E-Auction 1 Is Now Live

Our first ever E-Auction is now live! It consists of 100 carefully selected lots, spanning more than 2300 years of history. Lots will close on our website every 40 seconds or so, starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 6th. Print copies were sent to all the members of our mailing list on March 9th. If you would like a print copy and have not yet received one please contact us and we will be happy to send you one.

A press release describing the sale has been published in several venues. It can be read here:


Davissons Ltd announces E-Auction 1

Over a period of forty years Davissons Ltd has presented many major mail bid sales and price lists. With Lief Davisson joining the long-time partnership of Allan and Marnie Davisson last spring, the family firm launched their new website in 2012 and are now running their first ever electronic auction.

E-Auction 1 consists of 100 carefully selected Greek, Roman and British coins, tokens and medals, spanning more than 2300 years of history. High quality photos and lot descriptions for the entire sale can be viewed, and bids can be placed directly on the Davissons Ltd website www.davcoin.com as well as by phone, fax, email and US post.

The sale features many select pieces, including rare but affordable Roman gold solidii of Jovian and Valens; important Greek silver and bronze, including a good style pleasing shekel of Tyre, an attractive Lysimachos tetradrachm, a minty Sikyon stater, and a lovely toned hemidrachm portraying the head of Cleopatra, as well as a beautiful Larissa facing head drachm, the last two both from the important BCD collection. The Roman section includes some pretty and inexpensive Republican denarii, and imperial and provincial silver and bronze. An extensive offering of English hammered and milled includes Anglo-Saxon from Eadger through many later monarchs including Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and a George III "Northumberland" shilling. A piece of high grade Irish gunmoney is followed by some nice conder tokens and a large format medal featuring young and old heads of Queen Victoria celebrating her 1897 diamond jubilee.

This sale is only the second Davissons Ltd auction to close online. Lots begin closing on Saturday, April 6th, 2013 at 10 a.m. using a “soft close” structure. A soft close is meant to imitate a floor sale and discourage the practice of “sniping,” or bidding on a coin at the last second to deny other bidders time to respond. For this auction, every lot is given 40 seconds to close, but if any bids are placed on the lot that is closing then the timer is reset to 40 seconds. This allows all bidders time to think and respond, and there should be no one left frustrated after watching the sale only to be outbid at the last second on their respective lots. Once 40 seconds have passed without a bid the lot is closed, and the next lot begins closing.

After 40 years of print catalogs and mail bid sales, Davissons Ltd has no desire to abandon their paper and ink clients. A high quality printed version of the sale has been mailed to all existing clients, and bids will be accepted in any manner that people are wont to place them: mail, email, fax, phone, in addition to instant online bidding through their website.

For any inquiries please contact Davissons Ltd at info@davcoin.com, phone (320) 685-3835, fax (320) 685-8636, PO Box 323, Cold Spring MN 56320. You may bid by phone, fax, email or US mail. You may view their sale and bid online at www.davcoin.com.

Monday, March 18, 2013

 

How Bidding Works

 

Davissons Ltd uses a soft close for its auctions, which means no lot closes until everyone is done bidding. Every time a bid is placed within the final 40 seconds of a lot closing, the timer is reset to 40 seconds. This continues until no bids are placed for 40 seconds, at which point the lot closes. There will never be more than one lot closing at once, as the next lot is not allowed to begin closing until the current lot closes.

To bid: enter your maximum bid into the text box, and click submit. Only round dollar amounts are accepted. You are then required to confirm your bid. Once confirmed, all bids are final. If you have placed a bid in error you must call during office hours and speak to one of us. If you are the current high bidder then it will display “Current High Bidder: YOU” If you are not the high bidder, or if you are not logged in, then the current high bidder will be identified by their 5 digit client ID. You may find your client ID under the Account tab.

Bids are reduced automatically, so feel free to bid your maximum and it will be reduced to one increment over the current high bid. If a user places a bid that is higher than necessary to be the current high bidder on the lot, the displayed bid will reflect one advance over the next lower bid. For example, if a user "A" places a bid of $120 on a lot which opens at $100, "A" will be winning that lot at $100. If another user "B" bids $110, the winning bidder will be "A" at $120, one advance over the supporting bid of $110. If user "B" in this example instead placed a bid at $120, then user "A" will still be winning at $120 because they placed that maximum bid value first.

Increments can be viewed here. The next bid will always be on the next increment, so if a user is winning a lot at $100, or $105, or $109, the next bid will still always be $110.

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