And then there is the "shock bidding" technique.
John Jay Pittman, well-known numismatist and past president of the American
Numismatic Association, once wanted to own a rare Cuban gold coin being offered
at auction. During the bidding he walked to the front of the sale room, turned
to face the other bidders, and held his hand straight up in the air in an
attempt to indicate to everyone that he would not stop bidding, no matter how
high the price. It worked.
Similarly, in one of our New York City sales a lot opened
at $1,500, and a bidder who just had to have it shouted "Five thousand
dollars!"- without waiting for the normal auctioneer's advance to $1,600,
then to $1,700, etc. This technique worked, too, although I suspect that the new
owner of the coin might have had second thoughts later, and wondered if he could
have bought it for much less, for the coin had never sold at the $5,000 level
before.
Sometimes bidding is so hectic that it is difficult to keep
track of what is happening. In our sale of the Garrett Collection for The Johns
Hopkins University, I recall that the father and son team of Art and Don Kagin
was present, and in one instance Don and Art, seated apart from each other in
the room, were bidding against each other on the same coin!
It is often the case that a bidder attending a sale in
person does not want to bid from the audience, and gives us bids, which we enter
in the bid book just before the sale, just as we would enter mail bids. Then
when the lot crosses the block, if his "mail bid" is exceeded by floor
competition he may step in and do some bidding in person or have an agent do it.
When all is said and done, and the last lot has been sold
everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Many hours of planning, excitement, and
anticipation are over! Now it is time for those attending the sale to pick up
their new treasures, or to arrange to have us ship them. Now the coins are parts
of new collections all over the world. Hopefully, we will get the chance to
The Garrett Collection
As a professional numismatist I have catalogued and sold
some of the most valuable collections ever formed. When The Johns Hopkins
University decided to sell the Garrett Collection of United States coins my firm
was selected to do the job. With lots of help from my staff, I immersed myself
in the project, and in the process created a book, The History of U.S. Coinage
as Illustrated by the Garrett Collection, four auction catalogues, and a lot of
publicity, all of which added up to a realization of $25 million when the coins
crossed the block in our sales held in New York City and Los Angeles.
