First Coin Show (Baltimore) experience

This.

Whitman lists the dealers on their website well ahead of time. Many of the bigger dealers have websites with their inventory online. Many dealers can otherwise be contacted by email or phone. A week or so before the show, I browse through inventory online and I email dealers that I think might have the material I'm looking for, with my want list and ask them to bring the material to the show. I let them know when I'm going to be there as well.

When I get to the show, I already have a list of the dealer booth numbers. I walk up to the booths, introduce myself if I don't already know the dealer, and they pull out the material I asked them for. I've got my NGC submissions ready to go in marked submission flips with the forms filled out. Within the first hour of the show on Friday, I've bought all my major purchases and gotten my submissions in to NGC. My show is already a success at that point, and the rest of the day I can go to club meetings and work through the material I've brought to sell.

I agree that it would be nice if all dealers stayed at shows until the posted closing times, but that's not the reality. Don't blame the dealers. They have their own schedules and reasons for coming to the show that do not include you. If you want to ensure you have a good show, find out when to go to the show, where to go at the show, and put in the work on your end to make the show a great experience for you before you even leave the house.

 

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............and this is what turns the casual younger people off. Just my opinion. It's not a business to me. It would be nice to have a list but I don't. I think I'll take the advice of the other people but thank you for adding to the conversation.

 

Sometimes you just have to wander, but remember "To find a prince you have to kiss some frogs"

 

Sorry, but most of us don't have the time to spend that you mention in the first paragraph. Further, the dealers should stay at the show during the posted hours, or don't do the show. Empty booths do not look good for the promoter. If they sign up for the show, they should "work" the show. The buyer shouldn't have to "put in the work on your end to make the show a great experience".

 

I've tried attending different days before settling on Thurs afternoon for two reasons:

Most of the dealers I frequent tend to have what I want
And the show isn't crowded so I get plenty of face time with dealers.

BTW, I'm a little ticked off because the Zimbabwe 100 trillion dollar notes were not available at the show. I gave my last one to my banker who framed it. Dealers paid around $1.85 each in bulk then sold them for $7.00 - $7.50 each. Don't want to pay $40.00 on eBay. Had to settle for 50 trillion dollar notes.

 

I saw Zim 100 trillion notes there on Friday...can't recall which dealer.

 

The "casual younger people" need to understand that this is a hobby of meticulous knowledge, and if you don't treat it like a business in one sense - knowing the product - you'll be eventually leaving the hobby in disgust anyway once you realize how badly you've been taken. It is the sort of methodical, planned approach that Jaelus describes (although maybe not to his degree ) which is how one builds a collection. Anything else is collecting pebbles.

Look, I'm the original Ricochet Rabbit when it comes to coins - I own everything from 18th Century Russian Copper to a 2015 March of Dimes Mint set. I have Morgans, Lincolns, Buffalo and Jefferson Nickels, Washington Quarters, a few British Victorian issues...you get the point. I could have half a dozen different issues of interest when I walk into a show, but they're all bound by the common thread that I know enough about them to be willing to evaluate them raw, and I'm not going to reach outside my comfort zone for something I don't understand.

Well, not very often anyway.

But I have a plan when I walk in. Maybe your plan will be more about learning than buying, and you're going to look at everything once and only spend $50 all day. It's a good, valid plan. It's when you don't have a plan, when you walk onto the bourse floor with no clue what you want and even less clue what you should buy, that you begin learning the hard lessons which will drive you away from the hobby.

Coin Collecting isn't for everybody. It's not for the people who don't want to be immersed in it. "Immersion" is like drinking, though - some who enjoy it drink only very rarely, while still deriving great pleasure from the activity. An hour a week with their coins is enough for many. Others (raises hand) spend as much time with numismatics as they do earning a living. But if it doesn't have that magnetic attraction, you won't be doing it for long anyway.


The reason many mid-level dealers leave shows early is because of their Want Lists. They're not "retailers" in the traditional sense; they have regular customers who have expressed desires for specific coins (back to Jaelus' thinking again), and that's why they're at the show - to network with other dealers and fill their Want Lists for the people they know are guaranteed sales and profits. They don't have the expectation of doing enough walk-in business to justify the extra time. Want Lists from 100 different customers isn't out of the pale for an established dealer.

The year I did FUN, the guys who bought the table drove down, and if they didn't have 500lbs of stuff in their van, they didn't have an ounce. It would have been a deal-breaker to try and ship that much stuff; they only went because there was a way to bring everything with them. Not all dealers bring that much inventory, but what they gain in weight they lose in risk by shipping some pretty expensive material. You don't have any clue what the public will be looking to buy, so the only way to populate your table correctly is to have enough of everything for everyone for the whole show, unless you're such a known specialist that you can bring only Early Copper, for instance. And you can still bring all that crap and only do $2000 in business for the show.

That dealer who left early paid the exact same amount for their table (as much as $1000+ at a major show) as the guy who didn't pack up until they ordered him to on Sunday afternoon. It's obvious that hard math caused them to leave early, probably because they reached the limit of time spent guaranteeing income.

 

If you remember the dealer please post his name/website.

Thanks

 

Sorry, I don't have a clue, wasn't looking for them, just happened to see them.

 

It may not be a business to you, but it is to the people you're expecting to cater to you. Would you expect a business only open in the summer (because that's when profits are made) to instead stay open all year simply because you may or may not patronize them? Are convenience stores in business only to offer a convenient option for customers, or are they in this business to benefit themselves?

Please don't get me wrong; I understand how you feel, but it's only right to keep in mind that even though this is a hobby to most, the same understanding given to other businesses should go for coin dealers as well. It is also only fair to remember these people have lives and families too, so if it's not worthwhile for them to stay, and they'd prefer to spend time doing something else, can we really blame them?

Especially in today's world, "casual collectors" have near countless options they can take to acquire the coins they desire. If one path doesn't prove fruitful, simply take another.

 

I get what everyone is saying. I really do. I understand the business part of it as well and I'll end up taking a different path like you said because I'm not in the same league as the other guys. I knew what I was looking for when I went in the show but I had never been to one before so I didn't know what to expect at all. It's one of those things where this show obviously should not have been my first show.......... I still stand by the dissapointing statement. I think this is a fair question. Why not hold the shows on Saturday and Sunday only? Why have the two days during the week when most people are working?

 

You've every right to be disappointed, but the best thing to do is take something from the experience and use it to your benefit in the future.

 

I am. I have gotten a bunch of good information here. I do appreciate the alternative points of view!

 

Very good, sir.

 

I went last April,left at like 5am from NJ to get there at exactly am on a Saturday.Finally unloaded everything and got into the venue and it was huge! Took me 3 hours just to look over the place,but by the time that happened and I went back to the beginning dealers were already packing up as stated. Best bet is to go Thursday-Friday. Saturday you can only do so much since everyone likes to pack it up a bit early. Will try to go again this April,but it sure does get expensive. Last time I went I paid around $330 for one overnight at the Hyatt,so plan ahead and youll have a blast!

 

"Last time I went I paid around $330 for one overnight at the Hyatt,so plan ahead and youll have a blast!"

The convention center is within walking distance of a very good neighborhood, Federal Hill. I wonder if you could find a nice inexpensive room there thru airbnb?

 

Great post.

The first show I went to was a small local show with about 30 tables. I just kind of showed up without much planning. No list and no loupe. I bought a lot from the first table next to where I walked in, only to discover nicer examples of the same coins a few tables down, for less money. I discovered I had bought some duplicates of coins I already had, and discovered much later that I was buying some problem coins without knowing. I was only buying cheap coins at the time, but still, I had a budget. I realized quickly that not planning enough in advance, and not studying numismatics extensively for my areas of interest was a significant waste of my time and money.

The reason I plan so much now is that my collections are all very advanced; world type and US variety collections with only hard to fill holes left. Most of my collection "action" at this point is in looking for upgrades and working on side sets.

If I just showed up at a show without calling dealers in advance, the odds of a coin I need even being at a show of this size are very low. Even with all the work I put in before this show, it only resulted in me picking up 1 coin for one of my main sets and 2 restrikes for a side set. At this point, I consider that a big success. Mostly I go to Whitman to save money on TPG submissions and to sell, since there are so many specialized dealers there I can find a good buyer for whatever I have to sell, even if it's outside of my wheelhouse.

 

One of the reasons I choose that hotel is because it was connected by skywalk to the convention center. I didn't want to walk on the streets with the amount of coins and cash I had. Was much more relieved to find it exactly as I thought it would be.