CoinSniper.com

As you know, I started this business to be the most fun way to grow your coin collection. It is with that spirit that I am or have instituted these changes – as voted on by CoinSnipers!

Happening Now!

FB: Multiple Open Bid Auctions
Only the first bid will count for multiple bids – after your first bid, each CoinSnipe will be a single. The idea here is to bust through the reserves quickly. I hope to have this sorted out soon!

Second-Chance Count-down
I’m working on making it possible to bid again if an auction doesn’t meet reserve. If an item ends under reserve, you’ll get another 10 or 15 seconds to place a bid – but only once! Once the second chance is used up, if the auction’s bidding ends under reserve, the high bidder gets the Bidding Bounty and bids are refunded.

Multiple Bid Auctions
Each hit of the Bid Button is worth multiple bids! This will be used for the more expensive coins so that serious bidders will have a better chance at getting them!

Look for 5x and 10x Auctions! Most are No Jumper and they require that you’ve won a couple of times before you can participate. The main reason behind this is so that I don’t have people brand new to the site surprised when 5 or 10 bids get taken on their first bid.

Hidden Reserves
Reserves are now hidden until the auction ends! An overwhelming majority of CoinSnipers liked this idea, so we’re going for it! This makes the experience more like any other coin auction – most auctions have reserves and the buyers don’t know what the reserve is until the final bids are placed. Reserves are fixed when the auction is posted and they aren’t changed. As soon as the auction ends, you’re able to see what the reserve was, so if you’re the high bidder, you know if you won the Bidding Bounty or if you won the coin! Just as ever, if the coin doesn’t pass reserve, all bidders get their bids back automatically. I’m working on a way to make this happen faster.

The philosophy on reserves and their caclulation has not changed! You can see that when you see that the auctions ending have the similar reserves for the time slot compared to the value of the lot as they’ve always had. I’ve made them invisible because CoinSnipers wanted it! Reserves will be calculated as they have been for the foreseeable future.

I know some of you have missed or don’t fully understand the changes, so here’s a recap…

Successful Ideas Implemented:

Bidding Bounties: Free Bids Given away daily!
Going back quite some time now, the high bidder when an auction doesn’t pass reserve gets from 2 to 10 free CoinSnipes!

No Jumper Auctions
Going back a while now, certain auctions labelled NJ don’t allow new bidders after T – 1:00 on the clock. This was something the majority wanted, and they seem to be working well!

Limited Bid Auctions
Going back a while now, certain auctions labelled LB are No Jumpers with a low bid limit. In this way, it’s all about strategy – and it’s more fun!

Spending Limits
It used to be that you could blow a ton of bids getting caught up in the action. Not anymore! Instead of the endless spending of bids, you’re limited to the amount you can spend on each auction. It’s less frustrating when you lose, and the result is you have more bids in your account for longer so you can come back and win another one later. Saving CoinSnipers money!

Coming Soon:

The CS Vault
Fantastic coins for outright purchase. This is the cream of the CoinSniper crop – and you’ll be able to buy them with PayPal. Also, you’ll be able to use “lost bids” toward a percentage of credit on the purchase! All those paid bids you’ve used up when you didn’t win a coin at auction can be used for a small discount on these beauties!

I hope to open the CS Vault in July for CoinSniper’s One-Year Anniversary!

So, I mentioned that I figured out, using high-resolution photography, that the coin up for auction as CoinSniper Auction 2824 is an “uncracked” (or Early Die State) WB-102, the same obverse die as used for the famous Confederate Half Dollars.

Let me show you how I figured that out.

First, I verified long ago that the coin I have is a 102 obverse. It’s a cracked die, so it’s pretty obvious but to be sure I matched it up with the image available on PCGS’ site using the same technique I’m going to detail here now. Neat coin, heavy corrosion from “the shipwreck effect”.

So I start with my WB-102 Cracked CSA Obverse. I should begin by explaining that the “WB-102″ is one of a handful of obverse dies designated as used by the Confederate States of America while it had control of the New Orleans Mint during the Civil War as identified by master numismatists Wiley and Bugert (thus WB). I learned a lot from reading their book, an excerpt of which is available on David Lawrence Rare Coin’s website.

Rusty’s cracked WB-102 CSA Obverse 1861 O Shipwreck Effect Seated Liberty Half

From there, I test photographs of similar coins to see if the dies match up. I also use photographs of the other obverse dies to see if they match up with an unknown coin I’m testing.

So here’s a coin I was unable to identify, which sold on CoinSniper.com in CoinSniper Auction 2540 quite some time ago.

1861-O Non-CSA Coin, CoinSniper Auction 2540

You can see here that when I overlay the photograph of this coin on top of the WB-102 (“control” coin) it doesn’t quite match up. It is incredibly close! It looks like if you were to rotate the test coin a couple of degrees, everything would line up. But it does not. There is a certain amount of photographic manipulation involved at times to see if a coin is right or not, but in general terms, the match has to be exact. This coin does not match exactly (nor does it with any of the other known coins I have high res photographs of), so I call it a non-CSA coin.

Overlay of CS2540 over cracked WB-102

Now let’s take a look at today’s coin, the one available in CoinSniper Auction 2824. At first glance, you’d probably throw it out because there is no die crack at all. However, after looking carefully at what appear to be microscopic starts of the die crack, particularly on the bridge of Liberty’s nose, I decided to have another look.

CoinSniper Auction 2824, WB-102 (Uncracked)

You can see here that in the overlay, the match is perfect. It’s actually hard to tell there is an overlay – but there is. See the die crack? See the detail in the shield that isn’t there in today’s coin? That’s detail from the cracked coin underneath showing through today’s coin, which is somewhat see-through, and laid on top. This means that the coin was indeed certainly minted by the Confederate States of America. Dies only last 200,000 strikes or so (as I recall) and with a mintage of 2.5M for the year, the CSA definitely had to make the dies last, but it’s hard to imagine they would use a die, set it aside, and then come back to it just before minting their Half Dollars. In other words, despite the fact that this coin shows no obvious die crack, it is certainly made using the same obverse die as the Confederate Half and thus certainly made by the CSA!

Overlay of CS-2824 over Cracked WB-102

Fascinating and fun numismatics. At least for an anorak like myself. ; )

Happy coin hunting,
Rusty

(Apologies for this ridiculous page layout! Hopefully the information is there for ya.)

Alright, so a few of us have been kicking around ideas to get these nice coins sold.

Here they are. After you’re done, go to the CoinSniper facebook Poll and vote for your favorites.

1) Ante Bids

Your first bid button hit counts for multiple bids.

Depending on the cost of the coin, it could be 5 bids, it could be 10, it could be 100. This would ONLY be allowed on No Jumper and Limited Bid Auctions. Should make the reserves disappear quickly. After your first bid is placed, every subsequent bid counts as 1.

Everything else stays the same: Bidding Bounties, Bids refunded if it doesn’t make reserve, et cetera.

For instance:
A10: 1933 Morgan Dollar
Reserve: 0.50 (would normally have to be a lot higher for a ’33, but this is just for fun.)
Ante Bid is 10, No Jumper Auction.

CoinSniper A bids at T – 1 day – price is $0.10, 10 bids taken from CoinSniper A’s account
CoinSniper B bids at T – 1:35:00 – price is $0.20, 10 bids taken from CoinSniper B’s account
CoinSniper C bids at T – 16:00 – price is $0.30, 10 bids taken from CoinSniper C’s account
CoinSniper A bids at T – 4:55 – price is $0.31, 1 bid taken from CoinSniper A’s account
CoinSniper D bids at T – 2:00 – price is $0.41, 10 bids taken from CoinSniper D’s account

Maybe auction ends, doesn’t meet reserve, all bids refunded, CoinSniper D gets the 5 CoinSnipe Bidding Bounty.

Maybe the auction continues, gets 9 more bids, coin sells.

2) Multiples Bidding

EVERY hit of the Bid Button counts for multiple bids. Depending on the cost of the coin, it could be 5 bids, it could be 10, it could be 100. Could be used on any kind of auction. Should make the reserves disappear quickly.

For instance:
5x: 1916 V Nickel MS 64 (couldn’t get PCGS to certify it though, dunno why…?)
Reserve: 0.50
Each Bid Button press counts as 5 Bids, normal CoinSniper Auction.

CoinSniper A bids at T – 1 day – price is $0.05, 5 bids taken from CoinSniper A’s account
CoinSniper B bids at T – 1:35:00 – price is $0.10, 5 bids taken from CoinSniper B’s account
CoinSniper C bids at T – 16:00 – price is $0.15, 5 bids taken from CoinSniper C’s account
CoinSniper A bids at T – 4:55 – price is $0.20, 5 bid taken from CoinSniper A’s account
CoinSniper D bids at T – 2:00 – price is $0.25, 5 bids taken from CoinSniper D’s account

Maybe auction ends, doesn’t meet reserve, all bids refunded, CoinSniper D gets the 5 CoinSnipe Bidding Bounty.

Maybe the auction continues, gets 6 more bid-button presses from various CoinSnipers totalling 30 CoinSnipes, coin sells.

3) Invisible Reserves

Everything stays the same BUT you can’t see the reserve until the auction has ended. Just like right now, I set the reserve when I post the auction 4 – 7 days ahead of the scheduled end time.

For instance:
5x: 1836 Merc Dime
Reserve: 0.50 – nobody knows but me.
Normal CoinSniper Auction.

Maybe auction ends, doesn’t meet reserve. Reserve shows up on Screen. All bids refunded, high bidder gets the 5 CoinSnipe Bidding Bounty.

Maybe auction ends, meets reserve. Reserve shows up on Screen. High bidder wins.

Drop me a line if you like any of these ideas!

Now you can win even if you don’t win.

Ah, that sounds like cheesy marketing crud. But here’s the deal: If you’re the high bidder when a coin ends and doesn’t pass reserve, you’ll get between 2 and 10 bids (up to 10% of the reserve price) just for your participation.

The minimum is 2, the maximum is 10, the in between is 10% of the reserve. That’s not bad for just trying to get a bid in! Bids will be awarded within 1 hour of the auction session.

Also, now you won’t know exactly what the reserve is! Some will be high, some will be low, some will be in between. If you’re high bidder and the coin doesn’t pass reserve, you get the Bidding Bounty and you and everyone that bid on the auction get your bids back. If the auction DOES pass reserve and you’re the high bidder, you get the coin!

It’s my way of thanking you for your participation in the auction.

Credit to CoinSniper “nomish” for the idea. Well, this wasn’t exactly his idea, but I boiled it down a couple of times, trimmed the fat, took out the bones, and got it to this. We’ll see how it goes. Everyone likes free stuff, should make CoinSniping more fun!

“I won’t bid against XYZ because that guy is crazy!”

is the message I get from the same CoinSniper that says,

“I won’t be bidding on the bid limited auctions because I want to be able to bid as much as I want.”

You can’t have it both ways! If you refuse to reign in your bidding and bid responsibly, I have to enforce bid limits. If you refuse to bid against some bidder because they’ve gone all-in (or more) against you in the past and you lost, nothing will ever happen here.

I’ve even had power bidders (regularly) tell me that they hate power bidders! I know these people don’t hate themselves, they just realize they’re doing it perhaps. It’s kind of amazing, though, when you think about it.

The answer is bidding limits. I’ve left them high for now, generally they’re 100 – 120% of my pre-auction estimate for the item. Perhaps I should try 50%? I can hear the screams in chorus of “no!”, but I honestly think it would be more fun.

I want you each winning fantastic coins with a few bids, but if you won’t bid on the auction, it ain’t gonna sell. Simple as that. I can’t lose money on coins like I did when I started the business. I can lose some once in a while, but on balance I have to make money so I can get more (better?) coins to sell to you with this fun format!

I know you don’t realize you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth, but I’m getting an awful lot of conflicting messages from good people that mean well.

And let me be clear, I sure appreciate hearing them! I love engaging with my fun cool coin collectors from all over America! It’s something I could never do if I opened a brick and mortar. The best part of my day is getting an e-mail with a well wish or some thoughts or news or even just a hello.

I’m in this business to work with coin collectors! (And play with cool coins, alright – of course!)

So this is how it’s going to be.

For this to work, I need a lot of people bidding a little. Once in a while, you can let yourself go a little crazy if it’s something you really want – knock yourself out! But realize that everyone has a little crazy in them depending on the coin in front of them…

So bid limits with reasonable reserves it is. Try it, I think you’ll see you like it!

-

P.S.: I’m seriously considering running 1 or 2 “Unlimited Bid” auctions per day for you nutties that have nary a care. But don’t get mad at me or anyone else if you can’t behave responsibly for your own good!

I recently saw that CoinSniper.com got a bad review on a non-CoinSniper site. Since that user went out of his way to make my site look bad – my business that I have poured my life into – I thought I’d go out of my way to tell the whole story.

I’m in no way trying to make anyone look bad. I just want you to see what I go through on a daily basis as I try to get the “CoinSniper Formula” right for coin collectors.

A couple of months ago, I got a survey back. I send out a survey to everyone who joins CoinSniper after a week or two to see how they’re doing.

Here are the responses:
Have you bid yet?

If YES – was it fun?
If NO – why not? (No pressure, just curious)
yes i bid, no i didn’t like it. i thought i won an auction and even got an email for it but was told it was an error in the script. i think i should have got the coin anyway, especially seeing as it was only worth $1 and i coulda put anohter bid on it very easily(didn’t hit reserve).

If you have not won yet, are you going to try again?
not sure, but doubt it.

What would you most like to see more of?
not sure. just wanted to let u know why i stopped bidding here really.

Is it okay for Rusty to contact you about your answers to this survey?
I’ve spent enough time! Don’t bug me and gimme my bids!

Now right off the bat, perhaps I should have just left it alone. But I felt the need to address a couple of issues – mainly explaining why the site didn’t work why the bidder expected and how to make sure it works best for him.

Here is the full, unedited (other than name changed) e-mail conversation:

>>> Sent: Friday, August 31, 2012 10:25 PM
>>> Subject: CoinSniper.com: 5 bids added to your account
>>>
>>> Hello Jack,
>>>
>>> Thank you for your valuable feedback! I’ve added 5 bids to your account, as promised.
>>>
>>> I know you asked for me to not bother you, so if you don’t want to be bothered, please stop reading and carry on – thanks for trying out CoinSniper.com!
>>>
>>> Otherwise, I have some information that might be helpful to you.
>>>
>>> Just so you know, I think it’s really important that you read the technical recs article – at least review it. There’s some helpful information there that most people don’t know… And, even if you’re an experienced Penny Auction user, you might also benefit from the CoinSniping Tips article.
>>>
>>> I see you haven’t won an auction yet. Since I’ve begun running Beginner Auctions (4 of them M-Thurs, 2 each on Friday and Sunday), you should be able to get a coin with your free bids. I began running no-reserve Beginner Auctions to combat situations just like yours. Don’t use your bids up on one auction, wait until there’s one that nobody has any interest in and pop a bid down close to the end, I’ll bet you can get one you want.
>>>
>>> Also, I definitely understand your frustration after trying so many times, but it’s certainly not my duty as a business owner to give you free stuff. It’s my duty to make money and be productive.
>>>
>>> I certainly understand your wish to get stuff for free, but know that even for each $0.20 coin, I have to pay $3-4 for delivery confirmation shipping and another $1 for packaging, not to mention all of the labor that goes into photography, posting, packaging and shipping each auction.
>>>
>>> Good luck bidding! Oh, and thanks again for trying out CoinSniper.com!
>>>
>>> Happy coin hunting,
>>> Rusty

>> On 8/31/2012 7:52 PM, jack wrote:
>>> just fyi- u definitely just lost me as a customer. please close my account.
>>>
>>> thanks

>> Sent: Friday, August 31, 2012 10:55 PM
>> Subject: Re: CoinSniper.com: 5 bids added to your account
>>
>> Done!

> On 8/31/2012 7:59 PM, jack wrote:
>> thank you.
>>
>> next time u might look up the bidder u want to accuse of getting a free dollar on apa before u pop off ur little cock sucker and ask yourself if some stupid shit like that makes any f-en sense whatsoever.

> Sent: Friday, August 31, 2012 11:26 PM
> Subject: Re: CoinSniper.com: 5 bids added to your account
>
> Sorry Jack, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I never accused you of anything. Perhaps you misread my e-mail.
>
> Your language is not appreciated.
>
> Thanks again for trying out CoinSniper.com.
>
> Happy coin hunting,
> Rusty

On 8/31/2012 8:41 PM, jack wrote:
> sure you did. u accused me of trying to get a $1 item from you for free, several times at that. thats a major insult in my eyes and i didn’t appreciate it.
>
> you might want to sharpen up your customer service skills. the first email i got from ya u hinted at me lying to u about losing 1 bid. i really don’t give a rats ass about 1 bid or $1, but showing me the way u handle somethin this petty tells me a lot about u. when your script is screwed up the way u handle it is u bite the bullet and do what u have to do to make the customer happy. when u don’t u lose customers, as in me and now most everyone i tell about it on tbl.
>
> good luck!

Jack, I didn’t accuse you of anything.

You’re welcome to get a $1 (or more) from me for free – as are all users. There’s no accusation there, I invited you to do so! And I kept doing it tonight by giving you more free bids. Last week, I shipped out a $30 item to a user who figured out how to get it with a single (free) bid! And I was quite happy to do it.

I never hinted at you lying – I checked the record and you were right; though I had refunded your bid through the system, it didn’t go through. So I manually added it to make sure all was right. I’m not sure what more I could do there.

I’m sorry you’re unhappy.

Like I said, happy coin hunting,
Rusty

———- ENDS ———–

The post-script is that I have two beginner auctions per day with no reserve that ship for free, and 80%+ go unsold. This bidder could have had any of a number of $1 or ever $5 items shipped for free to his door, but instead chose to do things differently.

There you have it. You make the call. This is how much time I spend trying to rectify a problems for people. I can only do the best I can!

I should mention, this and every customer interaction is a great learning experience from which I do my best to improve the site and my skills running it. It’s hard work, but it’s fun.

Some CoinSnipers like to put up a bid on an auction as soon as it comes live to show they are interested in that auction.

Others prefer to wait until the counter reaches zero to let their intentions be known.

Which strategy is better? It seems to come down to how it effects the reserve.

If nobody has placed a bid on a coin, placing a bid at the last second is almost surely futile. There is definitely a “groupthink” atmosphere around each coin. When a CoinSniper places a bid, it seems to validate the coin’s presence. When there is no bid, people seem to begin to wonder if it’s a good or interesting coin.

ALL of the coins on CoinSniper.com are fantastic in their own way. I work very hard to present them honestly.

If you have any interest at all on a coin that has no bids, you may wish to place one because once a bid is placed on a coin in advance of the auction, it has a much greater chance of selling.

If you have interest in bidding on a “big” coin, it is almost a necessity to place a bid well before the auction ends. With a reserve of 20c, it is at this time a requirement that 2 or more bidders to drop a few bids just to get the coin past reserve. If three or four step forward to drop multiple bids, the coin will almost certainly sell. If they do not, the coin will not sell.

Everyone is being forced to re-investigate their own strategy. As it is no longer possible to bid more than the coin’s value in bids, people are looking at how they can get the coins for 50% or less (as they should be).

There will still be bidders willing to go “all in”, but there will be fewer of them.

A common occurrence is still and always will be to wait too late to put in a bid. Nobody wants to be drawn into a bidding war, but with the new caps in place, bidders must be more judicious with their bids. And a few times a week, three or four bidders will be bidding on an auction and suddenly two or three will stop bidding at the same time, leaving the auction to the bidder who got their bid in.

It’s tough to know exactly when, but I’d suggest that you don’t wait too long and run the risk of being frozen out!

To sum up my thoughts on pre-bidding… if you want the coin, get at least one bid in before the auction. The chances of the coin selling go up dramatically!

And of course, make sure you have the bids necessary to back up your move…

Dear CoinSnipers,

… I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I want you all to have more fun doing this – using CoinSniper.com to improve your coin collections, to have a better understanding of how to be successful on the site, and how to get more, better coins for your collection.

I thought I’d put it all down here for you to think about.

In the end I’m a coin geek, so what do I know? Well, I’ve been running this site for a while, so let me give you a few friendly tips.

It’s easy to get carried away on penny auctions like CoinSniper.com. The “if I just put one more bid…” mentality is easy to get sucked into.

It’s no fun to lose all of your bids chasing something. It IS fun to win. To have better results over the longer term, let’s look at a winning philosophy that may help you.

Know What You’re Buying:
A young numismatist just challenged my grade for a coin on CoinSniper.com. I stand by my grade, but he sees it differently. It’s hard to grade coins, it’s an art learned only with years of experience. It can be difficult to define the difference between strike and wear, to know how many distracting marks detract how much, to know how much that surface problem detracts from the wear grade of the coin. You don’t have to take my word for it, make your OWN judgment! I’m confident in my grading and valuation skills, but that doesn’t mean I’m never wrong. Grade and value according to your experience, don’t take my word for it. I enjoy being challenged. In the end, he agreed with me on this one, but it makes you a better numismatist if you – at least in your own mind – challenge all of my grades and valuations.

Always use the images to define your own grade and value – if you think I’m wrong, then go with your gut. Set your limit according to the value that you see, not the value that I say.

The final price is not important – what IS important is the number of bids you use to win!

If a $100 coin is bid up to $1.32, that’s 132 bids or $80 worth, assuming they were all paid for. (They were not all paid for). So does it matter if you drop 10 bids to try to win it and bring the price up to $1.50 or so when the coin would otherwise cost you $100? NO.

What matters to you is your cost out of pocket – the number of bids you’ll place on a coin to win it.

How To Set Your Limit:
So, there’s a Morgan you really want for your collection. Or it could be a dime, or a penny, or a Half Eagle… How do you value it?

Let’s assume that you roughly agree with my grade and valuation. Let’s say I assign a retail value of $60 to the coin.

$60, that’s a lot of bids! In fact, it’s 100 bids if you buy them at $0.60. If you get a discount, or pick some up for free, you may wish to value them less – because in fact you did pay less for them! (And here’s an important point: AND SO DID OTHER COINSNIPERS.) But for the sake of making life simpler, we’ll call them $0.60 each.

So, is your limit 100 bids? Well, if it is, you could find yourself in trouble with the anti-power bidder policy.

In general, here’s my guess of how you may arrive at your limit:

Value: $60

Limit:
GOTTA HAVE IT! 50% = $30 = 50 bids
Yeah, that would go GREAT with my collection! 30% = $20 = 33 bids
Hm, yes I’d like that. 25% = $15 = 25 bids
If I could get that, I wouldn’t mind having it. 10% = $6 = 10 bids
Let’s see if I can snipe that one cheap. 1 – 5 bids.

This is only a general idea for you to work with, you can of course do as you please!

(And of course, there are a number of CoinSnipers who will try to be tricky and say, “aha! If everyone else just bids up to 50% and I bid up to 60%, I’m GUARANTEED the win.” SO not true.)

Also, consider the shipping cost. Some people take it very seriously, others discount it completely, recognizing that there is a shipping cost no matter what you do. Most (though unfortunately not all) coins won on CoinSniper.com are still won for half price or less, even with shipping. If you only pick up one lower value item, the shipping cost is a higher percentage of your overall cost, but if you choose to consolidate your shipping into a package to go out once per week, you can lower your shipping costs dramatically (and I lose less money paying for shipping and have a better likelihood of keeping this site running!)

Alright, now you have your bidding limit for a $60 item. You can adjust and change those numbers and ratios to suit yourself and to suit the coin you’re after.

So, let’s see what’s next. How are you going to spend those bids? How willing are you to go over your limit?

Respect Your Limit:
If you get caught up in the heat of battle, you might find yourself continuing past your limit. It’s my sincere recommendation to cut and run rather than to hope to put in good bids after bad.

Yes, there have been coins lost by a single bid, but the number of times out of the hundreds of auctions is something like 1 or 2. Much more often, the CoinSniper would have been much wiser to stick to their limit and try to use their remaining few to snag something another day rather than nothing today.

Now think about this. I, the guy who needs you to spend and thus buy bids, am telling you not to spend bids in certain circumstances. Of course it’s up to you, but I want you to have fun and be more successful over the long run.

Strategy: Bid fast and hard or slowly with patience?
First of all, dragging out the bidding and putting bids in at the absolute last second is asking for trouble. The NUMBER ONE COMPLAINT that I get is “I put a bid in, it said bid sent, and then the other person got the coin!” Keep that in mind.

Now. Bidding fast and hard can show the other bidders you’re serious. It’s up to the other bidders to believe you or call your bluff. You have to know the other bidder to decide for yourself if they’re bluffing or not this time…

(And that bluff becomes much easier to call if you’re bidding fast and suddenly slow down when you begin to run out of bids!)

Bidding slowly, dragging out the clock, does a couple of things:
1) It calls out all the players.

When bidders wait until the last second after a consistent volley among just two or three bidders, oftentimes you’ll see three or four bidders jump in to get a snipe in. You can then more effectively judge how many CoinSnipers are in on the auction, if you find that sort of thing helpful.

2) It invites problems.

When four or five or ten or twenty bidders all log a bid at the same time, there is a high likelihood that none of those bids will register, including yours.

3) It makes the auction last a lot longer.

There’s a much higher chance of having a distraction or technical issue crop up – this is both a positive and a negative because it can happen to you just as easily as it can happen to any other bidder. Then again, if you’ve read and abide by the CoinSniper Technical Recommendations, you have a lower chance of problems than the people that paid no attention to that.

It’s up to you, but PLEASE Bid Responsibly!
Only you know what your situation is, and what strategy works best for you against your competition.

On a few occasions now, I’ve had to send the e-mail to a bidder or two: “Are you okay?” I hate it. Nothing makes my stomach sink and churn like watching people blow bids needlessly. This site is about having fun collecting coins, not winning at all cost.

I’ve put policy in place now to keep that from happening too much, I hope.

Of course, in the end there is one truth: the CoinSniper with the most bids has the best chance of winning. Be prepared.

Bid smart… and win!

Good luck and happy coin hunting,
Rusty

Introduction to “Colonials”

- Why a Colonial?
For me, what is interesting about coin collecting is not just completing collections. Rather, it’s the anthropology – the history that goes with them. I love to think and learn about what was going on when a coin was minted, what history it has seen, what hands it has gone through.

“Colonials”, as they are loosely referred, have seen some of the most exciting and interesting American History there is – in fact, they’ve seen just about all of it – whether they were being passed from generation to generation or held in a barrel or bank vault, they’ve been here through it all.

These coins have direct involvement with the founding Fathers of the United States of America, and it’s possible that they were actually used by them for commerce.

Before the U.S. Mint was established and after the Declaration of Independence and subsequent Revolutionary War, Americans needed something for trade. Mostly, they used British, French and Spanish silver and copper pieces. But, it was a commonly held belief that there was “a lot of money to be made making money”, so everybody wanted a hand in it. There are stories of governement corruption, greed, nepotism and favors that will entertain you no end as you begin collecting these fine little gems.

- What’s a Colonial?
When I speak of “Colonials” here, I’m referring to coins used in the American Colonies before, during, and after the Revolutionary War, before the U.S. Mint was officially in business. A number of the coins I’ll discuss here are technically called “Post-Colonial Issues” in the Red Book, and there is some information to give you a cursory start of their history there.

France, Spain and Great Britain laid claim to most of the territory in North America, so there is a chance that any coin minted by any of those countries or their colonies made it to the American colonies for circulation between 1600 and 1793 (and later!). However if you’re interested, as I am, in the true American colonial connection, there are few coins that have actually been documented to come to North America. These can be had for as little as $10 in terrible condition if you know how to look for them, though they can go as high as many thousands in Mint State. Aside from the Elephant Tokens and St. Patricks, the following can be had in pretty nice shape for $100 – $200.

Examples of “Colonials”
St. Patricks
Rosa Americana
Virginia Coinage
Wood’s Hibernia
Elephant Tokens
Voce Populi

For that reason, the “Post-Colonials” are the ones that can be most easily traced to American History as they were minted in the United States – sometimes in addresses that can still be found today! The majority of these coins were minted post-1786, so the country was amid its toughest times.

- Why NOT Colonials?
Getting into colonials takes courage and an adventurous collecting nature. They can be very difficult and intimidating.

First, they’re immensely difficult to grade.

In the case of Post-Colonials, copper was not abundant and quality control was weak at best. For that reason, the planchets, or metal blanks which was used to make the coins, are almost never clean and perfect as they are in more modern issues. There are often large holes, nicks, or scratches that a modern collector would assume is PMD (post-mint damage). In this way, a coin that is MS can appear to be heavily scratched or even holed. Think about it – the people minting the coins were being paid by the coin, so it was not in their best interest to assay the coins to make sure all of the copper that SHOULD have been in that coin actually WAS in that coin. Not every coin-maker was morally unethical, but almost every private mint was run as a sweatshop with horrible working conditions, long hours, and next to no time off. QC when you’re starving, sick and exhausted? What’s that?

Also, If you’ve ever looked at a Morgan carefully to determine if it’s AU or simply a weak strike, it will be a revelation the first time you try to grade a Colonial! There may be vast areas of detail missing, and yet the coin might be a perfect mint state! On the other hand, the coin may have been buried in the bare earth for over two-hundred years, making it so severely corroded it’s nearly impossible to determine what it even is!

In the case of coins minted in Britain, Spain or France (et cetera), the coins were of much higher quality, so they are often easier to grade. Nonetheless, they are over 200 years old, so they often suffer from environmental or some other damage they’ve encountered during their life.

- Examples of Popular / Accessible Post-Colonials
How much do these colonials go for? Well, of course that depends on rarity and quality, as always. The following can be had in terrible condition for $10 or so, all the way up to thousands of dollars for pristine, well struck mint state examples. For the average collector that wants a few type pieces, you can pick up nice ones for $200 – $800.

Connecticut – Auctori Connec
New Jersey – Nova Caesarea
Fugio – FUGIO – Mind Your Business
Massachusetts
Machin’s Mills British Counterfeits

- Examples of Beautiful / Particularly Rare Colonials
Now, if you have the taste and the bank account, you could spend $1000 for some of the following in terrible condition, on up to $10M.

Fugio Cont Congress Dollar
Vermont – Vermontensium
Washington Tokens- Washington & Independence
Nova Constellatio
Boston Silver – Pine Tree / Oak Tree
Brasher Doubloons

“Colonials” from after the Establishment of the U.S. Mint
Coining was a decent living in the early 1800s, especially if you were a little corrupt and lived in Britain. There were many mints in London and Birmingham making coins for the damned Yanks – from celebratory pieces of Enemy #1, General Washington, to “restrikes” as they’re politely referred – counterfeits to the rest of us – of genuine U.S. Mint articles. Don’t get me wrong – England was not the only place counterfeiting coins. A lot of people were in business helping the new United States pay for things.

As these sort of fall in no-man’s land, they can be had for the price of the more common colonials – $50 or so in terrible condition on up to a $1500 or $2000. The average collector can get nice examples for $200 – $1000.

- Examples of “Colonials” that are not Colonials:
Washington
Franklin Press
Talbot, Allum & Lee

How to get started collecting Colonials
As in collecting anything, buy the book. The Red Book ($10 – $15) has an excellent cross-section, but if you really want to get into it, you’ll want a Breen ($80 – 200) or a Bowers ($35ish?)
reference handy. And get your pocketbook ready. Happy coin hunting!

It’s been a heck of a week. Sold our first auctions on July 4th, 2012. And already on July 8th, Penny Auction Watch, industry watchdog, did a nice write-up complimenting CoinSniper.com. Pretty exciting stuff!

Back to the auctions. CoinSnipers figured out pretty quickly they should pay attention to the Technical Recommendations I made up for them if they were going to be successful bidding. I don’t blabber uselessly (often)! I’ve done all of this for good reason.

We’ve had a number of amazingly successful CoinSnipers – people that have one great coins for just their bids through the reserve ($0.03 + three bids, for instance) and we’ve even had CoinSnipers come into the auction in the last ten seconds and swipe an auction with just one bid.

CoinSnipers are starting to figure out that in order to be successful with the more coveted items, they’re going to have to buy some bids. It’s strange, they see this more as a competition than a collecting opportunity. Plenty of auctions have passed unbid, not because they’re not great numismatic collector items that are relatively scarce, but because they’d rather have the best stuff on the site. They’re turning down using a few free bids to get $2 of silver in exchange for using up lots of bids to get $5 or $10 of silver. It’s clearly more about the hunt than the collecting.

I designed and placed the auctions such that people could practice and try out one or two and surely win something with their free bids, but we already had one user use up their free bids trying to get… the same number of free bids. Why not pick a coin or two instead? Or a vintage red book that will give you a real appreciation of… appreciation? Instead, users are going for only the most valuable items, and are no doubt disappointed when they don’t get them.

Hey, you can’t make this stuff up.

I’ve tried to make a great, fun auction. Apparently I’m doing something right, because the few reviews the site has gotten so far are SO good it looks like I must have paid for them. I just asked for honest reviews. Haven’t paid anybody anything. Hopefully as I continue to work really hard, it will continue to pay off for collectors.

We have an EF 1909 Semi-Key Date Indian Head up for auction this weekend, and everyone will try to get that instead of pick up the other great stuff on offer along the way. It’s fascinating. And already I’ve heard some people are rationing their bids for the beautiful PCGS / CAC MS 63 DMPL Morgan up next week. That’s a gorgeous coin. I hope everyone doesn’t use up their bids on it and find themselves left with nothing. There are a lot of cool coins coming until then, including one of my favorites – a 1787 New Jersey Copper! What a great piece of American History! It’s not in the nicest shape, but it still tells the story. It was made before George Washington’s inauguration. Very cool!

Anyway CoinSnipers, the point is, don’t get caught up in the competition and be left with nothing. Take advantage of this great, valuable offer of 25 free bids for July only and pick up a cool coin or two.

I wish you all the best of luck. Happy coin hunting!