eBay & Ancient Coins

Introduction

eBay is a popular venue for buyers and sellers alike, and the incredible wealth of its creators is a testament to that fact. The concept is simple, create a place where buyers can meet sellers. Much like the flea-market, but on a much greater scale. The creators realised that in this new internet era, markets can potentially touch all four corners of the world--that's a lot of people.

Sources of Revenue
eBay makes its revenue from a few different sources. First and most obviously, there is the insertion fee--the fee for listing the goods. Next, there are fees for promoting your auction listings. For example, making the title appear in bold, or highlighted costs extra. Making your auction listing appear before all others costs significantly more. There is some debate as to how effective these promotion features are, and having experimented with all of them, I have come up with my own conclusions which I might include in a future article or blog entry. The next fee, which most would think is the final fee, is the Final Value Fee. eBay takes a percentage of the sale amount (not profit!) for itself. Sounds unfair? Well, it's common practice for auctioneers and indeed for many professionals (think lawyers, stockbrokers etc) to take a commission based on final values. There is another fee ontop of the final value fee, if the seller uses paypal to receive a credit card payment. eBay uses and highly promotes its subsidiary company paypal. Now some might say that's bordering on a misuse of market power or something similar according to antitrust law, but again, that's something I'll leave to a future article or blog entry.

Typical eBay Fee Calculation:

1. Listing Fee (insertion fee)
2. Promotion Fees (includes pictures, bold, highlight, featured, homepage featured, gift etc)
3. Final Value Fee
4. Paypal Fee
---------------------
Total amount

I usually go for the featured option, and as a result, my auction fees are usually more than AU $20 for a single item.

Apart from the fees for listing items, eBay also makes money from providing other services. We have already discussed paypal, and that is a huge source of revenue. eBay also makes money from eBay storeholders. Running an eBay store incurs a monthly fee and this fee varies upwards depending on the plan chosen. eBay also provides reporting services and auction listing tools. These also incur monthly fees. These tools are obviously not for the casual seller.

Ancient Coins on eBay
After an introductory discussion on eBay's fee structure, you might ask why there are so many ancient coins for sale on eBay. Surely, it would be impossible to make a profit.

The answer to that question is that listing items on eBay can actually be quite cheap if you avoid most of their "hidden" costs. Hosting your own pictures, saves you quite a bit of money. Not overusing the promotion features--even more so. Potentially, you can list on eBay for as little as around 30c per item.

Now, whether that is a good or bad thing is something for you to decide. What it means, in any case, is that there are many sellers, selling many many ancient coins. On one hand, this might mean that you are more likely to find something you want at a good price, but on the other hand, it might also mean that there is a lack of quality control, and more room for fraudent sellers/sellers of fake coins.

What ancient coins do you expect to find on eBay? Typically, you would find many low to mid grade coins. Higher grades are usually found of only very common coins. Sometimes youmay find rare and/or high quality examples, but definitely not in high proportions. You will also find a greater proportion of modern fakes, than anywhere else (except perhaps Bulgaria). From experience, roman coins are usually safer to buy on eBay than greek coins. Greek silver is frequently faked, and it shocks me everytime I have a look how many actually sell at above-average prices. Unfortunate buyers of fakes aside, this is also unfortunate for the many legitimate sellers who lose bids in their auctions.

Ancient coins for the specialist buyer are often overlooked on eBay due to a lack of the right audience. This means some items will not at times fare well if sold on eBay instead of a numismatic auctionhouse. For example, a coin of an obscure emperor will at times go unnoticed because eBay is not the first place people usually look for coins of such emperors.

The above notwithstanding, there are some positive things about buying ancient coins on eBay. For the budget-conscious collector, eBay may seem like a candy store with many delightful offerings.

Conclusion
eBay is not the ideal environment for the purchasing of ancient coins. You are almost never going to find the high grade versions of the coins you desire, and there is always the fear of purchasing a fake coin. However, there are many decent sellers, with decent inventory, and once the dangerous territory is mapped by the inexperienced buyer, they will find that purchasing coins on eBay can be at times a rewarding experience.

See Greek & Roman Anqituities ancient coin auctions on eBay.