Local Coin Auction Results

The Setting: Upper mid-west, population 2,500, 40 miles to the nearest town over 50,000, 160 miles to the nearest LCS or coin club. The coin auction consisted of 364 lots and was held in a separate room from the rest of the estates sales. There were 71 actual bidders at the coin auction, with 53 winning bidders. I would guess that at least 30 attendees were under the age of 40. Only 3 women attendees.

The Lots: This was a very 'typical' decades long collection that featured the most common items collected by most people. There were numerous partial and complete Whitman and Dansco albums of the most popular series, including many Lincoln Cent albums, several Jefferson nickels, one Mercury dime with low grades and missing all key and semi-key, a Walker set with 40 pieces, missing the big coins and almost all in the G-VG range, two Roosevelt sets, a complete Washington quarter set to 1970 with low grade 1932-S and D, and 150 Morgan and Peace dollars, plus the regular proof and mint sets, although the earliest of either was from the 1970's. There were a few rolls, several bags of wheats, a batch of world, and very, very few type. There was an additional 65 lots of currency, with four big PCGS graded items at the end of the sale.

Nothing jaw dropping or 'investor' quality, but a good bunch of plain old fun US coinage.

The Results: The auction started with mint and proof sets, Eisenhower brown and blue packs, Presidential coin sets, Quarter Proof sets, Premier Proof Sets, and the like. None of this did very well. In fact, there were at least a couple of times that the selling price was only slightly over face value. The 1995 Premier Silver Proof Set was the only one that went for a very high price of $85 (and there wasn't anything unusual about that set). Next were a number of Silver American Eagles - all 'raw' and every one sold for $14 or $15 regardless of the date. This was followed by the only three coin TPG's in the collection, an 1885 Morgan dollar in MS-63 and two 1943-D Mercury dimes in MS-65, all three of which were in the ancient small size ANACS holders. All three of those sold cheap, with the Morgan fetching $31 and the two Merc's doing $12 & $13. That was followed by a mishmash of singles, silver Kennedy's, Walkers and Franklins, all of which did very well, grabbing $8-$15 each for common dates and common conditions.

Following this were the Whitman and Dansco folders/albums, and those things went absolutely stark raving nuts. Put it this way - any of the sets sold could have been purchased on the Bay for 50% less. Some that just amazed me included a 35 piece complete Franklin set that were all XF'ish with a number cleaned for $440. The Lincoln set with the 1914 D went to $810. There was a PCGS tab pasted to the inside of the folder for the 14-D giving it VG details for Environmental damage. That was missing the 22 (actually there was a 22 in the place of the 'plain' but it showed the D just fine) no 1909 S VDB, although it did have a decent 09-s in maybe Fine. No 1931-s, either. So that was just crazy money. The Mercs and the Walkers were a bit more in line with reality, but they still sold for well over what the same items could be found for on the Bay.

Then came the Morgans and Peace, and I've already started sorting my stock to take there to sell too. NOTHING, not even a 1922 Peace that had been brillo padded sold for less than $22.50, with just plain common average grade maybe cleaned Morgans hitting $40-$45 with ease. There were 9 CC Morgans and an 1888-S, the prices were so insane I really just stood with my mouth open. An 1880 CC that couldn't have gone better than VG at best sold for $210, the 1888-S, which I looked over very carefully, had been dipped and couldn't have been better than a VF-20 on the best of days. It sold for $510. Yes - $510. And all the other CC's sold just as insanely. There MIGHT have been 3 BU in the whole run of 150. Most were in the VF-EF range with a fair sampling of AU's in the really common dates.

All four of the expensive currency at the end sold to phone bidders, the only items in the whole sale that had phone bidders, and all much, much higher than you can buy the exact same things on ebay for today for much cheaper prices.

The PCGS FR1173 VF35 sold for $1050, PCGS FR1187 XF40 $660, the $10 Bison VF25 for $1350, and the FR278 Indian Chief $5 in PCGS 58 at the jaw dropping price of $2800.

I picked up four names of guys who want to sell some of their stuff, and I made two appointments to sell some Morgans with two collectors I've known forever. I also had five new members sign up for our club which I'm just getting started. I didn't buy a thing. I DID have an absolute blast, though, especially considering all this happened 8 blocks from my front door.

IN CONCLUSION: Most of the guys were walking around with Red Books, some of which were many years old (one actually fell apart on the floor). In many cases these were farmers who really didn't care what they paid for something they wanted. Jim C. told me before the start that if I wanted the 1888-S (which I didn't) I'd better have brought lots of money. I would say that 50 of the 70 folks were wearing flannel plaid or camouflage jackets. Only one guy that I spoke with was a member of the ANA, and of the 8 new guys I spent time talking with only one of them had ever bought a coin on the net. I think when people start talking about the 'down turn' in coin collecting, they are essentially forgetting this very large population of collectors who may never go to a show, may never buy a coin on-line, and are not members of any kind of club. Attending this auction made me very happy because when it seems like coin collecting might not be popular, all you have to do is go "out in the sticks" to find a very large number of avid collectors.