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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ewomack, post: 3512941, member: 15588&quot;]Interesting thread. I had similar experiences in my own area. Three monthly shows occur with such regularity - I wish my body had such regularity - that, after a year of attendance, I knew exactly what the floor would contain before I walked in. Though the bullion to coin ratio didn&#039;t increase as drastically as it appeared to have at the TX and OK shows described, the overwhelming feel of sameness often felt stultifying.</p><p><br /></p><p>After a few years of visiting these shows, I observed more and more dealers staring into space, looking like they wondered why they kept coming or perhaps pondering the huge mistake they may have made. No one seemed to visit their tables. I sensed more and more dealer ploys to extort my money. I quickly found that staring at something for more than 30 seconds carried the risk of launching a fervent haggling or begging session, often with a dose of irritating pressure sales. &quot;Do you want that?!?! I can take 5 off! How about it?! Do you want it <i>now</i>?!&quot; A fair portion of the dealers seemed outright desperate. Soon, tables began disappearing from shows and the rooms looked slightly emptier with successive visits.</p><p><br /></p><p>At the smaller shows dealer chatter tended to become more audible and phrases such as &quot;no one is buying,&quot; &quot;I can&#039;t believe I waste my time&quot; and &quot;I&#039;m not coming here again&quot; floated in the air. Most of the buyers, at least the ones I observed, seemed more interested in inexpensive recent issues than the big money items. I saw far more people leaving with common modern dollars, quarters, Euros and Silver Eagles than any classic coinage. It&#039;s probably more difficult to make a profit with such smaller ticket items.</p><p><br /></p><p>Dealer personality types also became more predictable and detectable. My least favorite type, thankfully not too prevalent, were the ones that chatted you up like a best friend while you browsed but then blew you off rudely the moment they realized that you weren&#039;t going to buy something immediately. Didn&#039;t they realize that I might be planning to return and they just ruined any chance of my coming back? I never went back to such dealers unless they had something that I wanted <i>passionately</i>. Many of the classic coin dealers had an aloof and almost disdainful, &quot;I know you don&#039;t have enough money for these nice coins so why should I even bother with you&quot; look to them. Most of these dealers didn&#039;t display prices so I rarely dealt with them anyway. That actually worked out fine. Then there was the absent dealer. The dealer who, no matter how long I waited for them to show up, just didn&#039;t appear. If I waited long enough for them, I would then ask them about a particular coin and they often gaped at it like &quot;what is this?!? I had no idea I sold these things!&quot; and they would start talking to other dealers about what they should charge, seemingly oblivious to my increasingly impatient waiting. I wasted a lot of time at these booths. Thankfully, some helpful, friendly and genuinely good dealers also existed, but many others suffered from a horrible lack of basic customer service skills. This certainly can&#039;t help the hobby or attendance at shows, either. People coming from outside the coin market, and accustomed to much friendlier buyer/seller interactions, probably feel brutalized at these shows. Why would they ever return?</p><p><br /></p><p>I, like the original poster, also detected a problem, or problems, with the local shows in my area and I haven&#039;t attended one in well over a year. I even avoided the big annual show, which typically has good attendance, but also suffers heavily from bourse floor deja vu. After going 3 years in a row, I felt like I was attending the same show year after year, with only minor differences. More and more bullion seems to have crept into this show. It&#039;s all a little depressing and it&#039;s resulted in my complete lack of coin buying for almost 6 months now. I still enjoy talking about and studying coins, which is why I keep visiting this forum, but I can no longer imagine putting real money into them.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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