Today is the first day of the 51st Annual Blue Ridge Numismatic Association coin show. It is a 3-day show that started today and ends on Sunday. Spot gold was about $1226 and spot silver was about $18.09 when I left to go to the show. I arrived at the show at about 9:55 AM and I checked Kitco.com on my phone I saw that spot gold fell to $1222 and spot silver fell to $17.99. I usually check spot prices in order to get an idea of what to expect on premiums that various dealers are going to charge. I did not have any problems finding a place to park but once I got inside the lobby of the convention center and went in to get a name tag, it was very crowded. The one thing that I noticed this year is that they did not ask me for my driver's license or any other identification. I guess they already knew me from last year. Once I got inside the main convention center, I started looking around and observing the various gold and silver coins and bars. Of course my main objective for me was to find '70's silver art bars that were on my list and to find some that I had a very strong interest in collecting. Unfortunately, I 1.) Did not find many '70's silver art bars that I was interested in despite the fact that there were quite a few of them present and 2.) The ones that I found that were on my silver art bar "wish list" were out of my price range. So far that was a disappointment I ended up buying only a few '70's silver art bars today, however, I plan to go back on the next day (Saturday) to try again. While I was searching for art bars, I also observed some prices on other gold and silver coins and bars. Some of the prices I found were as follows: Silver Eagles: $21 to $22 I saw a dealer that was selling 2010 Silver Eagles for $23.00. 1/10 Gold Eagles: The lowest price that I was given was $135.00. I have seen another dealer table that had some for $145.00. Generic .999 silver: Lowest price = $18.50, Highest price = $20.00. Silver Art bars: Some of the common ones were priced between $18.50 and $20.00. Of course there were some that were priced at ebay premiums. 1-oz Krugs: $1253.00. I just went to one table just to get an idea. Some other dealers might have them for more or less than $1253.00 1-oz Gold Eagle: $1289.00. As with the 1-oz Krug. I just went to one table to get an idea of what a 1-oz GAE was going for. 100-silver bars: $1892.00 for a 100-oz Engelhard bar. I saw mainly Engelhard bars. I did see a JM 100-oz bar but I did not ask how much it was. 1/10 oz krug: $130 was the lowest price that I have heard at the show. I did see a slabbed MS-70 graded UHR priced at $2250 but I forgot if it was a PCGS slab or an NGC slab. I also saw some raw UHR's but I did not ask what the selling price was for them. There was plenty of gold and silver at this show. They had all sorts of Numismatic coins (slabbed and raw). Of course they had junk silver as well as some jewelry at this coin show. I was there at the show for a while. I left the show at about 1:45 PM. I was tired when I got back home. I plan to go back to the show tomorrow. For the time being, I do not plan to go on Sunday but I could possibly change my mind depending on how Saturday goes and how many FRN's I have left after Saturday.
I too was at the Dalton show this morning and was pretty impressed with the number and variety of vendors -- and the large number of attendees. It's a great show. I wasn't looking for anything in particular although I checked out a number of of Carson City Morgans but didn't find anyone with prices low enough to get my attention. I was particularly impressed with the number of vendors who had the more exotic stuff -- ancients, tokens, art bars, medalions, and foreign. I might go back tomorrow or Sunday.
I went back to the coin show today to see what else I could find to add to my silver art bar collection. The bad news is that I was not able to find any silver art bars that I was interested in buying. I walked throughout the whole floor and I did find several dealer tables that had '70's silver art bars but I did not see anything that was either on my wish list or in my price range. However, I did find a very small gold coin that I liked and ended up buying while I was at the show today. Here is what it looks like: It is a 1992 Isle of Man gold coin. The cat on the obverse side of the coin is a Siamese Cat. The size of this gold coin is 1/25 oz. I paid $30.00 dollars for this gold coin (Friday spot gold closed at $1228.00/oz). I do not think that this is a bad price because I usually see this type and size of gold coin sell for much more than $30. The Isle of Man gold coins usually have very high premiums on them. This was the best deal of the coin show for me. I bought some collector related supplies while I was at the show. The last day of the show is on Sunday but I have not made a final decision on if I am going tomorrow. I am leaning towards not going tomorrow but I will make a final decision later tonight.
I like your cat coin, but can you explain why the Isle of Man has cats on their coins? Is their mint director just a fan of felines, or is there some other reason?
Honestly, I do not know but that is a good question. I may have to Google that to see what I can learn.
Pobjoy Mint in the UK makes all the Isle of Man coins and you can see from the link below they not only have coins about cats (an entire series) but also about motorcycles, airplanes, football, and more. http://www.pobjoy.com/ukworld/section.php/1054/0 They currently sell a 1oz silver version of the 1992 gold coin: http://www.pobjoy.com/ukworld/section.php/1187/0
The tailless manx cat originated on the isle of man. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_(cat)
Great thread with a lot of awesome info! I really appreciate the breakdown of vendor ask prices. Sorry you didn't get any 70s silver art bars (yet) from the show but I do like that gold coin quite a bit.
i was hoping you would find at least one bar. i just find your collecting of 70's art bars interesting. every time i see the table with them at the local show, i now take a look. i always see coca-cola ones, but never pepsi(not sure if they make them). i love pepsi, and collect the different limited edition drinks and whatever i can get with the "pepsi" name on it. i was going to ebay it, but i want to wait and see if i can get one off that guy, he is always nice and want to buy something off him. congrats on the gold coin, its nice.
Yeah it was a disappointment that I did not find as many '70's silver art bars that I was interested in. During the two days that I spent at this coin show, I purchased only three 1-oz '70's silver art bars. Two of those '70's silver art bars I posted on the following thread (see post #141): http://www.cointalk.com/t55843-10/#post977008 The third '70's silver art bar that I bought at the coin show was a 1974 Hamilton Mint silver art bar from the "America The Beautiful" series. I paid $19.00 for that one on Friday and it was on my "wish list". Actually the problem was not the lack of '70's silver art bars. There were a lot of '70's silver art bars at the show but the problems with that was that most of them were: 1.) Holiday Theme bars: A lot of those '70's art bars were Christmas, Thanksgiving, Independence Day. 2.) I saw a bunch of Mother's Day and Father's day bars in which most of them were minted in either 1973 or 1974 from various private mints. I was never interested in collecting these types of '70's silver art bars. 3.) Silver art bars that I already bought at past coin shows: There were several silver art bars that I saw at the show at a great price but I already had those art bars in my collection and I did not want to buy any duplicates. In addition, there were some other silver art bars that I found that were on my "wish list" but they were way out of my price range. For example, I saw some 1-oz Coca-Cola silver art bars at this show and there were a couple of Coca-Cola art bars that this particular dealer had that were on my "wish list" but there was one big problem with that. The problem was that this dealer was asking for $45.00 each for the Coca-Cola art bars that I was interested in buying. The most that I was willing to pay for a 1-oz Coca-Cola art bar was $31.00. As a result, I did not buy any Coca-Cola bars from this dealer because those were out of my price range. The best part of the show for me was finding that 1/25 oz Isle of Man Gold coin for $30.00. That was the brightest spot for me at this coin show and that made up for disappointment of not being able to find the '70's silver art bars that were on my "wish list". I spent a lot of time walking around and looking at what each dealer had. I walked around several times to check out prices and to see what I can find. On Friday I spent close to 4 hours looking at art bars, checking out prices of other bullion, talking to other dealers, writing down prices that I saw to help me remember what prices I saw just in case I decide to buy something from certain dealers. On Saturday, I spent about 2 hours at the show. Overall at this show, there was plenty of gold and silver to be had for excellent prices for the most part. There was something for almost every collector. There must have been close to 200 dealer tables which that is the norm for this show. This show is always booked in advance because this is one of the popular mid-sized coin shows in the south eastern U.S based on what I heard from other dealers at the show. BTW I do not think that there were any Pepsi silver art bars that were minted as far as I know. I have not seen any Pepsi art bars.
