Taking part, step by step
This page is the procedural companion to the auctions section, which explains what the three kinds of sale are and what they cost. What follows is the sequence, in order, for both sides of the room.
Buying: seven steps
- Register. Houses require identification and often a deposit or card authorisation for new bidders. Do this days ahead, not on the morning.
- Read the terms. The buyer premium, the sales tax treatment, the shipping charge and the returns policy are all in the conditions of sale, and they differ between houses.
- View the lots. In person if the sale is local. Photographs flatten cleaning, hairlines and rim damage, which are exactly the faults that cost the most.
- Set a maximum per lot that already includes premium and tax, so your limit is the amount leaving your account.
- Choose your bidding method. In the room, by absentee bid left with the house, by telephone, or online. An absentee bid is executed up to your maximum and no further, which removes the main cause of regret.
- Bid in the auctioneer's increments. Odd amounts slow the sale and rarely win anything.
- Pay and collect promptly. Late payment charges are real, and storage after a stated period usually is too.
Selling: eight steps
- Do not clean, sort or split anything before it has been seen. Original sets and packaging carry a premium that breaking up destroys.
- Get the holding looked at. A club evening or a show gives you several independent opinions cheaply; see the meetings page.
- Choose the venue by value. Common material does as well with a dealer or a club auction. Scarce material needs competing bidders, which means a specialist sale.
- Ask for the total deduction in writing on your specific lots: commission, photography, lotting, insurance, postage and any minimum charge, as one number.
- Agree the estimates and any reserve. A reserve set near the top estimate is the usual reason a good coin fails to sell, and an unsold record follows the coin.
- Get a signed receipt listing every item handed over, with the agreed terms on the same document.
- Check the catalogue description when it is published, while there is still time to correct an error.
- Note the settlement date. Thirty to forty five days after the sale is normal; longer if a buyer disputes a lot.
Grading and whether to pay for it
Above a certain value, catalogued coins are encapsulated by a third party grading service, and the grade on the label carries much of the price. For a consignor the question is arithmetic: grading costs a fee per coin plus postage and insurance both ways, so it pays for itself only when the expected uplift exceeds that. For common material it usually does not. For anything scarce in high grade it usually does, and the specialist taking your consignment will say which of your coins fall into that second group.
Three mistakes that cost the most
Bidding without the premium in the number. A twenty per cent premium on a four hundred dollar hammer is eighty dollars, and it arrives as a surprise on the invoice rather than in the saleroom.
Consigning a collection in pieces. Splitting a run or a set across several sales removes the completeness that made it worth more than the sum of its coins.
Treating an estimate as a valuation. An estimate is the house's expectation of a hammer range, produced to attract bidders. It is useful information and it is not an appraisal.
If something goes wrong
Read the conditions of sale first, because they set the window for raising a problem and it is usually short. Authenticity disputes are the one category most houses handle generously, and third party grading services operate their own guarantees. For anything else, the written itemised receipt from step six is what makes a complaint actionable, which is the reason to insist on it before handing anything over.
