I went to my first coins show today and was not in the least surprised at the amount of US Coin dealers there were. I did not count but there was probably between 20 and 30 dealers set up when I was there. Out of all of them I only found one dealer that had any ancients to speak of and it was a decently large binder with a few coins that I had never seen. Given that this was my first coin show I didn't know what to expect in the way of prices but I managed to get three pretty decent coins of three different emperors I did not have before, and all for less than $100 I'm not entirely sure that I'm right about this one so if not please let me know
Most of the small local shows in my area don’t have any ancient dealers. A few have the occasional corroded LRB or ratty Sestertius at very high prices. You may have to go to the larger, regional shows to find any sort of concentration of ancient dealers. If you do find an ancient dealer(s) at these small shows, ask him/her where else the set up.
Hey not bad for a small coin show! I went to one last weekend that was probably smaller than the one you went to and came away with one ancient, a descent Postumus ant. Hey, your Carus is better than mine! and so is your Tacitus (this is actually my "upgraded" Tacitus believe it or not!).
Are there any coin shows in the SF Bay Area? The area is very deficient in ancient dealers as far as I know, none in the East Bay for example.
I honestly have no idea, it’s been a pain finding them in my area as well around Phoenix. I usually go to random coin shops and look around. Most times it’s only a binder or two but still worth a look, I don’t know if you just pop into random coin shops like I do but that’s how I managed to find Maximus Thrax Denarius.
Daniel, I live in Phoenix and feel your pain. I'm a member of the Phoenix Coin Club and there are only a couple of members that are in to collecting ancient coins. We try to meet up outside of the club so we don't bore the Morgan Dollar collectors at the monthly meetings. Sometimes we get together just to make trades. That is always a fun time. The club is having their show on Sunday, November 4th and I'm pretty sure that Kenn with Moenta will be there. He's a great ancient dealer and is fun to talk to. David
I used to go over to Frank L. Kovacs' office on Post St. in San Francisco and talk coins, and make some purchases but that was when I was 14 years old. I got out of the hobby for 25+ years, came back and found that Frank had retired. But there is an ancient numismatic library named after him at Stanford.
Congratulations on your first show. If you're a coin junkie like me, they never get old! You'll find dealers of ancient coins at the larger shows, Baltimore, FUN, etc., and of course NYINC is the mother of all ancient/world coin shows. I spent a year setting up at small shows in Eastern PA, and did nothing but lose money, even when the rent was as little as $75 per table. Small shows are mostly attended by what I call Morgan Zombies. My wife (a professional baker) once made some pastries from an ancient Roman recipe, and we couldn't even sell those. Sigh. The market responds to demand - if you want a larger selection of ancient coins, get to a big international show. Even then, out of a thousand dealers, only about 15 or so will specialize in ancients, but that will give you a much larger selection.
Well you just missed the Santa Clara show last month, I was there. Going forward there is a resurrection of the old San Francisco show, 11/30 to 12/1. Not sure who will be there, like I said it is an attempted resurrection of the old show but I have been told CNG, Berk and others. I did the show for many years. In the old days people from all over the world would be there. I could e-mail the guy and he might tell me who will be there but I am sure its not finalized yet. I will not be attending do to its astronomically high price. There are two more shows this year, both in Sacramento, 11/2-3 and 12/16. I may or may not have a table at those.
I’ll definitely have to look into the Phoenix coin club, I had heard of it before but didn’t look into because I figured most of it would be US coin dealers. Not that there’s anything wrong with US coins but I find them kind of boring. I actually started out collecting them myself and moved out of them because I wanted to find something different and here I am now. I don’t know what happened with my reply, guess that’s what I get for using mobile
That's right Ken! Forgot about that one. I may go to the SF show, probably not Sacramento. The local dealers around here in the East Bay, and there are not many of them seem to focus on stuff like Morgan dollars, which I find pretty boring. U.S. coins in general are boring to me.
