The coins I list on Ebay suddenly stopped selling about six months ago. Why? I really don't know. I list
'Buy Now', 'Best Offer' with a decent-sized inventory in a variety of different 'types', from different 'Countries', compositions, a wide range of grades and prices (normally at 10% to 15% below Industry accepted Standard Catalog values. I also add new inventory monthly. IMO the photos and descriptions are way above average, and all with Free Shipping. That being said, I wouldn't be able to buy a loaded pizza with the sales I made in one three-month period. I tried a very risky marketing strategy just to see if 'Price' was the culprit.
I did a one-time 30-day listing for all the coins and discounted 'everything' by at least' 50% ... not one sold. I guess practically giving them away still wasn't enough. Anyway, It may be a childish reaction, but I now list everything well over what I perceive as their fair-market value with 'Best Offer' option.
I'll offer one coin as an example from those (IMO) ridiculously lower-priced listings. It is a high-grade raw Poland 1814 IB 1/3 Talara C# 86 ( 1810-1814 ) I had it discounted down to $250.00 with the 'Best Offer' option. You can judge the grade for yourselves. Am I nuts, or has the market become that tight?
Thanks for your patience... Dan
BTW: I just remembered In that 3-month period I did have one offer, a 'one-time' ''Best Offer' of $20.00 on a proof coin with over $28.00 of silver content... lol See my point!
When I use Ebay, and it is often, I choose the AUCTION only button and sort by Price. In my experience, the Buy It Now coins are mostly overpriced as are many of the auctions once shipping is added.
As an example, I collect Canadian Colonial Tokens and I check Ebay weekly. Just now I searched Coins and Paper Money......
Quite frankly, I am not spending countless hours looking through 2,500 Tokens which I know are mostly over priced. Also, I am trying to join the 300 Country club and your Polish Talara would be of great interest to me. But alas, I would never see it as it would be "the diamond in the rough" buried in amongst non-circulating Commemoratives.
Coins: World 566,147 Europe: 334,997 Poland: 10,767 (Buy It Now: 10,151)
To me, an Auction really determines Market Value. That being said, it is not easy getting your coin displayed to your target audience.
Hoping this is helpful Dan.
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure, that just ain't so. Mark Twain
I have not yet sold anything through eBay, but one thing that strikes me is how bad some dealers are at describing their own offerings. In a recent auction I got for $6 a Carribean token that I believe could easily go for over $100. In that case, it was clear that the dealer didn't know the real significance of that item, and none of his search terms were useful in any way. Had I not already followed him, I would never have found it, even though I'm pretty good at searching things on the web.
One dealer I happen to follow auctions his items with 2 to 5 words in the description line: "Courteau 29" / "US large cent" / ... That's why I got from him a nice Gnaedinger 1902 token with much remaining luster for some $30-35.
And yes: what a pain to have to go through those non-circulating commemoratives. As for me, I would wish that they were listed separately in the Numista Catalogue as well. The Canadian section, to take but one example, is littered with those pseudo-coins.
So your coins weren't selling, and to remedy this you decided too up the cost ?
Too be honest 98% of my eBay buys come from auctions as I'm in control it's very rare I go near a buy it now as they're generally more expensive than I know I need to pay so I wait for an auction too come up which is usually isn't that long.
My point: seller Quianscoins had x2 British trade dollars of the Calcutta mint listed for over £100. I watched but waited I even offered him less after 3 months of relisting but he wouldn't budge. I won one 3 weeks ago for £65 from Australia.
Quote: "Mark240590"My point: seller Quianscoins had x2 British trade dollars of the Calcutta mint listed for over £100. I watched but waited I even offered him less after 3 months of relisting but he wouldn't budge. I won one 3 weeks ago for £65 from Australia.
Exactly, the Market decides. Now Quianscoins is gonna have to sit on those coins for how many more months? His/her only prospective buyer doesn't need it any more (at that price).
I had a "marketing guy" explain it to me this way. If you caught a fish every time you dipped your line in the water, it wouldn't be called fishing, it would be called catching.
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure, that just ain't so. Mark Twain
Well, this brings a question to my mind ─ actually a question that I have been thinking about for a long time. Some dealers sell professionally, or perhaps semi-professionally, but where do they get their coins?
I know some get them at auctions at a good price and resell them on eBay. Others buy estates and the likes. But I see some dealers with apparently an infinite supply of coins in some specific categories ─ large cents US, or large cents Canada, or ½pennies UK, etc. They seem to have an infinite supply, with new additions every week on the auction block. Is there some source they have that we don't have access to?
All coins I sell on Ebay is auction only with no minimum price and 1€ start price, sure theres a risk but it depends but most I actually sell over my expectations.
dealers get coins from all kinds of places but they are quite cruel with it. Recently I saw a grandma in her 80's bringing in a coin collection from her husband who passed away.
There were Gold coins and some valuable other coins too probably worth around 3,000€ but she accepted the dealers price of 280€ I felt bad for her
If you like coins, medals and tokens with ship motives follow my new instagram account with regular updates @numisnautiker
From time to time I sell some coins on Ebay make sure to follow me @apuking on Ebay.
Quote: "Camerinvs"Well, this brings a question to my mind ─ actually a question that I have been thinking about for a long time. Some dealers sell professionally, or perhaps semi-professionally, but where do they get their coins?
Other dealers. It sounds strange but it's true. There has been a lot of research done into the dynamics of the coin market and I actually took the time to read much of it some years ago.
We instinctively think of it as a linear progression from retailer to collector because that's they way almost everything else we buy works. It's actually more of a circular kind of affair. In brief, a coin enters the market either as a new discovery or from a collection. It then passes through the hands of several dealers until it finds one whose price point matches his clientele and it then disappears, often for decades, into our coin albums. Eventually the collector dies or gives up and the estate sells the entire thing to a dealer who breaks it up and the circle begins again.
Different dealers have different specialties and different customers. A coin which might sit on dealer A's display shelf for years will be sold same day by Dealer So the two of them pass back and forth coins to maximize their returns at our expense. We pay for the convenience and their expertise.
Peer to peer swapping in the Numista model must be a coin dealer's worse nightmare. We don't need them, we have each other!
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!
If that Poland 1814 IB 1/3 Talara is a representative example of your offerings, then I can understand why you have no sales. The coin in VF condition has a catalog value of $175, it's raw, it's scratched, and you offered it for $1250. When I see a coin listed for an order of magnitude above catalog price, I laugh and move on.
Quote: "pnightingale"Other dealers. It sounds strange but it's true. There has been a lot of research done into the dynamics of the coin market and I actually took the time to read much of it some years ago.
We instinctively think of it as a linear progression from retailer to collector because that's they way almost everything else we buy works. It's actually more of a circular kind of affair. In brief, a coin enters the market either as a new discovery or from a collection. It then passes through the hands of several dealers until it finds one whose price point matches his clientele and it then disappears, often for decades, into our coin albums. Eventually the collector dies or gives up and the estate sells the entire thing to a dealer who breaks it up and the circle begins again.
Different dealers have different specialties and different customers. A coin which might sit on dealer A's display shelf for years will be sold same day by Dealer So the two of them pass back and forth coins to maximize their returns at our expense. We pay for the convenience and their expertise.
Peer to peer swapping in the Numista model must be a coin dealer's worse nightmare. We don't need them, we have each other!
That's very interesting, especially that not long ago I bought a very interesting countermarked coin from the US. As the countermark was Canadian, I asked the dealer whatever he could tell me of the previous owner, short of his identity, so that I could at least try to understand how it came to his US store. Well, he replied that he had gotten it from a New York coin-dealer and friend who had gotten it as part of an estate in upstate New York, but he passed it along to "my" coin dealer because he (the friend) was not specializing in that kind of coins. So, that's exactly what you described!
Quote: "Steve27"When I see a coin listed for an order of magnitude above catalog price, I laugh and move on.
I have the same reaction ─ well, actually, it annoys me more than it makes me laugh, because I have a dealer who shows up all the time in my timeline (or thread or whatever it's called) because of my saved search terms. He offers coins worth $50 at $400 or even much more. My first reaction is that he tries to fool us all, and I'm not going to make a "best offer" to someone like that. I looked into the eBay options to see if I could just block him, but that's not possible; you can only block one search at a time.
Quote: "Steve27"When I see a coin listed for an order of magnitude above catalog price, I laugh and move on.
I have the same reaction ─ well, actually, it annoys me more than it makes me laugh, because I have a dealer who shows up all the time in my timeline (or thread or whatever it's called) because of my saved search terms. He offers coins worth $50 at $400 or even much more. My first reaction is that he tries to fool us all, and I'm not going to make a "best offer" to someone like that. I looked into the eBay options to see if I could just block him, but that's not possible; you can only block one search at a time.
I look and think I would like that coin br no matter how cheap this guy reduces It I will never buy anything from him simply because it's a type of con. Like oh look it's had £100 knocked off when it's been relisted.. yeah it's still well over the mark though.
Yeah, the guy I'm thinking about at times sells coins and tokens worth about $180-220 at about $1300. And when they don't sell after a month, he discounts them by about $65!! Wow! What an opportunity not to be missed! Before I would have paid $1100 above the real value; now I save $65 and pay only $1035 above the real value!!
Quote: "Camerinvs"Yeah, the guy I'm thinking about at times sells coins and tokens worth about $180-220 at about $1300. And when they don't sell after a month, he discounts them by about $65!! Wow! What an opportunity not to be missed! Before I would have paid $1100 above the real value; now I save $65 and pay only $1035 above the real value!!
Auctions, my friends,- in general, actions with artificial rising of the price.
How?
Easy!
Seller offer an auction with Item, starting price X.
Seller got several attendants in his auction, some attendant is really interested in buying the Item. He overbids other ones.
Seller's friend starts to rise up the price by bidding to get bigger cash for seller.
Auction ends: 2 options-
1) interested attendant wins and pays artificially created higher price;
2) sellers friend wins- purchase will be made and money returned back to the friend after. Seller will open new auction with the Item.
I never took part in auctions!
K
Every single coin on the world should meet its collector!
Quote: "KasparsLV"Seller offer an auction with Item, starting price X.
Seller got several attendants in his auction, some attendant is really interested in buying the Item. He overbids other ones.
Seller's friend starts to rise up the price by bidding to get bigger cash for seller.
Auction ends: 2 options:
1) interested attendant wins and pays artificially created higher price;
2) sellers friend wins- purchase will be made and money returned back to the friend after. Seller will open new auction with the Item.
There's actually an eBay dealer I suspect of doing that. But any dealer, every time they sell a lot, including eBay auctions, they have to pay a commission, right? How much is that on eBay?
Here's my view on it. There are far too many coins on all the worldwide e-bay sites to look at each one individually. When I go on ebay (and I assume most people are like me) I'm looking for specific areas that I collect and maybe browse through a few of the no reserve coins starting at less than $1. If you're coins are from an unusual area that not many collect, and they're reasonably pricey, even if that price is a fraction of the book value, then you're just not going to get the traffic to find someone willing to buy it. Unless you're someone who has thousands of sales and so people watch your listings.
Quote: "neilithic"Here's my view on it. There are far too many coins on all the worldwide e-bay sites to look at each one individually. When I go on ebay (and I assume most people are like me) I'm looking for specific areas that I collect and maybe browse through a few of the no reserve coins starting at less than $1. If you're coins are from an unusual area that not many collect, and they're reasonably pricey, even if that price is a fraction of the book value, then you're just not going to get the traffic to find someone willing to buy it. Unless you're someone who has thousands of sales and so people watch your listings.
Bang to the point again mate.
I've seen coinmountain sell the same coin as me let's say a Fiji halfpenny 1942s for instance I get £5 he will always get around £8 + simply because of the "Footfall" he gets.
I felt bad for her 
So the two of them pass back and forth coins to maximize their returns at our expense. We pay for the convenience and their expertise.
Wow! What an opportunity not to be missed! Before I would have paid $1100 above the real value; now I save $65 and pay only $1035 above the real value!! 