A new coin show was held last week in Tampa, FL. I think it is called the Great American Coin Show or some such. I didn't attend even though I live within 100 miles. It was held at the Tampa Convention Center. I did speak today to a dealer who attended on Wednesday, the first public attendance day, although he had not purchased a table. Here's what he told me based upon his Wednesday attendance: - a little bigger than the last Summer FUN show, maybe 350 dealers. - no separate World or Ancient sections and thus few if any dealers specializing in these areas. - Little to no public attendance. - $15 plus sales tax entry fee for the public. - parking was across the street in a garage at $8. I saw a David Lawrence statement that they were disappointed in the public turn-out but no other details. Anyone else have first or second-hand knowledge of this show?
There are several (brutal) show reports over on the PCGS board. To the promoter's credit, they are asking people to email them with their impressions...
There is a youtuber that parked across the street for $30. He did some trading/buying and seemed happy with the show. Show portion begins at 8:56 or so:
There was an interesting discussion ATS. Maths The money raised from admission fees keeps table fees down. If you had 2,000 people attending, that's $30,000 that doesn't have to come from 500 tables or $60 each. Which really doesn't seem a good trade off vs. table fees ranging from $300 for a single 6' table in Timbuktoo to over $2500 for a corner combo in the nice section.
Or math it another way. If you want to save the 350 dealers $50 each, you have to have almost 1200 people show up. A dealer easily makes that much on one sale of a mid-priced coin, but that buyer doesn't show up because of the steep entry fee.
I went and enjoyed it. But I figure this will be the first and last one. The public attendance was poor. A lot of the national dealers with whom I do business were there. It's always better to buy coins in person than over the Internet. I also got to avoid the auctions, which I have come to dislike. It cost too much to get into this show, especially since it cost $15 a day to park, and $20 on Friday. That cut down on the attendance.
Fifteen dollars to walk through the door? Don't hang from anything important waiting on me to pay it. Eight dollars parking? One of many reasons I walked away from driving cars 30 years ago.
Last year I was handed a pamphlet advertising subject show to dealers, and I considered it for about 5 seconds. That's when it dawned on me that this show, intended to be annual although it may never make it there, is held on the gulf coast of Florida smack dab in the middle of hurricane season. Five seconds is all it took to say no thanks.
I never go to shows where there is an entrance fee. You want me to pay for the privilege of going to buy things? Why would I do that, when there are so many good dealers, free shows.... and the internet.
Most of the better shows have entrance fees (ANA, Central States, etc). It is a bit annoying but for the amount of dealers there, the $10-$15 often is worth it even if you just buy or sell one coin. The smaller free shows that I have been to were inferior in terms of selection of coins to buy and ability to sell to dealers. Now if someone has a focus on bullion or the more widely available items (common date Morgans, Walkers, Buffalo Nickels, etc), then I would agree that the entrance fee is usually not worth it.
This was a good report from the PCGS forum: https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1107214/abbys-gacc-september-2024-show-report
The show they have in Denver only charges $10 to get in the door, parking is free on Saturdays ($5 if you show up on Thursday or Friday), but ANACS gives two free grading submissions, which I figure more than makes it worth it even if I don't end up actually buying anything. (Still have to pay shipping and insurance to have the coins sent back to you, but you don't have to pay the grading fees or pay anything to ship it to them since you're just handing the coins to them.) Honestly the biggest draw for me is to be able to talk about coins with people face to face, something I don't get to do often. And it's nice to see a bigger selection of things to look at other than what the local coin store has. A show where the entrance fee + parking makes it more expensive to walk in the door than to go see a movie I'd probably pass on.
Yes, that's one of the reports I was referencing. It's interesting to read about a new, specialty dealer, and that she sold 22 coins over the four days for a little over $10K. That may not include the two she sold pre-show where "the profit paid for table fees and half the plane ticket". The dealer application is still online, and although the high-priced sections are listed as "Sold Out", the Second Section tables were Straight (probably 8') $1,075, Corner $1,575, and Combo $2,550 while in the annex it was 6' $300, 8' $425, and corner $750. Quoting from "FUN": single table $900, corner $1,500. The budget section (maximum coin price of $1,000) is $550 and $900.
