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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ddddd, post: 2722586, member: 22377&quot;]Greetings all,</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I have read some coin show reports before and thought I&#039;d try penning one as well.</p><p><br /></p><p>This was my 4th major show, all in Illinois (2nd Central States and I&#039;ve twice been to the ANA World&#039;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.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>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&#039;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!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>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, &quot;don&#039;t buy, you&#039;ll be stuck with those forever.&quot; I wasn&#039;t too fond of this random guy trying to ruin my deal, so I told the Apmex buyer, &quot;Prove that guy wrong; you&#039;ll do well on these!&quot; 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!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>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?</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>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).</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>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. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>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![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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