How Many Coin Stores?

looks like I will have to get a few good items up for sale now to set aside the money for the coin show. I know I can get a little bit out of control and buy like crazy just at the coin shop, let alone a coin show. lol

I would think that the true number of B&M stores(ones you can actually walk in off the street and the main feature is coins, not pawn shops/jewelry stores that happen to sell coins or solely mail order/internet businesses) in the US is probably only in the mid to low hundreds nowadays. St. Louis has a metro area population of over 2.8 million but I can only think of seven or so true shops, two of them across the river in Illinois. I have no idea as to what the rest of the world is like, but I imagine that coin shops are probably more common in the US than globally.

Why would I want to attend Long Beach as a dealer, which I have thought about doing until talking with other dealers there, when the space and table is going to set me back $600! I have many dealer friends at Long Beach that tell me how much they made Friday-Sunday, 8 hours per day, and I said! I think I will stick to ebay right now with all their small fees.

The demand is there, as long as you're willing to work for nothing.

Collectors (and most dealers) don't understand there's a reason why most businesses sell stuff for 2-3 times what they pay.

I had a multi-million dollar dealer tell me it's a rare year they make more than 10% on sales. Consider that a realtor makes 6-10% and takes NO RISK OR INVESTMENT in his inventory, that's just plain foolish. And their average sale is $100,000!

I think everyone needs to recognize just how few serious collectors there really are. I'm not talking about millions of people who will buy a $5 holder and fill it with State Quarters that they refuse to pay more than face for, those won't keep a coin shop open (especially since they buy the holder at hobby lobby or a bookstore). I mean the 30,000 who are serious enough to join the ANA or subscribe to a coin paper.

Divide that over the 600 stores mentioned above, and that's a customer a week. No wonder there are so many "coin and something else" shops and they all buy scrap gold. You gotta do something to justify sitting around all day.

That's called cherrypicking.

I was at a show that was horrible for just about everyone except one guy who was going around buying early matte proof Lincolns that were being sold as uncs.

So you buy and sell cherrypicks and use the profits to finance the stuff you want to collect.

My guess would be more than you'd expect. However there is only one (1) which is pertinent to me and possibly most other collectors. That's the we're heading to or shopping at.

Take Care
Ben

The problem with your question is COIN SHOPS. Probably not to many in the entire USA as most would suspect. However, if you throw in pawn shops, jewlery stores, flea markets, hobby stores, general stores, department stores, then the number would be staggering. The problem is with any type of store that does only one type of work or sells only one product, way to limited unless a really popular item. For example even Starbucks sells other items besides coffee. I've seen many stores open up selling only one product and almost as fast going out of buisness. I've seen stores that attept to sell only popcorn, donuts, fudge, etc. and unless they start selling other items, they go out. There is an auto radio repair place near me that also sells cars, radios, DVD and CD players, wire, connectors and on and on and on. He told me if he only fixed radios, he would close in one week. A very large store, now gone in the area, Carson's, used to have a hobby dealer on the 5th floor that sold coins but also sold baseball/football cards, stamps, etc.
We have a minimum of 3 coin shows monthly within about 15 miles or less of my house. These are relatively small of less than 100 dealers but occationally there are those really big ones in the area with virtually hundreds of dealers. Almost all the dealers at the regular coin shows also have or work in a coin type store or hobby store. They too sell other items or they too would have a hard time of making money. You just don't get a massive flow of customers for coins all day, every day at a coin store.