Tag Archives: Kaufman Reality and Auctions

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.)

bad

Boo! to this auctioneer who hides certification numbers with a sticker and describes the almost uncirculated coin as MS64.

cleaned kaufman

Booyah Kaufman Auction! for noting this silver three-cent coin is cleaned (they usually are) and in the process of cleaning, damaged because of the thin planchet.

dipped

Boo! to this auction house that insists on taking slanted photos of coins, which unnaturally highlights luster. But not in this case. The dipping is readily apparent.

gemblurry

Another Boo! to this unnamed auction house that calls a coin “gem” while providing a blurry photo so that condition cannot be discerned online.

peeved

Boo! to this auction house for hyping the value of a common coin. When is Proxibid going to crack down on exaggerated lot descriptions?

poorphoto_nophotoreverse

Boo again! to another auction house for only providing one blurry photo (no reverse) yet still calling the lot “gem.” Please master photography, folks, if you hope to sell coins online.

replica

Booyah Mike Peterson Auctioneers! for identifying a coin as a replica. Would more auctioneers do the same, especially on fake California gold.

stained

Booyah Weaver Auction! for noting the stain on this large-sized popular note. Often photos don’t capture flaws on notes, so this description is appreciated.

wrong photo

Boo! to this auction house for posting the wrong photo with the lot description. Double check before you post on Proxibid.

wronglist
Boo! to another house for describing the lot wrong. In this and the above case, use the “Report This Item” link to alert the auctioneer.

crease

Booyah! Star Coin and Currency for noting that the crease is in the holder and not the note. Way to go Auctioneer Jim Haver!

cleanedsilvertowne

Booyah SilverTowne Auction! for noting cleaning on a red Indian head cent. It’s difficult to detect when a coin has residual luster. Dave Nauert discloses the flaw.

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.
30dayview

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.

Kaufman Realty No Longer on Proxibid

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kaufman

This week we received the sad news that one of our consistently top-rated houses, Kaufman Realty and Auctions, no longer will be calling sessions interactively on Proxibid. Click the photo above to see the email blast that we received.

Kaufman increasingly was securing top consignments with good photographs. The company averaged two major auctions per month on Proxibid.

Those looking for the company can still bid online through its website at www.kaufman-auctions.com. You will have to create a new username and password as the Proxibid data will not apply in the new bidding platform.

A company spokesperson apologized for the change in online bidding providers but noted that the contract with Proxibid expired at the beginning of the year with an increase in charges per auction. So Kaufman decided it was no longer feasible to use Proxibid services.

Word about fee hikes is nothing new, as this seems to be happening in several venues associated with numismatics. PCGS, for instance, has raised its holdering fees. Several top auctions, including Stacks-Bowers, Heritage and Teletrade have raised their buyer’s premiums to 17.5%. Proxibid also has extensive technology to maintain and upgrade to keep pace with the buying public.

Nonetheless, we hope those serving our industry, including Proxibid, hold the line on fee increases in the future to preserve and expand the collecting hobby, especially during questionable economic times.

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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This is the second of two Boos and Booyah posts, one of our favorite features. This post is all about the Booyahs!

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.)

keydate_Vam

One Big Booyah! to Key Date Coins, winner of our Best Photography Award, for capturing the finest VAM (variety) details of this 1899 Morgan. Would that other houses provided such detailed photos!

keydate_nocameo.

An Even Bigger Booyah to Key Date Coins! for not being tempted to call this Franklin half “cameo” or “deep cameo.” We see Proxibid auctioneers doing this all the time, when only one side has cameo features. Both must possess that frost. In this case, only the obverse does. Kudos to Eddie Caven for following proper numismatic descriptions! For more on cameos, click here.

booyahRollingM_whizzed

Booyah Rolling M Auction! for noting that this Morgan has been tooled, or altered, and is essentially only worth silver melt. Increasingly we see auctioneers neglecting to state this, even when the results are as obvious as this.

midwest_tooled

Booyah Midwest Coins! for noting yet another altered coin. This one has a tooled cheek, as Charles Commander notes.

dmpl_slider_star coin

Booyah Star Coin and Currency! for describing problems with what appears to be a slider rather than uncirculated DMPL. Jim Haver also points out milky spots and provides another photos for bidders to judge for themselves!

overgraded_kaufman

Booyah Kaufman Auction! for noting this bottom-tier coin is overgraded. We see so many self-slabbed and bottom-tier holders overgrading coins with auctioneers actually citing PCGS and Redbook values for silver melt Morgans. Sigh. At least Kaufman calls this correctly.

rim bump

One last Booyah to Weaver Coins and CurrencyAuction! for identifying rim bumps, which many auctioneers ignore in their descriptions and which may dramatically decrease a coin’s value. Dave Weaver is one of the top numismatic auctioneers in calling attention to a coin’s details.

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.