A Day (or Two) in the Life of a Coin Dealer

Arizona, did you understand my comment? The make-up of Charmy's inventory doesn't enter into my comment. I was dealing with much worse possibilities than registration or insurance fees (Although they would be high enough on their own to make shipping not worthwhile.) But to arrive and discover that your coins got there early and were not put in a secure area and now they are GONE. Or they DIDN'T arrive and you are now committed to over $1000 in table fees, food, and several days in hotel bills with no coins to sell And possibly extra hotel time, loss of return airfare, maybe having to then pay an extra airfare while you sit around waiting and hoping your coins finally show up.

 

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This exact problem happened at the NYINC this year, I think it was with Baldwins. They arrived on time, their coins didn't. For the first two days they had no stock other than what they acquired on site!

Transportation costs/problems are the reason that, at the big shows, you see a lot of dealers with a small inventory of high value coins.

 

Awsome write up, Would like to see you come to the Houston coin Show

 

Thank you Buzzard, I was at the Ft. Worth ANA, but I haven't made it to a Houston show yet, but you never know.

When I travel to fly-away shows, I only reserve one table and take my higher end inventory - which mostly means all my coins valued at over $20. When I can drive to a show, I usually have a corner table and bring a lot of less expensive material in notebooks and boxes since I like to have coins for all budgets. I even have craft boxes with loose Indian and Lincoln pennies sorted into separate compartments by date. The Lincolns sell for $.10 - $.25 each and the Indians sell for $1.50 - $5.00. I know they don't provide much profit but they are very popular since they are affordable to the newer and younger collectors, and I really enjoy having something for every budget.

 

Good read

 

Penny Lady
Thank you for this write up, it was very insightful and an interesting read. I really appreciate you sharing your experiences with us.

PS to some others: There should be more write ups like this instead of all these argumentative/bashing postings seen on this forum lately.

 

With the ANA Money Show in Sacramento just around the corner, I thought some of the newer collectors who plan to attend might find this article that I posted a while back a little helpful, so I thought I'd give it a quick bump.

:u*meY: