Places to buy and sell. Is the market well served?

[Rob 3,221]

A general question here with input from all welcome.

Having listed a few things recently on the wife's ebay account, I have to say that the results were decidedly underwhelming. A total of 25 auction style listing results gave 6 with multiple bids (best result an EF 1952 6d for £6.50 starting at a quid) and 19 sold at opening bid (mostly for £1 and including a W&M farthing with full legend and portraits). The unappealing results were compounded by a total of 4 lots not even being paid for and those sales cancelled a couple weeks down the line. TBH that's s**t, that says to me that ebay sees very little competitive bidding these days other than in a limited number of 'hot' areas such as bronze pennies or continental sterlings/medieval pennies etc, probably due to the vast number of items for sale which encourages people not to bid in the hope that another will be along shortly, and as a seller is a near complete waste of time. The question I have is whether ebay's near total monopoly of online auctions is healthy and what would constitute a healthy alternative? Selling for opening bids discourages listing as an auction, but the alternative of fixed pricing is treated by many buyers as overpriced goods at taking the p**s prices. This to me seems like a crap deal for buyers and sellers alike, where the market could probably be returned to better health if there was a good chance of competitive bidding actually taking place. Bearing in mind that many of the items for sale on ebay or similar would only be sold by regular auctioneers as part of a bulk lot, it is clear that ebay does have a role to play, but it has to work for both sides. Even a fledgling online auction site that could produce a modicum of competitive bidding would have already caught up with the leader.

Thoughts please.

.

[1949threepence 3,368]

Personally, for what it's worth, I think a realistic alternative to e bay would be a well policed auction/buy it now site, run along similar lines - but for coins only. Run by experts for beginners, more experienced enthusiasts and other experts. If staff knowledgeable about coins were running the site, it would discourage the fakers/piss takers, as they'd be caught out immediately.   

Listings could be for higher end coins, with the tat excluded, ie: anything below a certain standard will not be allowed*. Although exactly how the mechanics of that would work, I'm not sure.  

Like e bay, there isn't any reason why it couldn't be international.

* unless a rarity

Edited October 19, 2019 by 1949threepence

[Rob 3,221]

I think the biggest problem with ebay is that it has become unwieldy. 15 years ago there was approximately 2000-3000 listings in the British coins section at any one time, i.e. you could quite literally search through the entire list if you had a few hours to spare. This resulted in multiple bids on most items, but equally, bargains could be had meaning that there was always a chance that sellers could get a good price and conversely buyers a bargain. That is manifestly not the case today other than for a very few sales in the case of sellers, and buyers have so much choice that I genuinely doubt they are able to fully peruse the lists. Just now, searching Victoria penny finds over 10K listings in the UK, or over 14K if the search includes worldwide. This is a huge number to search properly unless you are only looking at specific dates such as 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1877, 1909, 1903 etc. Most people have a life beyond ebay.

There is already a large number of outlets for selling the higher grade pieces, i.e. the established auction houses, though another online auction site could easily be accommodated as eBay is hardly over-endowed with quality coins for sale. For me, the biggest issue is that eBay is flooded with things that have little chance of selling, whether due to price, condition or just sheer quantities available. A rhetorical question, but how many 'rare' Peter Rabbit 50ps does the world need.

The established houses are not interested in low grade things unless as part of a bulk lot, or if extremely rare, then exceptions will be made. The problem and the solution for me is not to exclude low grade listings, but to charge everyone who lists something for the provision of the facility. It wouldn't have to be prohibitively expensive, but would need to be a number greater than zero in order to make the consignor question the viability of listing. Cut out free listings and suddenly the attraction of posting a flat disc for a million quid becomes unattractive. A dedicated coin auction site would, as you say, potentially have the advantage of experts to police the listings, but there is nothing to stop anyone creating a new site, whether they have the knowledge or not. People collect coins of all grade/prices, so it would be wrong to exclude things that were of inferior grades. The problem is not one of elitism or snobbery, but rather one of time wasting. Sure there are many deluded people offering crap at inflated prices courtesy of the tabloid media, but there is and always has been a genuine market for coins in all grades at the right price and this market must continue to be nurtured for the good of the hobby.

A balance needs to be struck whereby you have a manageable list of things available, but also sufficient buyers' eyeballs to make selling worthwhile. This is the perennial problem of startups, but with perseverance is a possibility. Hus tried it 8 or 10 years ago, before eventually folding it, but today, this might be a project worth resurrecting given the number of ebay listings, and the extent to which they p*ss people off. Their buyer good, seller bad policy doesn't exactly endear them to vendors either. It isn't beyond the realms of possibility that you would be pushing on an open door.

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Rob

[JLS 210]

I think longer auction times (a month ?) would be essential in an eBay competitor site in the early days in order to drive up viewership. 

Another thing which could be really advantageous to let everyone know about a new site would be if listings were indexed by Numisbids - they do include some auctions with lots of low value lots (e.g. WCN's weekly auctions), so it may be possible without compromising too much on seller fees. A really good category tree to allow easy sorting of lots could then be available through the Numisbids interface. 

I do think something an alternative wouldn't be able to beat eBay on is the attractiveness of the £1 fixed fee listings for valuable items - especially with gold coins of relatively low numismatic value, there are few better sales options. Having said that, this isn't available to business sellers and so if the focus was attracting dealers who wanted to part with excess stock etc. this wouldn't necessarily be an issue. 

[pokal02 45]

ebay was fine 10 years ago, with decent coins being bid up to fair prices.  Now 90% of it is tat and the other 10% is the same old stock being re-listed time & again at unrealistic prices.  

I'd like to see a minimum SP of £10 for coins, a listing fee even if it doesn't sell and a rule that nothing unsold could be re-listed more than twice in a 6 month period.  I know it'd be impossible to implement/enforce though. 

 

[alfnail 875]

I haven't listed many coins on ebay in the past year, because I sensed that buyers are not achieving good results nowadays, and that I may be underwhelmed..the same as Rob.

I did, however, decide to put a half decent group of Victorian pennies (copper and bronze), on ebay last Thursday, finishing next Sunday. I reckon a couple of years ago there would have been far more interest / bidding by now.

I may decide this is the last time I will use ebay for decent grade coins if I can't even recoup my money on this group.

I will wait and see what happens with interest...…...and the next holiday in mind lol 😎

[Rob 3,221]

I think anyone listing decent coins at 99p start is on a hiding to nothing. Everyone expects to pay 99p or a bit over, so it is important that only material of commensurate value is listed. The continual relisting until sold helps in this respect, as a max selling fee of £1 is never going to come into the equation. The system is clogged up, which is partly why I made the initial post and asked the question.

The world does need an alternative to ebay, but it will also require patience from both buyers and sellers alike to achieve sufficient momentum.

[pokal02 45]

A quick search for 'British Crowns' revealed 29,700 items.  Clogged up is an understatement!  

I have had some good results selling my duplicates on ebay in the past (£105 for a very modest 1696 crown springs to mind) but the last two attempts were disappointing.  I haven't got CCA, which was my other route, any more now either.  I'll probably not upgrade existing specimens so much in the future.   

 

[blakeyboy 1,814]

I too have a few on my wife's ebay account at the moment.

We are now trying a reasonable start price, and reducing over the weeks till someone goes 'fair enough'.

Sometimes that then generates two or three bids.

Wading through so many lots is a pain- I didn't see the F76 from Portugal because '1874' wasn't in any description.

Whoever found that was either very lucky, or had hours to spare.

Not so good for the seller....went very cheaply....

[copper123 1,559]

Most of ebay is just jammed up with rubbish which people are not interested in .

They do however seem interested in great rarities and high grade victoria and before coins .

It really seems that coin collectors really have woken up and smelled the coffee as far as the dross thats on there and it's just a haunt for overpriced rubbish really now .

Every so ofter when a decent estate collection turns up there is lots of interest .

[Michael-Roo 783]

 

Er…..?

[1949threepence 3,368]

  On 10/21/2019 at 7:44 PM, copper123 said:

Most of ebay is just jammed up with rubbish which people are not interested in .

They do however seem interested in great rarities and high grade victoria and before coins .

It really seems that coin collectors really have woken up and smelled the coffee as far as the dross thats on there and it's just a haunt for overpriced rubbish really now .

Every so ofter when a decent estate collection turns up there is lots of interest .

It is still possible to find good stuff on there. You just have to hunt further and for longer, which can involve a time and patience issue.

Also, as Blake alludes to, even using the advanced search facility, diamonds can slip through the net because of an odd description. 

[Michael-Roo 783]

 

Coppers, my apologies, a post reading simply 'Er….?' made no sense.

I was responding to your comment regarding estate collections and wondering if I'd missed some important information on here. I see now you were just making a general point, and it's one with which I would concur.

 

 

[mick1271 159]

Ebay died a death (for buyers anyway) when they started free listings .Now it is so bloated with worthless crap and common modern coins ,that it is just a pain to use .My collecting started nearly 20 years ago and 95% of my purchases in the first 5-10  years were from there .I am lucky to buy 1 a month from there now .If they started charging for listings and refunded the charge from the sales fees ,it would go a long way to stopping the crap getting listed . The amount of fakes is another story , but with less listings it would be easier to police .Unfortunately ,they don't seem to want to be a serious platform for coin sales .

[1949threepence 3,368]

  On 10/22/2019 at 8:14 PM, mick1271 said:

Ebay died a death (for buyers anyway) when they started free listings .Now it is so bloated with worthless crap and common modern coins ,that it is just a pain to use .My collecting started nearly 20 years ago and 95% of my purchases in the first 5-10  years were from there .I am lucky to buy 1 a month from there now .If they started charging for listings and refunded the charge from the sales fees ,it would go a long way to stopping the crap getting listed . The amount of fakes is another story , but with less listings it would be easier to police .Unfortunately ,they don't seem to want to be a serious platform for coin sales .

Like all huge organisations they are high on meaningless, generic crap, and totally absent on technical knowledge and commonsense. 

 

 

 

[AardHawk 73]

  On 10/24/2019 at 5:53 PM, 1949threepence said:

Like all huge organisations they are high on meaningless, generic crap, and totally absent on technical knowledge and commonsense. 

 

 

 

I'm not sure that you understand how ebay (the company) operates. They are not responsible for what is sold on their platform. They make their money by providing a platform for others to use and charging them for its use. Its the others who are responsible for the crap.

People need to be more selective of whom they buy from, so maybe only buy from those who operate an ebay store and who presumably pay a fee to do so. I assume one can search only ebay stores.

For those who are sell, open an ebay store and show that you are a step above the no fee dross.

Just a few thoughts.

[1949threepence 3,368]

  On 10/25/2019 at 8:23 AM, AardHawk said:

I'm not sure that you understand how ebay (the company) operates. They are not responsible for what is sold on their platform. They make their money by providing a platform for others to use and charging them for its use. Its the others who are responsible for the crap.

People need to be more selective of whom they buy from, so maybe only buy from those who operate an ebay store and who presumably pay a fee to do so. I assume one can search only ebay stores.

For those who are sell, open an ebay store and show that you are a step above the no fee dross.

Just a few thoughts.

But they do tout themselves as a company which doesn't tolerate fakes/a genuine common coin, masquerading as a genuine rare coin. So to that extent they are, by definition, holding themselves responsible for the sale of imitations. So clearly, because of their obvious lack of subject knowledge, they can only ever be reactive to the complaints of others. - ergo: they can get it badly wrong. Not the least because if only one person complains, they won't have a clue whether that person is just attempting to convince the seller to alter the description.

I agree that buyers should be careful and you only have to look at my motto to appreciate that. But that doesn't detract from e bay being a huge unwieldy concern which possibly takes the side of buyers too quickly and has no invested knowledge with coins, or anything else. So in that sense, what I said was absolutely correct.      

[bagerap 706]

Ebay did have a counterfeit vetting panel at one time. One of its members was Robert Gurney a.k.a. Swamper Bob, a man who (literally) wrote the book on  fake Spanish colonial coins and is a fount of knowledge on world silver. The panel was shut down after "seller complaints" and because it was starting to affect ebay's numismatic income stream.

[Rob 3,221]

Which sort of backs up most allegations about their motives. Like much in this world, it's a case of style over substance.

[copper123 1,559]

Did not newspapers offer exactly the same service as ebay in the hundred or so years b4 it existed.

They offered to put buyers in touch with sellers for a fee and  act as a go between while accepting no liability

[Peckris 2 2,194]

  On 10/26/2019 at 9:37 PM, copper123 said:

Did not newspapers offer exactly the same service as ebay in the hundred or so years b4 it existed.

They offered to put buyers in touch with sellers for a fee and  act as a go between while accepting no liability

Exchange & Mart classifieds. 

[copper123 1,559]

  On 10/26/2019 at 10:02 PM, Peckris 2 said:

Exchange & Mart classifieds. 

them as well