Do Local Coin Shops Need To Diversify Into Other Collectables To Survive

Is the market for collectable coins to small alone to support a shop? Should coin dealers diversify into sports cards, comics, jewelry, or other collectable niches to survive? I know coin dealers that have stamps, sports cards, local memorabilia, and even some jewelry in their stores that they say creates a secondary stream of income into their stores and eBay accounts which has helped their finances. Is the coin market too volatile on its own and can another collectable help preserve cash flow and stability while bringing in more customers and more collections into their shop?

Your Thoughts? Do your local coin shops sell anything other than coins, bullion, and currency?
Joe

 

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Stamps are worse than coins as far as the amount of money they would generate. Have my fathers full sheet and plate bock collections those that would like to buy them only want to pay 25% face value. Sport cards have been circling the drain for a number of years.Comics needs knowledge and lots of room probably to much for the LCS. Other area of collectables equally might more of a slow moving head ache than they want to deal with. The LCS. stopped e-bay and other sale sites due to the customers causing problems, He said it wasn't worth the hassle.
He does silver rounds and art bars and gold U.S. coins he does buy silver but when gold is going up and down like a yo-yo he stopd buying it.
Jewelry is another one of the ares that high priced inventory and may site in the safe a lock time. can't beat the net and the big discounters. Two long time local jewelers just sold out and closed their doors in the last 6 weeks

 

That's not really accurate.

 

My LCS has a small militaria section in the back. Most coin stores don't have a significant amount of inventory in other collecting ranges.

 

It really depends.

Most coin shops specialize in coins, advertise coins, and buy and sell coins. I haven't been in too many coin shops that had significant sections with other stuff (sure, they might have some random silver or jewelry, or maybe some other old stuff... but those most likely came as part of a package deal.).

Dealers in a field tend to specialize and focus on an area. Coin dealers know coins. They generally don't know stamps - so they won't buy stamps, and they won't sell stamps. Shoot, the best coin dealers specialize even further - they know pennies, and so they won't buy or sell anything besides small size cents. Or PL Morgan dollars. Etc.

I have been in a couple of shops where they had specifically hired someone for their knowledge of other areas. One shop was cool because it had a pretty good selection of antique guns along one wall. The owner was solely focused on coins, but he had hired someone to focus on military history because his clients had been asking for it.

 

Working for 3M I traveled to Hutchinson, MN many times. A coin shop there kept operating by also doubling as a silk-screen t-shirt printing store.

 

There is a shop in Rockville, MD, that did both stamps and coins, but the stamp part has been eliminated.
Then there is a shop in Bethesda, MD, that does both stamps and coins.
There is a shop in Silver Spring, MD, that does only coins; don't think it even did stamps.
And there is a shop in Laurel, MD, that appeared to do all sorts of collectibles but only advertises itself as coins; since I haven't been there for a long time it may only be coins now.
Finally there's a shop in Frederick, MD, that only calls itself a coin shop but if you read the fine print they also deal in stamps.

So the score is:
-- coins only = 2
-- coins and stamps = 2
-- coins and maybe stamps, etc. = 1
-- stamps only = 0

 

My LCS is located in an Antique Store.
Next closest one is located in a Jewelry store.

 

The LCS nearest to me is about 1/3 coins, 1/3 sports cards, and 1/3 jewelry and stamps. (Also have supplies related to all this stuff too.) There are huge boxes full of stamps there, but they are literally so swamped in them every other time I come in they offer to sell most of them to me at face value (I have all the Forever stamps I need.)

There is a LCS in South St Louis that is about 2/3 coins and 1/3 jewelry, but has recently decided to branch out into sterling flatware/dishware, toy trains, and musical instruments because that's what people have to sell, they have the space, and they figure they can make some sort of money on it.

IMO the biggest thing local coin shops could do to increase sales (because apparently there is no shortage of people willing to sell them stuff) would be to hire someone to sell online (coin forums, social media) - but they a) don't trust anyone who isn't family, so hiring new people is a problem because you have to grow your own employees and that takes time; b) don't want to get scammed by someone they can't physically see; c) don't want anyone to take a cut of their profits (either another employee on commission/hourly rate or something like eBay or PayPal; and d) don't want to have to do the additional inventory or work that's associated with selling online (yes, it's a pain sometimes.)

But honestly, I'm kind of tired of hearing one shop in particular whine about not making enough sales when they flat out refuse to do anything differently than they've always done (pre-Internet.)

 

Half of the store for coins and the other half a Baskin-Robbins.

 

Hasn't the High prices for cards gotten lower in the last few yearss. and maybe the baseball area is still decent but any of the other sports and non sports cards are very hard to move. All I know in the Detroit Metro area a lot of the shops that deal in sports cards have closed.
Have had some Tiger lapel pins, 7/11 coin and pistons coins that were for sale complete sets and all I got were silly offers. Even if the prices were way below what they cost.

Not being a stick and ball guy I don't follow it closely
Here you go
https://www.newsday.com/sports/base...-aren-t-worth-what-they-used-to-be-1.11540318

That hobby has the same problem as the coin and stamp hobbies. not to mention most others. Old collectors are dying off and younger new collectors aren't coming into the hobbies.

 

It seems to me that most of their business is in bullion now. Actual coin collectors are kind of a small part of their business. Anytime I'm in a coin shop most people come in to just buy gold and silver and are in and out fairly quickly.

 

That's happening all areas, more and more things moving more and more online is just going to continue to happen.

Sports market may not be the booming hayday but it's a healthy market overall and its really just the completely common nothing special stuff thats feeling it just like with coins and really all collectables.

There;s more than enough coin collectors and will continue to get more as new people age and sports stuff has enough as well.

 

My LCS is coins only except for a very small area of silver items like jewelry and silverware. Coins of all types.

 

My LCS has been around since the 1970's and has a few dozen nice-to-high end coins plus a jewelry section. The operator is fair, courteous, and nice to talk to.

 

I love my guys place. His shop is a coin shop. Boxes and displays of collector coins and supplies. He does have a case with some cool fossils and another corner of his shop has some old tools and Coke memorabilia but I believe those things are more of an afterthought. His wife is the area expert on paper money and she is sharp as a tack. They genuinely share a customers excitement when a new purchase is made and it’s quite infectious. It’s a fun place really. I believe they are doing just fine as a coin shop.

 

This is usually what I see. I haven’t been able to find a decent place nearby that actually sells collector coins yet; it’s all bullion stuff.

 

The place I go does have a lot of collector coins, but I don't think it's how they make most of their money. Since I buy foreign coins I get a lot of good deals since it's not their specialty area. For awhile they were also running auctions of collectibles but they got out of that business.

 

Love those old coin shops. If I owned one I would couple it with a small barber shop. I would employ just two hair stylists . One barber would be a dead ringer of Floyd from Mayberry days and the other would be a hip beautiful young lady. That combo should bode well for luring both young and old patrons alike into my coin store. Then if you really want to do it right, maybe have a back room with about 5 slot machines. How could you not succeed?

 

Many years ago I got to help out at two different coin shops. They both had all kinds of collectables. It brought in a lot of new folks. They were busy all the time.
They created a fun place for collectors to meet and the shop owner did really well.