like to see more of this on Proxibid.

Boo! Boo! Boo! to this unnamed auction house for identifying a brass replica as a gold token and then not providing a reverse photo to see the bear. It states “Gold content unknown.” (That’s always a giveaway.) We grow so weary seeing auctioneers call replicas and counterfeits “tokens”–a precise numismatic term. This kind of thing led eBay to ban all replicas. Proxibid will go in that direction once bidders start charging auctioneers with violations of the Hobby Protection Act. See this article to tell how to distinguish real from fake California gold.

Boo! to this unnamed auction house for trying to pass off an altered, polished coin as deep mirror worth hundreds of dollars … rather than the silver melt of this lot. Do NOT say DMPL unless you mean it and know how to identify it. Same goes for cameo. See item below.

Boo! to this unnamed auction house for stating that this is a cameo. The obverse is cameo or even ultra cameo; but the reverse is neither, which means the coin isn’t cameo. The proper way to list this coin is cameo obverse.

Booyah! Legacy Auction and Realty for identifying a polished coin. Polishing is an attempt to restore luster into a coin that lacks it. It has ruined millions of coins. Auctioneers should always identify altered coins, especially polished ones that flatten devices.

Booyah SilverTowne Auction! for identifying a difficult to see scratch on a rare coin. Scratches make coins ungrade-worthy at PCGS, NGC and other top holdering companies. That’s why it’s important to note.

Viewers can point us to other candidates for our “Boos & Booyahs!” series. Just leave a comment but follow our rules–all in good fun as a way to inspire accurate lot descriptions on Proxibid.

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.