Your favorite dealer of all times?

Who helped you the most. It's cool to post more than one. It can be tough to pick.
Mine was Mark Feld. He was a teacher and a seller. As honest as they get.

 

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I have heard nice things about mark Feld.

For me, there were a number of them.
However, currently Ed Duran a smaller dealer have been great to me.
he does many NE shows, including Albany, Connecticut, and Long Island.

 

Kevin Hodges who back in 1964 got me started the right way. He refused to sell anything to me until I could prove to his satisfaction that I had learned enough about what I wanted to tell him why I wanted THAT large cent instead of THIS one.

Imagine that...a dealer who actually wanted an educated buyer instead of someone who simply wanted to spend money in his store!

 

Andy and Alynne Skrabalak (Angel Dee's)

 

John and Bill. They owed a LCS in Washington State. Great guys. Great deals as well. Now retired, maybe deceased. They sold the business over 25 years ago to a not so friendly guy.

 

Tom Reynolds is one of the most pleasant, honest, and knowledgeable dealers I have ever had the pleasure of interacting with.

 

Jimmy King of Osterville, Mass..

 

Leon Hendrickson, of Silvertowne. He's the kind of guy that would interrupt a huge transaction to chat with a kid and give them a coin. The business and the hobby need more people like Leon.

 

I had a similar dealer. Ben Marlenee in Des Moines. He was a grouchy, tough SOB until you proved to him you actually were interested in learning and applying what you learned. Once you got there, he would go out of his way educating you and teaching you. I feel a lot of the old "grouchy" dealers are the same. They want to deal with real coin collectors, not just people interested in "what is it worth", but rather, "what is it and how can I learn from it?".

 

Kevin Josephson, Infinity Coins, Idaho Falls, Idaho!

 

J T Stanton , very honest and knowledgeable.

 

Bowers and Ruddy / Bowers and Merena. They always cost more than the others but the grades were always right. And Bowers books Coins & Collectors and High Profits from Rare Coins were the two books that got me started with coins. Up until then I was only collecting art bars.

 

Gerry Fortin has been awesome to work with over the last couple years. He will take the time to teach about the coin and has a passion for the hobby. His daily blog has sparked interest in new series and types of coins as I read it. He has a good eye for quality coins and I trust his opinion, which is something that can be hard to find.

 

One of my favorite ancients I got in an old Bowers and Ruddy flip. I just love the extra history that comes with this old firm's name on it.

 

Bob Hockenberry, Hockenberry Enterprises, Hickory, N.C. Always took time to teach new things to me. Always fun with the Saturday auction wall of coins.

 

I don't think I ever knew his name, it was back in the 70's and I was just a teen that wandered into the Winchester Coin Shop in MA to buy an album for my Wheaties (back then I thought I had invented CRH!). He taught be how to care for and properly store coins and why not to clean 'em, explained grading and what to look for, and always reminded me of the history behind every coin. It got to where I'd visit several times a week and he always had something different to show me, often he would give it to me. I still have a small stash of gifts, worn V nickels & Buffalos, a Flying Eagle cent, a Silver 3 Cent, and a 1809 XF details Half Cent that someone had copper plated. I started to buy a lot of Indian cents from him and he would have his binders full of them ready when he saw me. One time I thought I had cherrypicked a 1908-S with a very faint S that he had marked as 08, next time I saw him he asked me how I liked the coin and told me that he had planted it there to see if I would ever notice it. The most sincere mentor/dealer I've ever met. He offered me a job once to take his car and make a pick-up for him somewhere and I would have loved to but I didn't even have a license then! That shop is long since gone and if he's still alive he'd be around 100 by now... ...I miss him.

 

The first mail order coin I ever bought was from Bowers and Ruddy's first company--Empire Coin Co. It was a Standing Liberty quarter that I purchased from their ad in "The Numismatist" back in the early-1960s.

When I finally met Mr. Bowers at a show in 2004 I showed him the coin still with his original label and he asked to buy it simply as a keepsake. I gave it to him.

 

@John Anthony is my favourite!

 

Yeah!