Very Small Coin Shows - What is the smallest you've been to?

That makes little sense to go more than once or twice a year, same dealers, same stuff

 

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I went to my local club’s show and was pleasantly surprised. There were dealers there offering ancient coins, better U.S. coins and a selection of coin set pieces. For example, I went there looking for an 1888 Indian Cent in EF or AU for my Indian Cent album. A dealer had one. I had to make a counteroffer to him and get him down beyond that, but since I but having been on the other side of the table, I understood. I enjoyed going to the show.

 

A lot of these comments sound like we’re neighbors. I’m in Bucks County, PA, so the Trevose, Langhorne, Allentown/Bethlehem, and occasional New Jersey shows (say, Morristown) are all within my reach. Not super close, but do-able.

The New Jersey show I went to was mostly dealers from the New York suburbs and that gave the show a strange vibe. I recall seeing mostly Morgans by the ton. That kind of put me off, thinking that if there were this many of them in a single spot at the same time, how valuable could they really be (to me). It inspired me to get a couple of MS65’s that I really liked and then leave the other 100,000,000 or so coins for other folks.

 

While I’m thinking about it, going to coin shops is not always much better.

• I went to a store southeast of Trenton, an hour drive, to find out that their entire inventory had been sold a week earlier.
• I tried to visit a long-standing shop in Newtown, PA, only to find that the owner had died and that the inheritor was bulk selling everything and shutting down. He had no knowledge of coins, so I could not even ask to see anything. He did not know what it was, if he had it, or where to look.
• I spent an hour in a little hole-in-the wall somewhere in New Jersey where all the stock was in the back room. The dealer was tied up the entire time with an elderly couple with jars of uninteresting wheat cents and various junk like painted state quarters. He had to price it all and then shatter their hopes of it being valuable. I listened to this for about 45 minutes. Eventually I had to just leave and never saw anything.
• I followed an eBay seller who had a series of very high-end SLQ’s - say graded 66 and 67. I tracked them down through some sleuthing ( or cyber-stalking) and found they were located about 30 minutes north of me. I drove up there, found the store, and inside there were the owner and an assistant. The store was mostly crafts with some coins in a case to the right. The assistant knew nothing about the coins and would not talk to me or let me see them. The owner spent the entire time talking to a craftsperson about possibly showing her wares. Again, I had to leave without anyone helping me or letting me see anything. You think that a person who wants to see a $8000 coin in person would be worth your time.

 

My LCS is exactly like you describe. I've gone in there maybe once every 5 years for the past 35+ years and it's always the same. Two gruff old geezers who seem to think having customers is a nuisance. Last time I was in there (years ago) the one geezer was having a conversation with a guy about the Saddle Ridge hoard and everything said was nonsense (I had followed that story closely). I can't even remember what the guy was telling the other guy, it was so dumb. I waited patiently for 10-15 minutes, wanting to see a coin in their case, and finally walked out.