As I posted in another thread a couple of days ago, I purchased and read a book titled: Tales from the Bourse by David Lawrence. It’s a collection of short stories written about his experiences as a coin dealer and the crazy times during the 80’s. I have heard all sorts of stories from other dealers about their “tales from the bourse” as well. The dealer that I apprenticed with told me that during the “good times” there were weeks that that he had a line out of his shop every day and they were weighting silver bullion and dumping it into garbage cans there was so much. He said it was nothing for someone to come, sell 20-30k worth of bullion and someone standing in line behind him walking up and buying it right back. He also told me of dealers who were making so much money at the time that they would take private jets to different coin shows. I have also read stories of people walking up to dealers, giving them 10K and saying buy me something nice. I myself have not seen anything that crazy yet. At one show there was a rare National Bank note that a dealer wanted $5000 for. Everyone agreed that it might be underpriced because of the rarity but no-one wanted to take a chance on it. Well when the dealer I was with heard about it, he walked right over; pulled out 5K and bought it. He told me “If you ever come across anything rare, you should buy it. Don’t hesitate cause it won’t be there when you go back” Sure enough, about two hours later 3 other dealers came by our table and told him they had just went to buy that note and found out he had bought it. I followed his advice about 3 months later and ended up with the finest know national bank note for a small town in Alabama. I bought it from an out of state dealer, tripled the price, put it in my case and sold it within the hour! I would very much like to hear any of your “Tales from the Bourse”.
By the way, everyone can read this for free online. Although I own the book as well. http://www.stellacoinnews.com/index.php/reference-books/tales-from-the-bourse/
Wow... I wish I would have know that was there... I still would have bought the book but I would recommend reading it to anyone who hasn't.
I recommend reading it as well. There is also a lot of other great books for free on that site. Edit: Sorry for the digression.
I've got a copy of "Tales" too, but it was a freebie a few years ago when I purchased some Morgans from DLRC. Chris
I don't mean to shift the subject, but that's what I'm keeping my eye out for - not as a coin collector, but as a bullion investor. Every time I go down to the main bullion seller in my home town of Toronto (Scotiabank / Mocatta), I ask the security guard and/or a clerk how big the line-ups have been. Once they get really large, I figure, it's time for me to seriously consider bailing out. So far, despite the hoopla over gold and silver, the lines haven't been that long. The precious metals aren't at the bubble stage yet. It's something to watch for even as a coin collector. Should gold and silver go into bubbles - I'm sure they will - and the bubbles then burst, there'll be some incredible bargains in gold and silver coins. More so for the rarities, whose premiums tend to expand in precious-metal bull markets and shrink in bear markets - even more so if the burst bubble coincides with a(nother) serious recession. The trouble is, an asset that's been wrecked by a burst bubble take years to recover - like housing now - so buying at that time would have to be for love, not profit. With the special kind of regret that comes with hindsight, I realize that I could have been chasing some beauties on eBay in November of '08.
