1937 Proof Sovereign - Ebay

[1817Karl]

Hi all. 

I have been looking to source a good grade 1937 Proof Sovereign for a while and watch with interest the sales, including on Ebay. I noticed one which sold Before Christmas a 66*Cameo and it sold for £6k, (sold by Jon Blyth Coins) The same coin appeared again (finishes today) current bidding £3.1k (sold again by Jon Blyth Coins). 

Can anyone shed any light on this, I have emailed the seller for information also.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1937-King-George-VI-Great-Britain-Gold-Proof-Sovereign-NGC-PF66-STAR-CAMEO/362888670987

 

[goldking]

Sold, winning bidder didn't pay, relisted.  That is my guess.  Common theme on Ebay as it's become a platform full of time-wasters.

[1817Karl]

Had a reply from the seller. Coin sold and buyer didn't pay. Hence the re-list. Whilst I do not doubt the integrity of the seller, it just highlights the challenges facing buying and selling on Ebay. What are the market values of coins, when so many sales just aren't sales...

[watchesandwhisky]

Bricks and mortar auctions are a far better gauge of market value, ebay can be lala land at times..Most sales are genuine but not all is what it seems..

[terakris]

Are you going to be bidding on this, cos if so I won't bother, no point running up the bids with other forum members.

[1817Karl]

10 minutes ago, terakris said:

Are you going to be bidding on this, cos if so I won't bother, no point running up the bids with other forum members.

Did consider bidding, but no, a little too high I think. I’m looking to source a decent condition 4 coin set. Good luck if you do. I think Jon Blyth sold a 66+UCAM for around the same price £3.2 k ish recently. 

[Serendipity]

You can rest assured that Jon Blyth is a reputable dealer. He’s a member of the British Numismatic Trade Association (BNTA) which has very rigorous standards of membership. I’m not against buying numismatic coins from eBay as long as it’s a reputable dealer you’re buying from. Unfortunately, you do get time-wasters on eBay who bid but don’t pay up so the coin has to be re-listed. I buy mostly bullion coins for investment purposes but find myself increasingly attracted to numismatic coins. 

[Xander]

6K for 7 grams of gold, must be nuts. these coins are not that difficult to pick up. 

[sovereignsteve]

3 hours ago, goldking said:

Sold, winning bidder didn't pay, relisted. 

that's the charitable way of looking at it.

[sovereignsteve]

2 hours ago, Serendipity said:

He’s a member of the British Numismatic Trade Association (BNTA) which has very rigorous standards of membership.

There have been such members shown to indulge in shill bidding. I'm not saying that mr Blyth was doing so in this case but everyone needs to be aware that it does go on, so to keep an open mind.

[terakris]

2 hours ago, 1817Karl said:

Did consider bidding, but no, a little too high I think. I’m looking to source a decent condition 4 coin set. Good luck if you do. I think Jon Blyth sold a 66+UCAM for around the same price £3.2 k ish recently. 

I wouldn't want to pay much more than this tbh.  I'll see how it goes.

[goldking]

45 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

There have been such members shown to indulge in shill bidding. I'm not saying that mr Blyth was doing so in this case but everyone needs to be aware that it does go on, so to keep an open mind.

Before Ebay disguised the bidder's IDs, if you had the time and inclination you could search back through their listings and often spot the shill bidding from their 'other' account(s).  Nowadays it's randomised per auction so it's impossible to know if it's going on or not.  Of course, being the cynical old bugger that I am, if one were to engage in any shilling shenanigans, the £1 listing days would be the obvious choice as you'd only have £1 to pay if you ended up winning your own auction rather than the normal fee .  I'm sure I'm wrong, though, and it was just a cat walking across a keyboard somewhere, causing it to bid on the coin 'by accident'... 

[goldking]

One of the bidders : https://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidderProfile&ViewBidderProfile=&_trksid=p2471758.m4792&bidtid=1091153742023&mode=1&item=362888670987

Not suspicious at all .  41 bid retractions over the past 6 months and just in the past month, all of them have been on coin auctions except one.  If you do a reverse search, all the bids were well up in the thousands then later retracted - 99.9% proof of shill bidding to artifically inflate the price.  I think people can do the math themselves here without me needing to respond to Serendipity's post above .

[watchesandwhisky]

Ebay dont care, and these days you cannot rely on ebay auctions reaching a fair value (maybe rare coins are an exception here though) - so its pretty much a certainty these auctions have shill bidding. 

Easiest way is to just put in max bid via a sniper and hope you win + be prepared to pay that max bid.

[goldking]

3 minutes ago, Madstacks said:

and these days you cannot rely on ebay auctions reaching a fair value

You can.  It's called a reserve price.

[watchesandwhisky]

Dont be silly, they cost a % of the reserve price dont they? far easier to shill! 😂

*its a s****** way of doing things though...

[goldmember44]

16 minutes ago, goldking said:

One of the bidders : https://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidderProfile&ViewBidderProfile=&_trksid=p2471758.m4792&bidtid=1091153742023&mode=1&item=362888670987

Not suspicious at all .  41 bid retractions over the past 6 months and just in the past month, all of them have been on coin auctions except one.  If you do a reverse search, all the bids were well up in the thousands then later retracted - 99.9% proof of shill bidding to artifically inflate the price.  I think people can do the math themselves here without me needing to respond to Serendipity's post above .

Why does ebay not ban members like that? Surely that's obvious foul play?

[goldking]

https://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidderProfile&mode=1&item=392578219291&bidtid=960464045026&_trksid=p2471758.m4792

Seems legit !  

[goldking]

14 minutes ago, goldmember44 said:

Why does ebay not ban members like that? Surely that's obvious foul play?

Ebay don't care so long as they get their fees.  It's been suspected for a long time that the reason they disguised the bidder IDs was to put a stop to the endless streams of reports of shill bidding they used to get.  I can well believe it.

[goldmember44]

7 minutes ago, goldking said:

https://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidderProfile&mode=1&item=392578219291&bidtid=960464045026&_trksid=p2471758.m4792

Seems legit !  

Looks wild, but actually if you look at his total activity, the retractions are only a small percentage...

[Xander]

I would say this £5 Sov on ebay is a better buy for 6K

[goldking]

14 minutes ago, goldmember44 said:

Looks wild, but actually if you look at his total activity, the retractions are only a small percentage...

Look at the bids on seller 5 and 6.  Why would you need to retract so many of your bids on so many different items, over so many different days?  You either want the item or you don't.  If you get outbid then your bid becames null without you needing to do anything.  The only plausible reason is from shilling to bump the price up.

Look at this listing and the retracted bid : https://www.ebay.co.uk/bfl/viewbids/392578219291?item=392578219291&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2565

Auction stalled on 14 Dec at £300 with 8 days to run so s/he put in a shill bid on 15 Dec for £310 with the hope of being outbid to bump up the price.  Didn't work so on 21 Dec with 1 day to run they retracted their bid.  In that case it received genuine bids afterwards anyway but there's plenty of evidence of other auctions where the bid retracts were the last bidder.

[JunkBond]

19 minutes ago, Xander said:

I would say this £5 Sov on ebay is a better buy for 6K

Nice 👍

£2 & £5 always bvfm. 😉

[Serendipity]

I don’t think the British Numismatic Trade Association (BNTA) would be pleased if any of its vetted members were engaged in shill bidding on eBay. Shill bidding is when someone bids on an item to artificially increase its price, desirability, or search standing. Shill bidding is strictly prohibited by eBay. Whether eBay is successfully enforcing that policy is another matter of course: https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/selling-practices-policy/shill-bidding-policy?id=4353

[sovereignsteve]

1 minute ago, Serendipity said:

I don’t think the British Numismatic Trade Association (BNTA) would be pleased if any of its vetted members were engaged in shill bidding on eBay. Shill bidding is when someone bids on an item to artificially increase its price, desirability, or search standing. Shill bidding is strictly prohibited by eBay. Whether eBay is successfully enforcing that policy is another matter of course: https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/selling-practices-policy/shill-bidding-policy?id=4353

I'm sure they wouldn't but without the help of ebay, these things are all but impossible to prove.