Today is the first day of the Tennessee State Numismatic Society fall coin show and I decided to go today since I took a day off of work. I got there at about 10 minutes before it started and while I waiting for the show to open, I checked my phone to see where the spot prices were at that time. Spot gold was $1695.30 and spot silver was $31.76. I looked around the parking lot and I noticed that it was not as crowded as it was last year but then again, I probably got their earlier than normal. Hard to say. Once the show started, I decided to start looking for silver art bars since that is what I usually do when I go to a coin show. As I was searching for them, I did observe some prices on a select few gold and silver items and they are as follows: .999 generic silver = $32 to $35 - Not bad but I did not see when spot took a nose dive so some of those prices might have gone down. Silver Art Bars - Not many '70's silver art bars present at this show and most of the ones that I saw where holiday-themed bars that I was not interested in getting. Lowest prices on those were $32.00. 10-oz silver bars = $327.00. Silvertowne and Engelhard were the main brands that I saw. Some might have been lower than $327 but I did not check those out. 100-oz silver bars = Lowest was spot + 0.50 - Engelhard and JM brands. 90% silver = 23X face SAE's = spot + $5.00 Silver Maples = $33.50 to $37.00 Engelhard Prospectors = $34.50 Peace Dollars = $32.00 Overall, the coin show for me was so-so and I did find a couple of silver art bars that I liked and added to my collection but nothing of special interest IMO but got at a decent .999 generic silver price. They did also have some slabbed bullion and coins as well as some Lunar gold and silver. The show continues tomorrow and the last day is Sunday. I plan to go back to the coin show tomorrow. They had plenty of gold there but I got so busy looking for silver art bars that I did not pay attention to some of the prices on some of the gold that was there.
I went back to the 2nd day of the coin show today to continue my search for more silver art bars. Since I did not take note of the premiums on gold yesterday, I decided to observe and note some of the gold prices that I have seen. Here are some prices on certain gold coins that I saw: 1-oz GAE = $1780.00 1/10 GAE = $185.00 DOS Peso = $85.00 1-oz Gold Buffalo = $1800 I did see some other gold at this show but I most of the other gold that I saw was some Pre-1933 gold coins (raw and slabbed) and I did not look at any prices on those. However, I did notice a disturbing situation when I was looking for silver art bars. I saw a several silver-plated silver bars being sold. I saw 3 silver-plated bars at this show. One was German silver buffalo bar. The 2nd one that I saw was a 15-grain silver American Royal Mint bar and the third one was a 100-mills bar. Today seemed more crowded than it was yesterday and I did see some selling but it was not all bullion. Some people were doing some trades but more people were doing more buying from what I could see while I was at the show. Overall, it was ok. Not great but not terrible either. I did not find many silver art bars that I was looking for. I did not see many silver art bar overall. Silvertowne was at this show and they had a few silver art bars in their melt-bucket and I ended up buying one for $32.70. I spent a lot of time talking to some of the dealers that I know and that is always a good thing. I also was able to get some more dealer contacts which could turn out to be home run down the road. The last day of the show is tomorrow and I have some extra FRNs to spend but I have not decided if I am going to go tomorrow or not. I will think about it later tonight.
thats not a bad price for the 2 peso's but i noticed the same thing about art bars, well pure silver in general at the last coin show i went to, there was not much of it (except silver eagles)
I initially decided to not go to the last day of the coin show today buy I changed my mind because I saw an enameled silver bar that I liked when I was looking around yesterday and today was going to be my "splurge" day. When I got there today, a lot of the dealers (mainly out-of-town dealers) were already gone so the floor was about half full from yesterday and of course there were not many people there when I arrived at the show this morning. Since I knew what I was planning to splurge on and I knew that the dealer was going to be here today, I only spent about 20 minutes at this show and left. Overall, it was an "ok" show for me. Not great but not terrible either. I wish that I found more silver art bars that I was interested in but I did not happen but at the same time, I am glad that I able to take advantage of this silver smackdown to buy what that I wanted for only .999 generic silver premiums for. Out of the silver art bar purchases that I made during this 3-day coin show, I found two bars that were interesting and I will post those two on the "Silver Bullion thread" thread in short while.
Thank you very much for this most informative post. (Does 'Chattahell' still smell like that foundry I used to drive past, from Nashvile to Hotlanta? LOL) Interesting to see SE show dealers' premium on AGEs (US bullion coin) is currently 6.14%. That looks sweeeet! Compare APMEX, POG @ $1,677 : AGE w/sh/ins = $ 1,800. a 7.3% premium I did a Summer 2009 study for clients, AGEs on eBay were ~8%. Don't know if coin-shows (a lower retail) are generally cheaper than eBay (riskier buying, def) but this suggests falling retail premiums since then. fyi: The Wall St Journo must gets their #s from a New York Market maker (closed during the hurricane) but a useful benchmark is the "Cash Prices" Pages. Bookmark for future ref: http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3023-cashprices.html fwiw: in August 2012: Excluding all ancillary costs (taxes, fees, AND s/h/insur) the wholesale premium on Gold Amer Eagles (new? old?) was 4.4% - 4.71% and for (Au) Cdn Maples, 3.9% - 4.21%. November 2012: Paying just 2% more to a reputable dealer at retail sounds really, really economical (cheap!) to me. So support the LCS guys at the shows! I have zero insights on the 'art-bar' market per se, but currently very low bullion premiums suggest it will become harder and harder to find 'good stuff, cheaper.' I would expect PM-related premiums to rise with any PM volatility (expect that.) Maybe your very best bet otherwise will be cultivating relationships with other trader-collectors, for niche products? That's just my two cents: I sincerely believe that PM coin & bullion buyers/collectors have seen some of the very best premiums in USD$ history. Barring another deflationary moment (like Oct.-Nov. 2008) I don't imagine Lows to fall or even continue to remain so indefinitely: and certainly NOT when the printing for FRNs starts in earnest.
