I am just curious how the full time dealers on the board here got their start in the business. I am pretty impressed with people who are able to do what they love on a full time basis. I am curious as to whether everyone started off on a full time basis, or whether they had another job and had a part time coin business which grew into a full-time endeavor. Any anecdotes that you can share when you were just starting up would be interesting as well! Thanks.
Good question. For myself, my love of coins date back to my teenage years. Buying and selling coins in the collection made me quite the regular at the local coin shop in Los Angeles. After a stint in the Navy I took a part time job in that same shop. Mostly cataloging coins and putting them in flips. After a few years of learning coins and a few years of college studying history and numismatics I made the leap to a full time employee. Most of my time was spent traveling from show to show. After 11 years with that company I bought the outfit and moved to the east coast. The rest is history. I can honestly state that I have never worked a day in my life. This career has allowed me to meet many wonderful people and make a few good friends along the way. I have seen 49 of the states during my years, and have bought and sold some very beautiful and rare coins.
I asked a dealer that question and his story was pretty interesting. In the late 70's, the Hunt Brothers from Texas were trying to corner the silver market. Silver prices were going crazy as the cost per ounce eventually exceeded $50 per ounce. Every weekend, this dealer (before he was one) went to the local Flea Market where a coin dealer had a sign stating, "Will buy pre-1964 silver coins at 25 times face value...then 30 times face value...then so forth. Eventually, he asked the dealer (when his sign advertised "40 times face value" )what he would pay for Barber/Liberty Head type quarters. He told him, if you got them, I give you 45 times the face value. So, he runs home and comes back with a pail full of all these Pre-Washington quarters (common dates in AG to G condition) and the dealer gives him $11.25 for EACH quarter...as long as the date was readiable. The Flea market dealer thought he got a deal and the guy with all of those quarters ends up going home with over $9,000 in cash. Excited by his win fall, he started buying and selling coins and now has a large coin shop in Ft Myers, FL where he has been selling and buying for the last 20 years. Pretty cool story, I thought!
