Years ago a friend of mine's father had passed. My friend called me because his dad was a coin collector and asked me to help him figure out what he had. I gladly obliged figuring I would be handed a sock drawer of old silver dollars and halves and such. Well, I was stunned when I got there and my buddy led me into a walk in closet that had a human sized safe absolutely stuffed with hundreds of rolls of Walkers, stacks and stacks of mint stuff out on the closet shelves. It was so overwhelming. I did as I was asked and spent four days inventorying for him. I had already called my coin shop buddy who wanted to buy the lot sight unseen, though I had yet to clue him into just how massive this collection was. So the Saturday afternoon came that we had agreed to drive to his shop. My truck was full and my buddy's truck was a third full. My truck looked like one of those "nose up in the air" trucks that you see these days.... We pulled up to my friends coin shop front door and he walked out. His jaw dropped. He immediately walked in, turned on the "Closed" sign and asked me to come around to his back door with those two truckloads of coins. Not all that crazy of a story I suppose, but I always thought it was funny that I was the reason a coin shop closed on a Saturday afternoon.
I was buying Sols of Peru in the 90's. I came across one at a show that was struck from a split die, end to end and about 3/8 inch wide. The dealer didn't have a price on it and I assumed he wanted some crack head money for it. This guy was yakking away with another dealer about his wonderful Bellsouth stock and was actually annoyed that I handed the coin to him for a price. He knew something wasn't right not having a price on it. I could see it on his face. But he just couldn't wait to get back to talking about his stock: "Oh, I don't know. Gimme four bucks." That's what scrap silver was at the time. Darwin has to eat too.
Years ago I would hang out at a local shop with a group of friends several times a week. One day one of the regulars came in carrying a box. You could tell it was pretty heavy. The box was filled with dirt, rotten leather and Morgan dollars. It was all stuck together in a large dirt ball, just as it came from the ground. We all talked about how to pull the Morgans out without doing any more damage. The best option was to flow water over the dirt ball and let it melt the dirt away. This was the only way we could think of to not touch the surfaces of the coins. This was something that could not be done at the shop. The guy that brought it in, took it home and set up a place outdoors and it worked really well. The owner of the shop worked out a private deal and bought them all before anyone could look at them. At some point there was question if the guy that found it had permission to be searching there.
In LCS that I used to use when I lived in another state, also had an auctioneer come in that I knew. The LCS had a very small box that he would put coins in just for the auctioneer. Most of the coins were liberty, seated ladies, and one denomination or another. It was so many years ago that are well worn seated coin was only worth silver scrap price. The dealer however, was charging the auctioneer 5% over its value. I happen to be there one day when the auctioneer came in so I made it a point to get to his next auction. And sure enough he was auctioning off the coins that he bought That were in that box. For a minute or two worth of work, the auctioneer was making over 25% on his investment. I never bought a coin at his auction because they went for such ridiculous prices. I was back at the LCS shortly after the auction and they told me that people that bought those coins would come back in and ask how much they could get for them. Such a vicious circle, and everyone made money except for the buyer of the coin at the auction. In the LCS would be the bad guy in the eyes of the buyer.
I really like my lcs - have not been able to get down there with all the construction on 65. Anyway I used to go down there once or twice a week and he was always showing me coins I could not afford. So one saturday I went down there and when I walked in the owner smiled and said - Mark I have some coins you gotta see. Okay - he brought out this stack of 8 or 9 coins. So 1 was a 1794 ms half dollar - I don't remember the price on it - then 2 were 1796 and 1797 half dollars and they were beauts. Both of those were around 50k and I dropped one - thank god it was in a 2x2 and dropped on the mat they he sat them on. Next up an 1836 Gobrecht dollar that was only about 30k. Then 3 1856 flying ealges the first was 30k, second 15k and the last was only 5 or 6k(looked cleaned and worn). I was like damn - I can't afford any of these and the owner was like, I got them in one day and they were all sold by the end of the next day. Byrd was always doing this to me. But he will also sit there and talk to me no matter how long I hung around - well assuming they were not busy. Eventually he stopped being opened on Saturday. I think the funniest story was one day I was down there and he really showed his patience with one customer that wanted to buy gold - how much is one ounce - spot plus premium. What about 2 ounces? It is always spot plus premium per ounce for gold. What about 4 ounces? Spot plus premium per ounce. So this went on for like 10 or 15 minutes. Eventually the guy left - I am not even sure if he bought any gold. I almost laughed out loud when the guy was like - you won't even cut me a break if I buy 100 oz's. Gold is spot plus premium per ounce no matter how much you buy.
I don't care for my LCS at all. Back when silver was around 38 per ounce, I had 120 Peace dollars I was going to unload to put into a few really quality graded Morgans that I really wanted to acquire. They weren't culls, most are VF to AU. At 90%, spot should be around $29 a coin. I got a lowball offer of $22 a coin. That's about 25% spot discount at those price levels. That teed me off, and I said no thanks. Looking back, he did me a favor.
