| Author |
 Replies: 41 / Views: 6,567 |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
586 Posts |
Stopped by Saturday; no customer except myself.
Picked up a few 2013 1oz Canadian Pronghorn Antelope (wildlife series) at about $20 each. Owner gave me the tube as well.
Coins are shiny and BU, I suppose.
|
|
|
|
Pillar of the Community
Canada
5417 Posts |
Yikes... mine is usually bustling. I went 2 weeks ago early Saturday morning and there were already 6 others there. Had to wait 30 mins just for the guy at the LCS to get to me.
|
|
Moderator
 Canada
10456 Posts |
You can hear the crickets chirping in the shops I frequent... part of the problem is that said shops are not acquiring new inventory (numismatic material versus RCM products). "Discovery follows discovery, each both raising and answering questions, each ending a long search, and each providing the new instruments for a new search." -- J. Robert OppenheimerContent of this post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses...0/deed.en_USMy eBay store
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1192 Posts |
I been to my three and they have all been doing brisk buisness before Christmas. They even have Christmas Eve hours.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
4883 Posts |
The two I transact with most seem to be rock solid - one occupies a freestanding building and can afford to advertise in Coin World and the owner of the other is a well known authority on 19th century U.S. cents who has an online presence (non-eBay) to complenment his "brick & mortar" site (which is located in a very nice professional building rather than the typical strip mall). In fact, none of other shops in the city seem to look to be anything but robust and viable ongoing enterprises, even the ones that are basically "hole in the wall" one man operations.
On the other hand, in another smaller local city, there are no coin shops per se, and a couple of pawn shops that dealt in coins have gone away over the course of the last year, with the remaining ones seeming to have little new to offer whenever I've recently checked in with them.
Colligo ergo sum
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
937 Posts |
sometimes busy, sometimes I am only one there. Blew my budget there about a month ago, he bought a nice uncirculated set of Washington Eagle back quarters 5 of them found new homes in my dansco including a MS62 1934-D. So much for the money I had squirrelled away for the FUN show.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
2368 Posts |
The business is slow but not too bad at my LCS. It's a small mom-and-pop type of store, and I'm usually the only person there. There are other regular customers besides myself, and a couple of times there's been a whole group of guys shopping there. But for the most part it's just me or maybe one other person.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
3843 Posts |
I've visited a few LCSs within the last month or so. Shop A: A few customers came into the shop while I was browsing (about a hour). One bought a 10 ounce bar as a Christmas gift for their spouse and the other was selling an accumulation in order to get some cash for the holidays. The accumulation had a few silver dollars and other silver coins but other than that it was just cull Buffalo nickels, Wheaties, and the like. Shop B: I was there for about twenty minutes. A customer came in looking for supplies and purchased a few dollars worth of air-tites and flips. Another customer was inquiring about the value of some old change she had (wheat pennies, Jefferson nickels, and Ikes). I think the dealer offered he two times face which she declined. |
|
Pillar of the Community
 United States
586 Posts |
By the way, LCS owner gave me a 1954 Canadian Silver dime (key date!) as Christmas gift.
Such a nice person.
|
|
Valued Member
United States
403 Posts |
I would love to have a lcs anywhere close by, nearest one is 90 miles one way and definitely 20% over the Baltimore coin show. There is a antique dealer 45 miles away that has many coins but they are about 10% over the Baltimore coin show, I suppose being brick and mortars that accounts for high prices, in my opinion they are high, I am trying to get a good relationship going between myself and the antiques dealer hoping I can get prices closer to what I think they should be. There are two pawn shops and 1 jewelry shop 30 miles away but there is no getting a deal from them, I went into the pawn shop earlier this year and they had a bowl of wheat pennies, two dollars each for 40's and 50's in around fine grade, since I have about 2,000 wheat pennies I asked them how much they paid for wheat cents, their answer, 2 cents each, oh well, Baltimore show is 3 times a year, new castle 1 time a year and ocean city 1 time a year, I will have to settle for that.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
2661 Posts |
Don't have one, have to rely on a pawn shop.
|
|
New Member
Canada
20 Posts |
brisk and steady here up in canada
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
3843 Posts |
Shop C: Got there at 2 pm on a Saturday and I was only their 2nd customer of the day according to the shopkeeper.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
2824 Posts |
every time I go there I stay about hour and a half between 6 to 10 people buying mostly silver eagles or gold coins. 1 or two people bring in gold or silver items to sell and a bunch of people go through bucket of world coins.
if not for end of the world silver buyers it would be almost empty
|
|
Pillar of the Community
Canada
5392 Posts |
Maybe a better question ...............will there be LCS in the next 5-10 years? From experience I can relate the following . I owned a coin shop for many years ( fourteen to be exact)on a successful basis for the most part. There were some months the bills got paid and I didn't, but that can be the situation in any small business. The expenses for running even a small ma and pa shop are not cheap. There is always the chance of burglaries (we had 3 ) or hold ups (mercifully NONE). Then............we discovered the wonderful world of the internet and ebay. Frankly I for one would NEVER own a shop again. The hardest part of this new way of running a coin business is it is far harder to buy. That does make it mandatory to attend coin shows and spend more on advertising. Not a bad thing we just got back from the Las Vegas show and it was for us a good event! |
|
Valued Member
Canada
497 Posts |
leon and SPP- re. no customer and crickets - yikes, that's scary, in Edmonton area there are 4-5 Brick and Mortar Shops and the flea markets, most of which I frequent, if they packed up I would be at the mercy of E-bay and the 2 coin shows per year.
woodcr , my sympathies exactly. PS, any free silver is good.
Tim Stroud, in my experience, having to rely on pawn shops sucks, they know they are your last resort and stick it to you(even here where they know they have competition).
Pacific, good for you to do the transition to E-sales, do you still have Kajiji adds, sounds like it's it tougher to buy local collections ?
I enjoy visiting 2 shops here for my purchases and I know they bolster business with their E-bay sales, and the economy here is/was? good. When visiting in Ontario, I have to drive to Toronto to shop at BMS', a 1 hr drive (with traffic, better part of a day).
All in all, appears my local shops are stayin' alive.
|
| |
Replies: 41 / Views: 6,567 |
Posted 12/22/2014 2:57 pm
