Auction Fever

It's a common affliction; I wish they'd develop a vaccine.

I love to get all excited about coins at mini-storage auctions and fall all over myself bidding them up. Then when the witches start taking my prizes I act all dejected.

I don't know what the coins are, nor what they are worth; but I love to give lessons to greedy people about snatching up my 'prizes'.

Local estate auctions are usually not very good places to purchase coins. Often these auctions only the most common series and the coins are usually well worn, not worth much more than melt if they have silver content. The bidders hearing that coins are a good 'investment' and thinking that they are rare often bid them up to multiples of their true value. Some dealers also use small local auction houses as an outlet for their junk and coins with problems.

My family collects antiques so I've been to a number of auctions. There are certainly deals to be had on other items, but coins usually go for substantially more money than one can buy them for at a local coin shop. There are exceptions, usually the auction crowd stops bidding after a few hundred dollars so if you are lucky enough to find higher end rare coins you might get a deal. Also the auctioneer or other auction atendees might not know about or look close enough for key dates so they might slip through the cracks at common prices. Recently I purchased a bunch of Morgan dollars that the auctioneer didn't sell by the piece so I got a decent deal because I was willing to buy in bulk.