IN THE BEGINNING, all was darkness.
I started collecting coins in 1957; selling them around 1978. Not as a regular thing; just getting rid of excess stuff. But gradually it took over my life.
Evolution is the process by which organisms adapt to changing environments. The numismatic landscape has changed a lot in nearly half a century.
My first ancient coin price list was in 1982. I felt pictures would help. Not even owning a camera, I put some coins on a xerox. The results were every bit as laughable as you might imagine, and I soon quit that. Then, for ancient coins, in 1985 I decided to try an auction. That went well, with some surprisingly strong prices, so I continued.
On my first auction, someone asked what time on the stated date it would close. I hadn’t even thought of that, and replied, “Midnight, I suppose.” That continued for years, with many “sniper” bidders waiting till the last minute and keeping me up late. Eventually I moved to a more reasonable closing hour.
Meantime, pictures were a nagging concern. But soon came the “Lepczyk box,” marketed by a major coin auctioneer I knew well. This was a Polaroid camera mounted on a wooden box with built-in lighting. A stage below could accommodate maybe six or ten coins. Very finicky. I’d charge a buck per shot (the cost of the film) for a customer requesting photos.
Next step up, in 1995, was a scanner, which more efficiently made better coin images. I’d print them out and paste up two 8-1/2×11″ sheets, to be printed with my auction listings. I’d cram in 100+ coin pictures (out of 500+ in a sale), with no spaces between, and even some overlapping. Yet it felt like “state of the art.” For a small timer, anyway.
So I was still doing just printed catalogs. But technology marches on. In 1996 I had my first website, hosted by another (bigger) coin dealer offering that service. In 2008, I signed up with Earthlink, enabling me to upload anything to the web myself, including my catalogs. With photos of all lots — really expected now by buyers, especially for ancient coins, with so many quality variables (part of the fun).
This called for a digital camera; finding a suitable one was a challenge. I wound up going through several. Meantime I created a photo stage, with a spotlight, and laying the camera on a glass plate above the coins, ten to 25 per shot.
Setting up each group picture, then using Photoshop to “lasso” the individual coin images and adjust the brightness, contrast, sharpness, color hue, etc — trying to capture the look of the actual coin — then pasting the images individually into the text catalog* — is a ton of work. About a week’s.
That’s after having spent even longer writing the text, researching and properly describing the coins. (I try to inject occasional humor, which customers seem to enjoy.) Not to mention the work of acquiring the coins in the first place. But the whole thing is a labor of love.
My tech evolution continued. I knew smart-phone cameras were getting really good. So I tried my wife’s, and sure enough, it outperformed my latest digital camera.
Coin photography is an art. It’s amazing how different a coin can look depending on the lighting. After years, I discovered, quite by accident, that many coins actually photograph better without my spotlight. So I started shooting each group twice, with and without the spotlight, then for each coin picking the one looking better. The added work offset by less photoshopping needed.
So my resulting catalog, with text and photos, I’d upload to the web, and e-mail the link to my customers. After decades, I’ve built up a strong cadre of devoted buyers. (My business philosophy is to treat them right; some coin sellers seem to treat the customer as an enemy.)
There began to be a proliferation of online coin auctions, eventually aggregated on a Swiss website, biddr.com. Their fee was reasonable, so I started listing with them. I merely had to transmit the link to my online catalog, and their software would convert it to their standardized format. Exposing my sales to more bidders.
In addition to conventional advance bidding, biddr.com also offered “live bidding.” With each lot coming up in sequence, so people can bid in real time. Something I never wanted to do — sitting at a screen watching bidding on mostly stuff that didn’t interest me (mostly because priced too high). I couldn’t see the appeal of this. And biddr.com charged a lot more for it. However, when my auctions became the only ones there without live bidding, I capitulated, and tried it.
Results at first were meh. But after a few sales, it seemed to catch on, and I’ve been quite surprised at how many folks now do the live bidding — and how high they’re often willing to bid. There’s a psychology at work. Some seem to feel their ego’s on the line, they don’t want to be beaten!
My last auction was #131. Here’s a link to it. Out of 593 lots, only 6 were unsold.
Now another new thing: lately a few people ask for videos of coins. Sorry, that’s a bridge to the future too far for me, and I’ve begged off. I guess I’m finally becoming an old curmudgeon.
* The sole program with which I could reasonably do this (on my Mac) is OpenOffice. Numismatic catalogs normally illustrate a coin with obverse and reverse side-by-side; OpenOffice puts one above the other. I could never figure out how to change that. Oh well.