Can Just A Couple Obsessive Collectors Drive Prices Up In Particular Areas?

Maybe I am missing something, but I find a non sequitir in the premise.
How can lowball bidding drive prices UP?
I thought the idea of LOWBALL bidding is to win something at a price BELOW what the current market price is perceived to be?

There's far far far more than that.

It is certainly possible in a small niche category.

I wonder how we can find out just how many there are of the whole spectrum of Numismatics in the U.S. and world ?

I think so as long as the collectors have deep pockets.

It's probably too complicated of an issue for a straightforward answer, but I believe so.

Probably the only area I can speak authoritatively are on Indo Sassanian coins like my avatar. Probably 90% of the time, the market is highly predictable; certain types go for $1-3 at auction, most go for about $10, and a handful regularly hit about $25. I can always tell when I am bidding against one of the few other serious bidders when a $25 bid doesn't win my target coin. In a rare few cases, I have seen coins hit $75-100 that would be $15 coins any other week. Usually once that happens I have to wait on the few serious bidders to drop back out, otherwise I'll blow my budget on 1/3 as many coins as normal. A few examples:

A common coin, but with an unusually exaggerated portrait. Had at least one serious bidder against me; won this one for $56, the most I've ever paid for the type


This is a much rarer type (A transitional coin from the above to my avatar - known from just a handful of specimens) bought during a slow week without any serious competition for $6


In a more long-term sense, both shifting cultural awareness and new demographics becoming the rich and powerful has also had a significant impact on many areas. For example:
- After the movie Gladiator, coins of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus surged, especially for the most high grade and choice specimens.
- As India gets richer, some early rarities have come to be in great demand, particularly ancient Kushan and Gupta gold coins (Previously sold at about melt, now sell for several $$$$-$$$$$) and early (50s/60s) mint sets, previously bargain bin items, but now selling for thousands.

I agree with the last two posts, but I think it takes more than "a couple" of collectors as in the title of the thread. More like at least a handful.

My reasoning: If it is just a couple of collectors, then you only have a bidding war once on any given item. The next time it comes up, there is no competition (because the other collector already has the item), and the price drops back down.

If there are items that only come up for auction once or twice per year, and a handful of collectors want it, then I think you have a situation where competition can drive the price up for some time. I, too, have seen this on a few coins where I searched various archives for the selling price history over the last few years, but when I bid recently, the auctions ended around double what I had expected.