Coin Auctions (Not Ebay).....are They Really Worth The Time?

The best material goes through dedicated auction houses - so if you are after high end material you just have to bite the bullet and pay those fees. Of course, those fees shouldn't matter - you know what you are willing to pay - work it out including the fees and then bid.

Some argue that the buyers fees really just hurt the seller.

I have never bought a coin from an auction and probably never will. After buyers fees and exorbitent shipping and insurance and tax charged, I'd end up paying 30% over market trend whereas I'd likely pay 75% of trend on ebay.

I tend to agree with you. At least for what I collect currently. If I were going after much rarer/bigger money pieces, then a big auction house is probably the only place I'd find that kind of material.

My percentages are 0% auction, <1% eBay(-style sites), and most of the rest either dealers or tourists/friends (in dollar amount, probably >99% dealers, since the tourists tended to give me their coins for free or nearly so; maybe make that 98% dealers and 2% circulation finds that I paid face value for).
I don't particularly like online bidding sites, because they want me to have a Paypal account, and the sheer hassle involved in that (and then there's all the fees) make it not worth my time considering the low-end coins I usually tend to buy. Going to a coin market (though not a coin show, technically - never been to that), buying something in person and paying with cash makes me feel much better (even if I do have to spend 2-3 dollars on transportation). That said, official auctions do indeed seem to be worse than either.

I agree paying 30 percent on top of the final price is crazy the only time that I will bid is when the bid plus the fees are within trends

I think it entirely depends on what you collect. I just checked and 25% (by value) of my purchases were from auction houses. But then one coin makes up half of that!

Because as Bacchus and others have said, that's often where the better and rarer coins are found and if you want those .. there's not much choice. If you wait until they are on a dealer's books you're going to have to pay the buyer's commission plus the dealer profit margin. If they ever get there.

But then they stopped making what I collect over 350 years ago and the numbers known to exist for quite a few coins are in single figures. Those sorts of coins generally don't make it to ebay, there aren't enough guarantees they will make what the could be worth there and most sellers aren't willing to take the risk.

But for the less specialised or more easily found coins, it's a different matter.

I'm not saying I no longer bother with ebay, it's the largest market place in the world and bargains can still be found! An awful lot of my coins came from there, particularly those from my early days of collecting. But more and more my purchases these days are from auctions and specialist dealers.

tripoli - ebay is 99% about protecting the buyer, and 1% about protecting the seller. If you aren't happy with a coin, ebay will allow for a return, even if there's no return policy. (I've posted items before with the description saying essentially "as is, use the pictures to judge", and when the buyer wasn't happy, ebay allowed him to return). So it doesn't really matter if you can't see the coin ahead of time. If it's not what you expected (or heck, even if you just change your mind), you can return.