Menger

Buyer pays market price. Seller gets market price less all deductions, taxes and wot not.

I did not mention Seller’s Premium - but Seller pays that too (if any). Buyer’s Premium is technically paid by Buyer but effectively paid by Seller as it is a cost deducted from the market price of Seller’s coin. That is why it makes little sense for Buyers to bemoan Buyer’s Premium rates and every sense for Sellers to do so (if they feel the rates don’t represent the value the auction house brings - through its reputation, market presence, photography, bidding system and wot not - in other words the increase in market price).

Buyer’s premium is a misnomer as it is paid by the vendor. Vendors need to consider BP carefully to assess whether it correctly represents value added by the auction house. Buyers can be indifferent as they don’t pay it anyhows.

It attracted a single bid and hammered at the starting price of £3000. I am not convinced the one that sold for £3600 in the Portland collection (St James’s) was the lesser coin - but I do think it’s price (which started from an estimate of £750 -£1000) was a spike caused by two competing bidders (it was the spectacle of the auction). I kept my powder dry today and hope to find a better example one day.

Yes indeed. This is why I am skeptical that woke (the shift of the left away from class activism to activism based on race, gender, sex or other myriad immutable characteristics) is mere “political correctness”. Any facet of a person can be converted into a group identity. The personal becomes political; and the political becomes total. No division between public and private. Precisely what the classical liberals abhorred in the total state - totalitarianism. Let’s hope it is a mere millennial fad.

Not sure. Sounds like post-modern gobbledegook. “Power relations” and wot not. Perhaps a good basis for a gnostic cult, but I think individual rights (irrespective of race, gender, sex or religion) have proved a better basis for western society.

Agree. Sounds like classical liberalism (individual rights irrespective or race, sex or gender ; not group rights based on race, sex, or gender). So more John Steward Mill or Martin Luther King than Foucault or Derrida. In other words, the antithesis of woke.

Was their philanthropy based on racial, sexual or gender criteria?

A further clarification may be in order: the term “woke” reportedly originated on the left. However, it is now predominantly used (largely as a pejorative) by everyone except the left. That is the use I am seeking to explain. From the perspective of the left, “woke” is a nothing burger, devoid of meaning, mere “political correctness”, or perhaps universal truth. Like fish in water might be unaware of water.

These issues have become associated predominantly with the left (just like identity politics) and just as climate denialism, Covid minimalism, anti-lockdown, anti-vaxer and Putin sympathizing are terms used (predominantly on the left) to describe the contrary positions on these issues, associated predominantly with the right. Clearly this is not absolute (Trump was big on the Covid shots; Boris Johnson was big on net-zero and Zelinsky) but then neither is identity politics limited to the left (the Tories have been implicated in woke as much as anyone). If is just a question of what is characteristic. We can guess Trudeau’s or Jacinda Ardern’s or Starmer’s position on these issues, just as we can that of Desantis or Farage or Georgia Meloni. As we noted before, there are two prongs to “woke”: the shift of the left to identity politics; the shift of corporations (and establishment) left. That is how a corporate (say, Pizza Hut) hypothetically pandering to any one of these issues (e.g., the Zelinsky pizza, the net-zero pizza, the trans-pizza) might be described as “woke”. I am just explaining use of the term for you; not seeking to justify it.

Sounds about right. I do sense though (more generally) that elitists tend to see populists as somehow “tricking” the masses (rather than giving them what they actually want); just as populists tend to see the elitists as implicated in a premeditated conspiracy (rather than incompetence). I think the one underestimates the intelligence of the other; and the other overestimates.

A con man Trump may or may not be, but that is a separate question as to whether he is “populist”. Trump was well ahead of the curve on China, the southern boarder and “forever wars”. Trump’s position on these three issues was contrary to the establishment position (in the media and both parties), but resonated with the working classes (what Americans call “middle classes”). This combination is what makes Trump “populist”. So “populist” might be contrasted with “elitist”: the establishment position (aka “leave it to the experts”) or woke policies generally (“leave it to the social scientists/universities ”). One can be a con man (or not) and “populist”, just as one can be a con man (or not) and “elitist”.

I thought I gave an explanation as to what woke means. Two prongs: left shift to identity politics; corporate shift left. On the left, this is a shift from obsessing about disparities between the bourgeoisie and working class to disparities within the bourgeoisie based on race, sex, sexual orientation, “gender” and other supposedly immutable wot not. In corporations, it is the shift to work policies and marketing focused on the same identity politics, as well as other leftward reorientations from climate emergency, to zero covid and the notion of a U.S./NATO/EU led world order. So Biden’s support of Zelinsky is not “woke” - but if Pizza Hut were to produce a pizza in the colours of Ukrainian flag that would be “woke”. Biden’s focus on “equity” (celebrating group identity based on race and sexual orientation or, say, disabilities; and seeking to eradicate disparities in outcome between such groups) is however “woke”. As to “populism”: yes, Trump (unlike the Republican establishment) is clearly populist, as is Farage (but not the Tory establishment). One of the great ironies is that some issues that were hitherto hallmarks of liberalism (such as free speech and a restrained foreign policy) have become “populist”. God help us. Anyone got a better definition of “woke”?

Again, I think it is in the shift of the left from class politics to identity politics. This applies to the Anglo-sphere generally, most acutely to the US but also the UK. Blue collar to white collar. Working class to upper middle class. This is why the parties of the left have become the parties of the big banks, corporations, professions (always teachers, but now also lawyers and doctors) and even big oil; whereas the right has become populist. Big business is now also “Blairite” (globalized but regulated economy) and has also embraced identity politics and middle class activism through ESG and diversity. The shift to “woke” describes this shift of the left from class to identity politics and the parallel shift of big business to the left. What was mere insufferable “political correctness” on the left has in parallel mutated into the intolerant cancel culture and authoritarianism of “woke”.

The left (and much of the establishment) have long been “politically correct” but they only recently became “woke”.