Shopping Spree At Long Beach

An acquaintance of mine had a lot of cash he wanted to invest in rare coins and I figured it would be fun to help spend his money. So, we went to the Long Beach show.

The first dealer we spoke with actually suggested he shouldn't spend any money at the show but instead should go home and do some studying. That was probably excellent advice but basically that's why I came along, to provide a crash-course in coin buying! My friend was determined to convert his cash into numismatic investments so that's what we did.

My role was to identify coins with price appreciation potential that would be relatively easy to sell when the time came. They also had to be PCGS or NGC certified, with strong appeal and quality for the assigned grades. I wanted to avoid coins that I thought had already "topped out" as far as current prices go. With that in mind I advised against a high-MS 1909-S VDB cent and an 1889-CC Morgan in AU-55. I also was not thrilled by an 1864 $5 piece in AU-58; it's quite a rare coin but I don't think the collector base for rare-date Philly gold is all that deep and it might be hard to move that coin later for the price my friend would want to accept.

So, what did we get? We blew through most of his money with just four major coins:

1. 1870-CC Seated dollar in VF-35.

2. 1880-CC $10 Liberty gold in AU-58.

3. 1856 Flying Eagle cent in PR-63. This coin was about $1000 more than that AU 1889-CC Morgan dollar and in my opinion was a far better choice for the money.

4. 1889-CC $20 Liberty gold piece in MS-62. That coin was a real beauty; unbelievable luster and excellent quality for the grade IMO.

My friend rounded out his purchases with some generic circulated Morgans and Indian cents, plus one nice example of a Walking Lib half and a Peace dollar. A few copper ingots also found their way into his shopping bag.

All in all, a really fun time. My friend was satisfied and several dealers were pretty happy!