Hi, Every day we see the LA fires on the news. Has anyone heard if Great Collections in Irvine is impacted by the wildfires?
I don't know about Great Collections but I wonder if any private collections of value have been swept up in the flames. A lot of wealthy people lived in some of these neighborhoods and likely some of them were coin collectors. Bruce
Don't know about any coin collections but according to this redditor he lost his military medal collection. Nice one too. https://www.reddit.com/r/Medals/s/nL8JdgzF0E
GC is 50 miles from the fires. I imagine some of their employees may have been affected but that's a long commute through LA if they are.
This terrible event certainly puts it in perspective; 11 inches of snow in a week suddenly isn't so bad. Wasn't David Sear somewhere in California? I looked at his website, and according to google, Porter Ranch is a suburb of L.A. Uh-oh. I recall seeing a youtube video, perhaps 5 years ago, of an (ugly) glass $350 million dollar mansion being built somewhere in the Hollywood hills. I'm hoping for the best.
My latest buy tracking shipment is acting weird. Went to Ontario Ca. Part of LA. That’s a first and says on the way to next destination, that was 6 days ago
When I have sent items to GC in the past, believe they have gone to through the airport in Ontario, but could be wrong
My last purchase (May 2024) went from Irvine to Anaheim to Moreno Valley before heading to Denver. Considering it took 26 hours to scan in at Denver I'd guess it went by ground. USPS probably picks whatever route they deem best at the time, so going through Ontario doesn't seem unusual. There's a service alert about winter storms on their website, central plains through mid-Atlantic, so that may be the issue.
A friend of ours in N. Calif. has a family house and adjacent small apartment building in Malibu. Her daughter and son-in-law live there and manage the apartments for the family. When her son-in-law heard that the fire was moving their way, he somehow managed to get a water tanker with pump and full-body firefighting suit with helmet and respirator. He stayed there and managed to save the buildings with minor damage (mostly cracked windows). All the surrounding houses were destroyed. Not sure if he was wise or foolish, but it worked out well. The family buildings are near the sea, so I guess worst case, he could have just waded into the ocean. Cal
got one from last weeks action but was delayed one day by usps, most often shows up on a thur. not in the burn zone but real close in west hills
I too wondered about private collections being lost in the fires. Mel Gibson said he lost a collection of 1600s rare books, so it isn’t too far fetched to think many rare coins have been lost.
There was a similar thing with the Camp Fire that wiped out Paradise, CA in 2018. The collection was in a safe and NGC did the restoration and slabbing for free. @crazyhounddog, the collector, was posting about it on a forum somewhere. Hope for the best on these latest fires I guess. https://wildfiretoday.com/2019/02/1...-fire-but-coin-collection-found-and-restored/
