Today, I went down to the Annual Georgia Numismatic Association coin show in Dalton, Ga. There's around 250 tables, so it's a pretty big regional event. I went there looking for decent coins for my 7070 and some cool bust halves for my fledgling collection. It was pretty well attended by the public, and from what I saw dealer to dealer transactions were booming. Many dealers also commented on being extremely busy.
Just some general observations:
Barber coinage was abundant, though mostly in low to mid circulated grades. Truly outstanding UNC
Barber coinage was basically non-existant, though most people tried to find nice, attractive VF/EF types.
Seated coinage was everywhere. One dealer commented that a lot of people were asking for
Seated coinage, and that he was almost sold out after only a day and a half of business. Nice, problem free coins were at a premium.
Bust coinage was tough to find. I had to literally scour the bourse three times before coming up with a few tables that might have had some nice, original, problem free coins. Most bust halves were either cleaned, or otherwise had "problems". Bust quarters were only existant in G/VG grades, or at least that's all I saw. I only saw a handful of bust dimes and
Half Dimes, and most were at one table from the Jules Reiver Collection. Bust dollars were plentiful for their assumed "rarity".
And, of course, Morgans were everywhere.
Okay, on to my search for some nice coins. One of my first stops was Jade Rare Coin, they're great dealers out of Michigan who have a lot of early type coins. They had an entire case full of Jules Reiver pedigreed bust coinage. Upon further questioning, Andy, the guy behind the table, brought out boxes of bust halves. Several were pedigreed to Overton, Parsley, and other great collectors.
I ended up buying two coins from them.
This is an ex. Jules Reiver NGC VG8 bust half. It's an O-105.a, which is a scarcer R.4 variety. I paid a little for the premium, and ended up shelling out $105 for this coin.
Although the pictures don't really show it, this coin is actually darker in hand and has great toning. One thing that is really nice about this coin is that it has wear in all the right places, which will help me when I'm trying to determine an AU coin from an UNC coin. I paid $130 for it.
I have yet to image the third bust half, but I grade it VF20/F15, which superb originality and eye appeal. It's an 1819, with interesting die cracks on the reverse.
I also picked up a few coins to fill holes in my 7070. I don't have pics yet, but they'll be coming soon. I tried to pick original, eye appealing coins, so ended up getting considerably less coins than I had intended.
All in all, it was a really fun show. I sold some junk silver to help pay for some of my purchases, which totaled up to be the largest amount of money I have ever spent on coins in a single day. I haven't been to any other shows this year, though, so I was saving up for this one.
Here's the rest of the coins, I'm still lacking a few. The
Half Dime and
Three Cent Silver are a bear to image, and my
Barber quarter pics keep on coming up blurry.
This coin isn't really up to my normal standards, but it'll do good filling that hole for now. Plus, it's got a nice "circ cameo" look that is really nice.
My images don't show it, but this is actually a fairly dark coin (like the
Seated dime above). I knew I had to have this as soon as I saw it in the dealer's case.
I got this coin at the great price of $10 and it looks great in my Dansco.
This SLQ is really nice and crusty in hand. I got it from the same dealer that sold me the Columbian Expo half above.
That's all I have imaged for now, I'll try to get the other coins imaged soon. If anybody has tips for imaging tiny coins, I'd appreciate hearing them.
Posted 04/21/2007 5:29 pm
