Perry, GA Show JAN 25th, 26th, 27[SUP]th[/SUP] This is my third show report to post on this forum. I specialize is US Philippine coins (1903-1945) but also deal in US Type coins as the US Philippine coins have a smaller collector base. For those of you who did not read my last report, I started dealing full time this month. I do not have a store front but I do have a website (JHRareCoins.com) and try to attend coin shows as often as possible. This is a larger regional show with maybe 70-100 dealers. I am always actively looking for wholesale deals as this is another way to supplement my coin business. I travel to “we buy gold” places and pawnshops within about a two hour radius and attempt to buy any scrap, bullion, mint, proof sets etc. in bulk. The margins are thin, but as long as you know what those margins are you can easily turn a few hundred dollars to help with overhead. On one such transaction I already had all of the expenses for this show covered once I delivered the items to the show. I think the average collector would be very surprised about the amount of wholesale activity that takes place at coin shows. Even more surprised to know that some dealers ONLY attend for the wholesale business and could care less about dealing with the public at the shows. On Friday, I did a lot of wholesale business, but remember I am small time, so a lot for me is in the 4-8K range. There is also a lot of dealer to dealer trading of type coins going on at this time, so set-up and the hours before a show opens can be some of the busiest times. I was able to sell 5-6 nice coins to other dealers who needed them to fill want lists, as well as purchase around 20 new US Philippine coins for inventory. If you do not know already, I specialize in US Philippine coins so I have a few dealers who always bring them to me whenever they get them in stock. Saturday, came and went without too much excitement. The show was slower than I remembered the last time I was here, (two years ago, I was in Afghanistan last year) but I still did ok. In between checking other dealer’s inventory to fill want lists I had, I was able to sell a steady stream of US Type coins. Mostly in the range of $50-$150 but I also sold the nice AU Bust half and 1795 large cent that I bought raw the previous weekend in Foley, AL. I was able to purchase a beautiful 1881-S Morgan in PCGS MS67 for inventory as well. The dealer had two of them, so I picked the most appealing and bought it. It has nice bright yellow and golden hues around the edges of the obverse, I liked it! By the time Sunday came around, a lot of the dealers had already packed up and left. Sundays are normally very slow at coin shows but I still managed to stay pretty busy, surprisingly busy to say the least. I was able to purchase a nice 1921 peace dollar in PCGS MS64 and a 1914-D Lincoln in PCGS VF35 with a green bean! Surprisingly, those where my only US Type NEWPS at this show. I am actually getting concerned that I have too many coins above the $500 mark as coins in the $50-$200 range have always been my bread and butter… Unfortunately, nice original type coins in VF-EF are hard to source in quantity. (At least in prices that I can purchase to re-sell). I did have some really high end Franklin halves offered to me at this show, unfortunately I do not have the customer base to justify sinking 3K into two franklins… They were nice coins though. I also attempted to purchase a pair of high grade (MS67) US Philippine 50 Centavos, I offered $350 for the pair, one I valued at $100 and the other at $250 but the person who had them just saw a similar coins in a PCGS holder sell for $700. (these were NGC) I tried explaining the difference and showed him the pop reports, (PCGS lists 3 in that grade while NGC lists 23) but he wasn’t buying it that his coin was not worth $700. He placed it in another dealer’s case at the show to try and sell it, he didn’t… I know another dealer tried to make an offer to purchase it (with the intent to come and sell it to me…. Sneaky dealers…..) But when he found out how much they were asking walked straight over to me and wanted to know why they wanted $700 for a $200 coin? Lessons Learned: You do not have to purchase everything that comes your way. Only purchase what you think you can sell. Don’t tie up all of your capital in more expensive slower moving inventory, until you have the customer base and/or the capital to do so.
Thank you for the coin show report. I also went to this coin show but I went on Friday and stayed there for about 3 hours and left to drive back home. I am not a dealer. I am just a collector (of silver art bars). I did have a good time down there and I did pick up some silver art bars while I was at that show and I am satisfied with my purchases.
I did see a dealer there who had a lot of silver art bars, it made me think of you actually. I purchased a "General" art bar from him for my collection of everything "General". Fo those of you who don't know, The General was the name of a train engine used during the civil war by the south, stolen by the north and then taken back by the south.
Sounds like you had fun there! I am going to try to get to a show some time. I have never been and I've been collecting for 10 years now.
I am familiar with that "General" Bar. If it is the one that I am thinking of, then it was minted in 1972 by the Madison Mint. You are also right in that there was a silver art bar dealer there that I spoke to while I was there. He and his wife are dealers that sell silver art bars. I did not buy any bars from them since I did not see anything interesting at the time but I have bought from them in the past at previous coin shows and on their ebay store. They are good people IMO.
I will more than likely be at the Ocala, FL show this weekend but I will not have a table as they were sold out. I plan on walking the floor the first day looking for inventory.
There is a small monthly coin show in Knoxville, TN that I am planning to go to tomorrow and I hope to find some more silver art bars at that show. The Knoxville, TN show has between 20 to 30 dealer tables and I consider this show as a "hit or miss" show. What I mean by that is that I may either come away with buying something that I was looking for or leave there empty-handed because I did not find anything interesting that I wanted to buy. I might also go to a coin show in Spartanburg, SC in late February but I am not sure yet because it depends on how much cash I will have on me and it will also depend on the weather at that time. Then on the first weekend in March, I plan to go to a coin show in Chattanooga, TN and that show is bigger than the Perry, GA show but it is a good show since I have been to it in past years.
