I've been looking forward to this show for a couple of months, but my expectations were fairly low considering I live in a smallish town. The show started yesterday, but I couldn't go (don't you hate it when the job gets in the way?) so I headed out this morning. The show was at the civic center, but so was the farmer's market so I had a hard time finding a parking place. I went around to the back, and sure enough, a hand printed sign that said "Coin Show" with an arrow. I park and head in. Following the signs I get to the room where the show is. Three words come to mind...
OH
MY
GOD!
The room was full of tables, 50 at least, and every possible coin I think ever made, at least it seemed that way. Thanks to reading this forum (which, as an aside, is the best thing that could have happened to this newbie collector) I had a plan. I first made a circuit of the floor, checking out what people had, and which dealers had coins I was interested in. Just took in a general idea of what was what. One thing that nobody mentioned I needed to take was a large towel to wipe the drool off the cases I was looking at...
One thing I noticed, and was fairly surprised at, was the number of shoppers that were carrying price guides. It struck me as strange. Here you have a dealer who has 5 or 6 references books and 3 or 4 price guides, gray sheets and everything else for pricing, and some guy is sitting there with his 2007
RedBook. I just found this funny for some reason. But, after further exploring, I figured out why.
After my first round I had it narrowed down to 6 or 7 dealers that had what I was interested in, in my price range. I was looking for
Franklin Halves, slabbed and raw. As I made a second, more detailed trip I noticed I could categorize the coins into 4 types:
Top three slabs
Questionable slabs
Raw coins the dealer has graded
Raw coins with no grade (and I only saw one table like this)
I'm looking for coins for two sets, one slabbed that I'm trying to buy on the cheap and a raw set to keep. I'm willing to pay closer to "retail" on the raw set, as this collection will be for my personal pleasure.
During this second trip around I was comparing prices on coins in the same grade, making notes to get an idea on who would have the best deals.
The third trip was time to get serious.
All the coins I looked at in top three slabs were priced at retail or above and I couldn't haggle enough to make them attractive enough to purchase. There weren't any that I just had to have, so I didn't get any of these.
I did pick up one that was slabbed by PCI (that was over-graded) for the price I thought was true grade appropriate. And I purchased another one slabbed by ACG, same circumstances. A funny thing happened while I was at this dealer's table. Another guy and myself were waiting for the dealer to open a case so we could look at some coins while he was dealing with another man. They had a coin out and the buyer says, "You've got this marked for 225, what's your best price?" The dealer hemmed and hawed for a couple of seconds and says, "I could go 185." Almost before the dealer finished, the buyer, who either wasn't listening or wasn't too bright, said, "I'll give you 2" The dealer stood there for a second and says, "okay, deal." Me and the other guy waiting looked at each other and shook our heads...
The coins dealers had in 2x2's with a grade I treated like lower tier slabs. I noticed that when they went to sell it they would offer to drop a grade. Make it look like a bargain, but not really? One table had, again in my opinion, over-graded by two grades. He would offer to sell for a grade less than marked, and if that didn't sell, he'd drop another grade. I didn't stay there long... I didn't end up buying any from this category either.
Finally, I made it to the table where the coins were in 2x2's with a price listed, but no grade. There was a very friendly elderly gentleman behind the table. He had at least a hundred Franklins, and many, many, many other coins, none with a grade. I sat down and started going through his Franklins. While I was looking we struck up a conversation, and at one point I asked him why he didn't have any grades on his coins. He told me he'd rather let the coins speak for themselves. I told him he might be losing customers who don't either know enough to grade their own, or are afraid to, and he said if someone can't grade their own coin, they won't appreciate it enough to own it. I liked this guy. I bought 4 coins from him.
Okay, so I've now got 6 coins and still have some money in my pocket (I wisely left the checkbook, the credit cards, and the ATM card at home...). Let's wander and see what catches the eye.
So now I took advantage of having so many coins in one place and looked at coins I'll never have the scratch to buy. Wow. I saw a 1922 penny in EF. Wow. I saw a 1916-D dime in VF. Wow. I saw an MS64 $20 Double Eagle in a PCGS slab. Double wow.
I saw so many Morgans. I used this experience to compare grades, to get a better feel for grades, to grade a raw coin and then find a PCGS or NGC in the same grade to see how I did.
I managed to resist buying coins just because I thought they were great and I happened to have some cash in my pocket.
Overall, an amazing experience.
Where's the next show?
Posted 04/21/2007 5:32 pm
