A Brief Report On California Dealers Of Canadian Coins

I was at a local coin show yesterday, with the expressed purpose of seeing whether more 1949 1c "A to denticles" are available in California. While there were a good half-dozen dealers who stocked Canadian cents, I could not find a single 49AT--either unattributed or attributed. Since Krause doesn't list this variety, perhaps they were cherry-picked already? Ah well...I may have chanced upon a "hot spot" that won't repeat itself.

I also noticed a few dealers with expensive Canadian coins (such as 47ML and 48 $1) who wanted top dollar for the coin in a 2x2. I don't know about you, but if I'm going to spend $500+ on a Canadian coin, I want it slabbed by somebody like ICCS or maybe PCGS. That seems like good insurance when buying from a non-local dealer, especially since many US dealers are not that great at grading CA coins or detecting cleaning jobs?

However, it's nice when they grade in your favor, so who am I to complain? I noticed one dealer had rather good prices on 1921-27 cents, but I didn't buy because my set is complete. But since most dealers there had priced to catalog, I only picked up a few things such as a nice NFLD cent and this Lincoln Cent, which is now probably the rarest coin in my collection.