Greetings all, I have read some coin show reports before and thought I'd try penning one as well. This was my 4th major show, all in Illinois (2nd Central States and I've twice been to the ANA World's Fair of Money when it was in Rosemont). The Schaumburg Convention Center is a nice location with plenty of free parking and easy access. Going in I had a plan. I wanted to sell some coins to fund future purchases as well as look for anything that caught my eye (like unusual holders, toners, and Perth Mint coins). One of my first stops was with Greg Krill at North Bay Rare Coin. I have been by his table before and he's always fair. He does a little bit of everything: some US gold, some platinum, Morgans, and Modern Chinese Coins. I was able to reach a satisfactory deal and bank some future coin funds! My next stop was Apmex. From my experiences, they offer the buy price (if available) on their website at the show. However, on their website they usually require one to have at least $10,000 in items to be sold and one has to ship to Oklahoma. At the show one can receive a check on the spot. They are popular among many of the dealers and collectors as the line to sell to them can get long. I had to skip them at first and then check back a few times before their buyer was finally free. It was well worth the wait! The buyer offered me a fair amount and the deal was done. A somewhat funny moment did occur at the table. While I was showing some Lunar coins for sale, some guy (I was never able to confirm if he worked for them or not) kept telling the Apmex buyer that those coins would never sell. He kept insisting, "don't buy, you'll be stuck with those forever." I wasn't too fond of this random guy trying to ruin my deal, so I told the Apmex buyer, "Prove that guy wrong; you'll do well on these!" The Apmex buyer had a laugh at that and did buy the Lunars from me. So random dude, please learn your manners and let the pros do their job! With those sales complete, I went looking for some toned coins. There were some very eye appealing options, but the prices...high is an understatement in many cases! One dealer had a nice reverse toned MS-64 common date. To me it was a $300 coin. I guessed that the dealer would quote me $400…boy was I off! He wanted $1,200! Another dealer had a monster reverse toner. The coin was raw though. I know not everything needs to be slabbed and raw coins used to rule the day. Heck even in the early 2000s when I started going to my LCS, there were no slabs at all. This Morgan however should have been slabbed. The color was nice and this type of item usually gets graded. At $500, I wasn’t comfortable taking a gamble. Maybe it had come back as AT (artificial) before? Seeing the high asking prices for these toners, I tried offering some of my own to these sellers. Well, here I got another education! Unfortunately for most dealers, toners are a one-way market. The dealer that wanted $1,200 for his reverse toned MS-64 had no interest in my obverse toned MS 64, even at $400. There was one guy in particular that was the worst offender. I was waiting at his table and a person wanted to buy one of his toners. The dealer looked at him and said, “I won’t even sell that coin to you since I’ll get a record price when I consign it to an auction.” That potential buyer left and I showed the dealer some of my toners. Suddenly his tune changed. “Look,” he says to me, “I have a full case of these toners and I’ll never sell them.” But…but…you just had a buyer right before me who wanted to buy and you didn’t even give him a price! These are the types of people that really get to me. Be honest; don’t lie right to my face when I saw what happened. Oh well, I brushed this off and moved on. Eventually I sold four of my mid-level toners for a small gain (not much at about $15 profit per coin, but I can combine the money from those four and hopefully buy 1 nice Morgan in the future). One recommendation I have for others (if your asking price is fair) is to definitely walk around and show your coins to multiple people. With the four Morgans I received a wide range of offers. Some said they weren’t even interested. Others quoted greysheet or slightly more ($50-$60) for one of my MS-64 toned Morgans. However, by about the 7th dealer, I found the one who appreciated that MS 64 toner and paid a fair $125 (and I’m sure he can sell it for $150-$175 in-hand to a customer as similar toned examples have been bringing that lately at auction or buy-it-now on ebay). In the end, I only bought one coin: a toned Susan B. Anthony (pictures coming soon). In general the prices were just too high and I can usually do better from ebay or other auction sites. I was still happy since I sold most of what I intended to sell and built up some funds for future purchases. Plus, I met Bob Campbell, who was very kind and took the time to talk toning with me. I’ll definitely be looking to attend one of his seminars at a future date. That is all for now. I’ll try to add some pictures to make this thread more exciting. Please feel free to ask any questions or post your own experiences if attending this show. For those that have not been to a large coin show, I highly recommend going at least once. Whether you want to buy, sell, or just look around, the experience is well worth it!
Pictures of my purchase (couldn't quite capture the color, but I'll try again soon): And the freebies
I liked your report, thank you for posting, I enjoy reading these. I still have never been to a large size coin show, only been collecting seriously for 3 years and not much in my area. Regarding the high prices, this is what i find at my LCS.... which i understand as selling on ebay doesnt have the huge overhead of a physical store.
Ditto, what Gary said, I enjoyed your report. Like Gary, welcome Gary! I have never been to a coin show. I've been collecting now for almost 3 years. Plan to retire next year then I'll hit the shows! Great report dd! I look forward to reading more....
I went again today (Friday) and here are a few observations: *Many dealers had packed up and left by 1PM and even more by 4PM (plenty of empty tables) *I saw a cool holder: a Stone Mountain DDO in an MS 62 PCGS Regency Holder...asking price of $2,700 *There was a better date gold Panda in an ACG holder...this is the first Chinese coin I have seen in an ACG holder *I was able to sell some smaller items (my $15-$50 toned coins) *I had one dealer tell me (jokingly) that he'd offer $1.51 for my Morgan ($1), Commem (50C), and Lincoln (1C)...I told him sure thing if you sell me that Gold Saint for $20...his partner at the table enjoyed that...unfortunately he wasn't willing to sell me the Gold Saint even at $25 (I'm not sure how soon he'll see an offer like that again ) *The Apmex line was still long and Heritage was busy yesterday and early on today (people were selling 100s of coins to each of those two). *No purchases for me today...again the prices were high (one item in particular that I asked was a grouping of raw 83/84 CC Morgans...likely MS 62/63/64 coins...there was a little toning on the reverse, but nothing special...price=$250 each or $235 per for the entire group, which was 7-10 coins) *Some of the people with signs saying "buying" or "please offer your coins" are the ones that were the least likely to buy or pay top dollar (not all...some with those signs were more than fair)
