Coin shows, your opinion? My first impression from one: grossly overpriced coins

I enjoy attending coin shows. I also like coin club meetings. It is fun to see folks face to face to talk numismatics. I try to buy coins that interest me at shows, even if there is a premium in the price, because I want the dealers to come back. Coin shows are a a bit like going to a traveling museum where I can see coins like this for "free":

If the price is too high, and the dealer can not drop the price to something reasonable to you just say no thanks and walk.

 

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Who the hell put that thought into your head? The whole point of shows is for the dealers to make a living and for the buyers to get coins at fair prices. Maybe your experience is different because you are looking at ancients, but I am looking at moderns when I go to shows and i get fair prices when buying and trading.

 

I also love going to shows, and just wish there were more large ones held in my area. As it is, I long for November and the Numismata show in Frankfurt. So many ancient coin dealers, large and small from all over Europe. Something like 20-35% of all the coins on offer are ancients. I never fail to find something for my collection, and the prices are generally quite competitive if you know where to look.
I always haggle, and do it in a fair way so that both the dealer and myself feel we are getting a good deal (learnt from my mother - she even used to haggle at restaurants!).

 

You mean the one in South San Francisco this weekend? Did you go yesterday and see Musa Numismatic Art? Glenn has a lot of nice coins at fair (retail) prices, and he's always good for a chat about ancient coins.

That is a great score for $30.

It has a really nice portrait, though, and a lot of people looking for a Balbinus will mostly care about the portrait.

Investment? I don't go to coin shows to buy stocks. I got to buy coins. And, while I certainly hope my coins will go up in value after I buy them, I don't particularly want coins as a whole to go up in price dramatically, because that means I'll be able to afford fewer of them.

If you're thinking of coins as an investment, unless you're a dealer, you're pretty much doing it wrong.

I would pick the top coin. I prefer the portrait on that one to the other, although the second one does have full legends.

If anything, I've found ancients and world coin dealers to be friendlier as a whole than US dealers.

 

Ummm, well it sounds like if you're the kind of dude that likes hobnobbing with coin guys and haggling for deals, then coin shows are the place for you ...

Yah sadly, I doubt that I'll ever go to a coin show ... I usually love old-school stuff, but I can already tell what it'd be like (I'd be uncomfortably trying to haggle for a coin that I could probably find on-line for a way better price)

... ooops, that was probably the wrong thing to type for all of the struggling coin dealers, eh? (ummm, or maybe that makes you feel like "thank God I don't have to go to those coin-shows anymore"?)

Oh, but either way, I'd like to actually attend a coin-show (bucket-list) ... but I know me, and I'm sure that I'd merely slide-by unnoticed (oh, and my wife would be laughing at me because I'd probably to wearing my green-spandex patina suit!!)

 

I've enjoyed the few shows I've been to. I've not found the prices to be unreasonable considering the dealers are trying to recoup the expenses of the show (kinda like adding costs of auction expenses or Ebay expenses. BUT, what I've gotten out most from attending shows is meeting dealers, discussing Ancients, and establishing future contacts. My Aegean Turtle was purchased because I met a dealer at a show, told her of my interest, and she later contacted me way after the show to see if I might be interested in this coin. We've since had a pretty good relationship. To be honest, I'm not sure what more anyone could expect from a coin show.

 

I'm surprised you find any coins in your price & quality range at shows.

When I went to the Anaheim show last year the only coins I saw of interest to me were only being previewed for future auctions, and were not for sale.

 

I haven't been to a show in a while mainly due to distance to travel. However, I always used coin shows to pick up non-key raw coins to fill albums. I could cherry pick some real nice coins and the dealers were happy to cut deals to get rid of excess inventory. I tend to buy slabbed coins at online auctions.

 

Indeed, most higher end coins are sold at auctions but I've found a surprising number at shows (especially NYINC) including most recently, this tetradrachm of Rhegium. I had wanted to bid on it when it came up for sale in 2015 but I was reserving budget for later lots. Seeing it at the show was a pleasant surprise.

 

That makes sense. The January NYC auctions attract great coins, so it's reasonable that there would be high-end non-auction coins for sale too. I always ask my dealer to be on the lookout at these shows for coins he thinks worth of consideration.

For your coin above, did you get the sense that the seller (dealer?) was also the buyer of this coin at the 2015 auction, or was he/she offering it on behalf of the owner?

 

Coin shows let you see 100s of coins in real life versus looking at photos. You get to talk live to real people and get to know them and have detailed conversations. I find that dealer prices from reasonable dealers depend on how much they have into a coin or if the coin is a consignment. If they have room to bargain then great if not then I move on. I tend to look for unique things that I can't find online, like the Klazomenia I picked up at the fun show last year.

 

In this case, it was the auction house (NAC) which had some stock with at the show. The coin wasn't paid for during the sale so they kept it and re-offered it. That is an atypical situation though: usually, it will be a dealer buying a coin and then adding some markup over it. I've purchased several coins this way where a dealer happened to be at the right sale at the right time and their markup was still well within the bounds of rational pricing.

 

I will be honest and say that I don't mind paying a little bit more at a coin show since I get to see and touch the coins beforehand.

My reasoning is that I get to see so many coins that I don't know about. Look at the details instead of a photo or a badly taken photo in some cases. If it wasn't for the coin shows mainly NYINC, I would not have known about some coins, places, and books. Its also nice when the dealer is friendly and is willing to talk to me about coin collecting.

 

Sadly, I've had similar experiences at coin shows with ancients and medievals. The ancient dealers I've come across typically have a box labeled "$20 and under" filled with indescribable and unidentifiable chips of something or other out front and everything else prices over $300. I usually have fascinating conversations with the dealers, but unfortunately never end up buying anything from them. One had a Marcus Aurelius that I would have paid $150 - $200 for, but he wanted $300 and wouldn't budge. So I waited until he was distracted by someone else and quietly sneaked away. It's too bad, because I usually find great deals on almost every other type of coin at shows.

 

Why sneak? Make it plain as day. If prices are inflated, make your displeasure known. I'm not one for confrontation, but I AM honest and will not pull any punches when telling the truth.

 

Agreed. You can always say (diplomatically) something like "I don't think we're going to get together on your price -- it's just too far over my budget for that coin. Thanks anyway."

 

Ha ha! Yes, I thought someone would call me out on that, and rightly so. I thought about explaining it but I didn't want to over extend the post. So I'll explain: I made it clear that I wouldn't pay $300 but I think he thought he had me and basically wouldn't give me an easy out. It turned out that someone else came along and it allowed me to make an exit before I just said "ok, I'm done! Enough!" which I don't generally like to do unless absolutely necessary.

In retrospect, I should have left that detail out. Another day, another lesson.

 

I think it was good for you to include this detail -- it's just part of the learning process when negotiating at a show.

Your budget is exactly that -- your budget. If the coin is outside your budget, there's no harm in telling that to the dealer.

 

Totally agree, this just confirms my experience.

 

Totally reasonable. Many of the dealers I buy from don't have physical shops to pay for, so that keeps prices down a little bit, too.

Indeed. I don't mind paying fair retail as a collector, because that's the cost of not being able to go to the big auctions, not having to travel to 50 coin shows a year, and not having to maintain a business. I don't even mind paying a premium for the right coin, because paying for quality is always worth it, IMO.

I want dealers I buy from to make money. If they don't, they won't be around next week/month/year when I see them again. I'm aware that I'm where they make their money. Coin dealers gotta eat, too, you know.