First Coin/Antique Show: What Should Be My Strategy?

The main thing is to enjoy the day and have fun.

There's a lot of other vendors too, it's a combined show. :)

Remember that most dealers are wary of credit cards due to the fees associated with them and only take checks with good references.

1. Take cash only to enforce your budget. That will also induce you to look for 'best bang for your buck'.

2. Have a look around the whole show, in detail, without buying anything. Make a mental note of anything that interests you.

3. Sit down have a cup of coffee, or eat the lunch you have prepared for yourself the evening before. Talk with other people while you are having lunch. They may be able to give you a few more clues about anything numismatic.

4. Go back to those dealers and items that caught your interest, and negotiate.

If you are visiting from out of town or State stay with relatives, or hole out at a backpackers or YMCA.

Go to the later one. Save your money. If only a few sellers, they know full well not mubh competition so their prices are going to be excessive. And then too, you'ld have to add $14 to the price of anything you buy. By me all such shows are free. Flea markets usually charge a half to one dollar and usually a few coin dealers there. If I were you I'd just pass on this show.

Common silver coins? Write these down (there's no shame in checking your notes):

France (5 francs only): 1969 and earlier
Canada and Switzerland: 1967 and earlier
U.K.: 1946 and earlier (50% silver), 92.%5 silver is 1918 and earlier
Mexican new peso: 1995 and earlier coins of 10 pesos and up have 92.5% centers. Many people don't know this - ask to see new pesos! All coins of 20, 50, or 100 new pesos are desirable.
Italy: All monometallic 500 lire coins - more common are the bimetallic coins resembling 2-euro.
Spain: 100 pesetas with Francisco Franco
Austria: Depends. 10 schillings - 1973 and earlier. 5 schillings - 1968 and earlier. A smaller fraction of 1968 5 schilling coins are copper-nickel, but these had a low mintage and may be worth more than the silver ones.
Australia: All non-copper pre-decimal coins, with the same 92.5%/50% silver dates as the UK. Also look for decimal 50-cent coins that are round, not 12-sided. (How to spot a pre-decimal coin? Decimal coins have 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 on them. Predecimal coins have words for denominations.)
Eastern Europe: Most post-Soviet countries have two kinds of coins: those issued before annexation in the 1920s and earlier, and those issued after 1989. The pre-Soviet coins are always worth buying, silver or not.

The more world coin bins you look through, the better sense you get of what's worth it, silver or not. Copper-nickel has a darker kind of look to it, but it still fools me a lot of the time - on the other hand, I have found over 2 ounces of silver from junk bins at one store alone. A local coin show is coming up in November, so I plan to be the terror of the bargain bins, even if it means caking my hands in a layer of international black dust with a measurable thickness. (Don't bring hand sanitizer, bring a tub of wet-wipes.)

I'm back from the show. :)

It was kind of disappointing, virtually no deals. The best deal I found was junk silver at 16.50 per $1 face. One guy had foreign coin grab bags, but nothing old or silver. A few of them kind of just gave up, and listed their prices as melt + $x. Maybe two or three items total were gold at melt.

But, I did buy some scrap sterling bowls and spoons. The bowls I got a really good deal on, like $1 under spot per ozt. I also bought some spoons but they weren't as good a deal, I think I paid $1/gram on those. But, averaged together, I came in right at spot, like 65 cents/gram.

My usual coin guy was there, but he had updated all his prices. it's funny to see all the scratched out prices on the 2X2's. :D

The advice I got in this thread that worked was looking for the old tags, thanks. :D

I can't believe how hard it is to buy gold. Almost everybody is selling 14k jewelry at a minimum of $50/gram ($20/gram would be melt.) Still, watches seem to be the best deal, but it's pretty risky when you can't see the mark on the band.