Auction Sites Like The Auction Network - Product Supply?

Also, if there are coins that are .999 as I understand they are not supposed to be subject to HST - however not all auctioneers abide by that and when questioned have their own set of reasons - so I always check first if there are those types of coins that I may win. 13% is not a small chunk of change sometimes.

Keep in mind that a lot of items do not sell because the reserve is not met, and these roll over into a future auction.

Sounds like it is best to be bidding in person, so to avoid defects like fingerprints and other things. A person would also save on the postage. The additional taxes along with buyers fees, makes it an arena for the experienced auction goer. Aghawk great to hear you did get a few bargains, I didn't think there would be a lot of competition in local auctions.

I like watching the live bidding on the web, for entertainment occasionally. Much like I enjoyed horse auctions in years past.

I would think all the extra fees would leave little room for resale profits.

Just my opinion but there are so many knowledgable, dedicated people who make it a full time business and understand the coin market far better than the typical person, there is absolutely no opportunity left as the buyer market continues to diminish.

The only exception might be for the collectors who are liquidating older collections that weren't recently purchased because they didn't buy at current market price.

All true. If you watch the auctions in real-time the unsold lots get marked as "Past" (or something like that) versus "Sold" for the lots that actually sell.

There are tons of estate sales coming onto the market going to auctions, witness the flood of 1976 Olympic coins, 193X dollars, etc.

Cheers.

This auction house is really shady. Make sure you know what you're buying and what it's worth!

Edit: For some reason I can't post a link to the red flag deal forum, but if you do a search for auctioneer.ca over there, you'll see a discussion about these guys. FYI - Auctioneer.ca = Auction Network

I think a lot of people have had bad experiences, especially with online auctions when the quality of photographs of listed items are poor. Most auctions don't have a return policy either so it's most certainly buyer beware. However for whatever reason a lot of people are attracted to auctions because there seems to be somewhat of an urban myth that's where to get a good bargain. That can be so, but the dynamics of auctions differ from any other type of form of buying. ( ebay auctions, listings up for days at a time, are in no way the same.)

I still sort of chuckle at the thought of the last live auction that I attended. It was a collectible auction with coin, started at about 10am with it being open 2 hours in advance for public previewing. So I got there 45 minutes before the start, thinking that was plenty early enough. But the entire time a group of 6 or 8 attendees who appeared to all know each other were at that coin table, intently studying each and every coin so carefully that it almost became painful to wait and watch. By the time they were done the auction was ready to start and the majority of other potential buyers had no real idea of what they might want to bid on, other than the basic item description. Did that happen intentionally? I'd bet it did. It's not only the auction houses to watch out for, consider it similar to an aggressive buying competition as well.