Small town auction - Be ready for those. I wasn't.

[AuStruck]

Last Saturday I visited a small town nearby. I saw a poster advertising an estate auction. I went there. I was three hours late from the 9 am start. There were a rather large amount of coins. I found out that credit cards were accepted. I've never been to an estate auction before. Pitchers, plates, old signs seemed to be of significant interest.

The collector (estate), for example, had folders of pennies, about ten folders of 1941-1974 pennies. I looked at five or six. All holes were filled. The steel cents didn't look great. Some of the other pennies were not great. Only one man bid on those. He got all for $5 apiece. There were about five people bidding on coins. There was overbidding on Morgan dollars.

I managed to buy a small amount. I got for example two brown Ikes for $4 dollars. They did not have the outer package, just the plastic holder. There were some very old large pennies in pretty good shape, and other old coins. A man with a book of coin values bid and "won" many of the old coins.

[everything]

Sound like you found a good one to get some experience about these auctions, always interesting to hear about the Morgans.

[NDFarmer]

There was overbidding on Morgan dollars.

I have been to many household auctions and coin auctions and I have found that the Morgan dollar is one of the most overbid, overpriced coin there is. Household auctions are the worst. People see a coin from the 1800's and they think WOW that has got to be worth a lot. I see slicks that I would consider culls sell for $50.00 to $60.00 all the time.

[KeepStacking]

I've seen horrible overbidding at auctions to the point it made me wonder if it was shill bidding going on. I even remember a few of us laughing about it in earshot of one of the frequent bidders. He tried to tell us that a local refiner was paying something like 33% over spot on Morgans so that's why he was bidding aggressively. We called him out on the b.s. story and man did he get defensive, lol.

[pennypicker]

I recall back in 2011 I was at a residential moving sale where all items were being sold in auction style. Inside a glass case were some low end jewelry and an average circulated 1887 Morgan--it sold for $78

[messymessy]

It's been a while, but I went to a small town auction and spent all the money I had with me on silver at below melt. The unusual old stuff was selling for a premium, but the lots of silver coins were mostly selling below melt. There's deals out there.

[CLINT-THE-GREAT]

There was overbidding on Morgan dollars.

I have been to many household auctions and coin auctions and I have found that the Morgan dollar is one of the most overbid, overpriced coin there is. Household auctions are the worst. People see a coin from the 1800's and they think WOW that has got to be worth a lot. I see slicks that I would consider culls sell for $50.00 to $60.00 all the time.

This... times 10!!! Morgans are ALWAYS overpriced. I go to 2-3 auctions a week and I have NEVER bought a Morgan at an auction. Don't ever think about buying a Gold coin as they are made from magic dust and worth almost double their melt value. The only PM's I buy is Sterling Silverware. I almost always get it way below spot. Before they get to the Silverware I take my small digital scale and weigh each one and documents its weight on my phone. That way when bidding starts, I know EXACTLY how much to spend and won't be blindly bidding like everyone else will be. Plus most auction sterling is antique and goes for quite a bit more online than spot.

-The Great