Bulk Lots at auctions

[secret santa]

Quite often, auctions (both Coin and General) have bulk lots of coins. Are these bulk lots unsorted with possible gems lurking therein, or has someone generally gone through them looking for the valuable items ?

[Paddy]

I do a lot of trawling around local and small scale online auctions for coins - both bulk lots and individually. You get to spot the different sorts of bulk lots after a while - there are some that are genuine "Grannies old jewellery box" lots, and that is what you really want to find. There are some lots that have had a cursory, non expert, sort - these generally have any gold or silver removed or put into separate lots, but may still have a few interesting bits left. (The non-expert rarely looks closely at coppers or tokens and has poor knowledge on foreign pieces, so you can do well there.) Then there are the dealers' junk lots - accumulations of the coins they cannot sell, sometimes salted with a few slightly better things to tempt the bidding and persuade you they haven't been through it with a fine tooth comb.

Telling the difference is not always easy as some dealers go to great lengths to make the lots look original!

But they can be great fun and provided you know your stuff and view carefully before bidding, you can do very well.

 

[Peckris 2]

The answer is "yes" and "no".

If you have the time and patience, trawl through and look; if not, steer clear. It didn't happen often to me - I found a bulk lot with an EF 1865 penny in, but from the bidding it was obvious others had also seen it. I got it, but it wasn't a bargain in the end.

[Coinery]

I think logistically it’s an impossible job, especially at local auctions. The time it takes to wade through kilo after kilo of bulk lots makes it impractical for the auctioneers.

I’ve tried it a couple of times and it’s not fun, so I totally believe they are, more often than not, virgin lots.

Good things do lurk within them on occasions...Declan picked up a 1905 HC in a bulk lot as just one example.  

[rpeddie]

i purchased about 200kg of coins a couple years back, there were a few gems in it 1 1834 G 1/2 crown and a 1923 EF 1/2 crown so yea some good gems to be found 

 

Ebay £850, will never do that to myself ever again, think i still have some of it lying about 

Edited February 6, 2019 by rpeddie

[Sword]

One thing to be careful about is that many auction houses has a clause that "bulk lots" might contain items that are not genuine. This is fair enough if a bulk lot contains 20+ items but somewhat harsh if it contains just half a dozen. 

I have never brought a bulk lot before and certainly won't do so by looking at photos. 

[1949threepence]

Occasionally there's going to be a diamond in the rough, but far more often than not, I'd say you're going to be disappointed.

I'd only buy/bid if I had the opportunity to look through them first - as in a dealer's bowl at a coin fair type scenario. 

[Peter]

Don't mention to Dave (Azda) about his snide USA bulk lot.

[rpeddie]

problem is most of these have done multiple rounds of people looking to do the exact thing, so you have to rely on 5/6+ people all missing out on something.

[1949threepence]

3 hours ago, rpeddie said:

problem is most of these have done multiple rounds of people looking to do the exact thing, so you have to rely on 5/6+ people all missing out on something.

Very true.