Welcome to E-Auction 34

Welcome to another decade! Marnie and I have been reminiscing…. The last ten years have seen momentous changes in our lives, as we welcome grandchildren, and as we continue to experience the remarkable remaking of our business by our son and partner Lief, who has orchestrated the building of our internet auction platform and brought our business into the 21st century in many different ways.

Our enthusiasm and approach to numismatics is rooted in the centuries-old enthusiasm for art and history of coinage that began with Romans collecting Greek coins, but the presentation to a world-wide community of coin enthusiasts via the internet is far beyond anything we could imagine in the early 1990’s when we were still doing black-and-white photography with a Polaroid camera mounted on a copy stand. My first effort at publishing color photographs involved working with a professional photographer whose gang-shot images could be converted to color after we paid a pre-press shop to do the work. (My memory? It was expensive and a bit disappointing when we finally got the print catalog in hand.)

We still use the copy stand, but Lief has mastered the art of coin photography, going well beyond my experience. He uses pre-press programs on our own computers to bring the color photographs to our catalogs and our website that show you much more than the black-and-white images we presented early on. But we still favor the detailed written descriptions we used in those old black-and-white days, so that you have a clear idea of what you can expect.

This catalog? Ordinarily we begin the calendar year with our largest sale of the year, filled with some of our choicest material. That sale is well along in production and will close in March. But we have some things for you to consider now: a New Year Store Sale, some good and some great pieces that slipped through earlier sales and deserve a second look (and at lower estimates); some coins that have come to us looking for new owners, keepers of these bits of history; and some select pieces that could have fit in the bigger sale but seem particularly suitable for our first E- Auction of the new decade.

The catalog is a bit shorter than usual but many of the items are particularly special. Among the reruns: the testoon of Mary as a 12 year old is one of the great rarities in the Scottish series. Look also at the Charles I crowns—reruns, yes. But exceptional examples of a series that soared a few years ago but is now relatively a bargain. The mere heft of these pieces is satisfying, and the artistry and historicity of them is an exciting look into 17th century England. (And the opening prices have been reduced!)

What more?

  • A bit of gold (in a time of a rising market), an ancient section and some reassessment of pieces previously offered, now at lower prices.
  • A British section with a small but broad representation of the 2000+ year history of the UK—England, Scotland and Ireland.
  • Some unusually fine tokens including the Pidcock menagerie, the first offer of tokens from the exceptional Mike Sussman Collection of British Tokens that will be an anchor offering in our next major sale.
  • A bit of appealing European material, some American coins and tokens, and a mix of medals to end the sale.

The three of us enjoy putting together these sales with a broad mix, a smattering of things you might not expect, and selections whose appeal is their intrinsic historic and artistic interest.

Anyhow! Welcome to the new decade! Thank you for your interest! And thank you for your support over the many years that the Davissons have been part of your collecting venture.

Allan Davisson

Friday, January 3, 2020

 

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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