Welcome to E-Auction 25

Tiny coins, large coins, and a fair number in between.… Coins come in a wide range of sizes. When you limit yourself to coins made to circulate, you narrow the range a bit. This catalog covers a wide range, from tiny Greek fractionals to what became an international standard trade coin — the taler, dollar, 8 reales — of the 17th to 20th centuries.

Tiny coins like Greek fractional silver are rare — they were all too easily lost. But the artistic merit and technical achievement that can be seen in these bits of small change from that long-ago era — amazing!  Eight archaic fractionals, high grade and rare (and inexpensive considering their age, condition, style, and scarcity) make up a significant portion of the Greek coins offered in this catalog. The artistic quality of these tiny pieces attests to some remarkable die cutting. Some think that the microscopic vision of individuals with extreme myopia explains why some of the early die cutters were able to produce dies of this caliber.

A few other coins in the ancient section merit attention: the mint state Tarsos stater, the beautiful Æ 23 of Syracuse, the smattering of Sassanian (whose coinage is pivotal in understanding later largely imitative Central Asian coinage for the next four centuries, such as that produced during the waves of migration of the Iranian Hun tribes), Roman Egypt potin tetradrachms (from Rome’s most significant province, the bread basket of the Empire), and a few more reflect our intent in these smaller print and online auctions to provide an eclectic sampling of interesting coins from different areas.

You will find an interesting sampling of the larger dollar-sized pieces as well. The Gothic crown of Victoria is arguably one of the most beautiful coins of this size ever issued. Several more British crowns, a cross-section of Spanish American issues including a few chop-marked pillar dollars, a British and an American trade dollar and a handful of historic coins — Napoleon, Seated Liberty American, a partial “roll” of a Denver mint Dutch colonial issue — all interesting and relatively inexpensive.

Frank Robinson’s remarkable condition collection fills the center of this sale. Sixpences and shillings are the emphasis this time with a strong foray into the 20th century issues. The D&H token series is well represented as well with a strong consignment of exceptional condition tokens.

Finally, a personal note: Lief will be married by the time you get this catalog. Right now, wedding preparations are in full sail and on May 5th Lief and Meghan will exchange vows, then take a few days for a short honeymoon on the North Shore of Lake Superior, with a longer trip to Ireland in June.

Allan, Marnie, & Lief Davisson

Monday, April 23, 2018

 

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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