The dilemma that the general public faced at the Long Beach Coin show was that the coins were to "officially" go on sale at 9:00am (12 Noon ET) bu the Coin Show doors didn't open until 10:00am. while waiting for the doors to open, there was chatter that the Coin Dealers already on the bourse were in line and buying coins at 9:00am I nessaged the US Mint on the Facebook System and complained that is the US Mint was going to release a coin at a West Coast Coin Show, then they should negotiate with the venue to open the doors at 9:00am, otherwise not sell the coins as everybody knows that the coin dealers snatch these things up immediately and in large numbers. Sure enough, the US Mint was Sold out in about an hour and a half! The US Mint replied stating that they DID NOT sell any US Marshalls coins until 10:00am. Can any coin dealers validate this statement?
I know on Friday, I was in line for the bourse floor by 9:30am, was one of the first to get in and the Mint didn't have coins available for sale untill about 10:20am. I saw them get trucked in at that time. As far as Thursday I don't know.
lol. guess what ? I am going to a Las Vegas coin show tomorrow. The "Orleans" hotel. I will take photos. it's been 4 years since I've been to a coin show in Vegas. I am so pumped up right now. I probably will not sleep. lol
I can verify that on Thursday they did not sell any coins until 10:00am, but yes they did allow dealers to get in line before that time.
Did anyone flip these in Long Beach? I saw the line at the Mint booth and asked some of the dealers what they were paying..... They just said they weren't interested; the coins were basically DOA. Was that the consensus?
From the first post it seems the dealers were able to pack the line that first day and skim off most of the coins. (and probably figured they could do so on the other days) They probably had no reason to buy from flippers at a premium.
That would make sense. If this was the case; I'm not thrilled about that preferential treatment offered to the dealers, but it if that is what avoided another Chicago-like disaster, maybe it's a good thing lol
I got there on the bourse just about 11-11:30ish. Had all of about a minute to contemplate going over to get one before I heard the announcement that they were sold out for the day. That decided it for me.
At 10:00am on Thursday, I walked over to the US Mint Booth wanting to save $4.95 in shipping costs. There were close to 100 folks in line with a solitary cash register and 2 folks working the counter. I decided that, since there would obviously be a limited supply available at the show and that there was no limit to quantities being purchased, waiting in line for an hour or more only to be told that they were sold out would be a waste of my time. So..........I went out and bought 2 1970 Small Date Proof Sets for $8.00 each instead.
It wasn't exclusively the dealers who were given preferential treatment to buy coins from the US Mint at Long Beach. Anyone could have purchased an early bird pass (or gotten a pass from a friendly dealer) and would have had that same advantage as the dealers who have access to the bourse at 9am. That said, it didn't seem right that folks were allowed to purchase these in mass quantities at the show. Seems to have held up the line quite a bit when the people who lined up early were buying the coins by the case. Even though that happened, I didn't hear of the Mint selling out of any of the coins, with the exception of the 3-coin sets. But even then, the coins in those 3-coin sets could have been bought individually and they are the same coins... just no fancy box. I think it's great the US Mint comes out to the Long Beach show and I hope they continue. But they really should put a limit on how many coins each customer can buy at a time... at least on the first day of the show. When they were at Long Beach last year selling the Baseball Hall of Fame half dollars (the others were sold out in advance of the show), they had a limit of 5 per person, but people were allowed to then get back in line to get 5 more over and over. That seemed to work well and was much more fair to the average collector coming to the show.
