Heritage Auctions’ inaugural sale of domain names and intellectual property, which closed Nov. 21, included several coin-related domain names, led by Numismatics.com, which sold for $17,250.

The lot description aptly described the appeal, stating: “This phenomenal asset is the exact-match category domain name for a major industry and field of study. To those unfamiliar with this business, ‘Numismatics’ is the study and collection of coins, metals, and currencies. The new owner of this prime Internet property will enjoy instant credibility and perceived authority status in the marketplace with the use of Numismatics.com.”

After the auction, department head Aron Meystedt characterized it as a “solid sale,” adding that he was surprised that there wasn’t more competition for the Numismatics.com name.

The buyer of Numismatics.com wishes to remain private for now.

Other domain names that sold at the Heritage auction included CoinCompany.com at $1,840 and SellGoldCoins.com at $2,990. Even more affordable were TheCoinBlog.com at $373.75 and MyCoinCollection.com at $690.

To put the market into perspective, the top lot in the auction was XZ.com at $138,000. But domain names can trade well into seven figures and Heritage cites that the top 150 domain sales of all time are all over $500,000.

Like with all types of goods that can be purchased and sold, various factors create value in domain names. Premium domain names virtually always end in .com. Value is given to exact match words that name a product, service, industry or location along with short names, acronyms and branding names.

Most domain values are driven by how many people search the specific word(s) in Google, but names like Numismatics.com go beyond that by providing visitors with the perception of instant authority in the coin field.

Still available from Heritage as of Nov. 27 is Coins.ca (the .ca suffix indicating Canada) at $40,250 and the name NumismaticsBlog.com at $575.

When asked what the “gold-standard” coin-related domain names would be, Meystedt said that Coins.com would be the pinnacle and that Gold.com would easily command seven figures. He then lamented, “Sadly, both names are in the hands of large companies, and likely will never be for sale.” ¦