Show Report - Denver Coin Expo, October 11-13, Day 3 now posted

claychaser

Day 1, Thursday, October 11:

This time, I decided not to pay the $50 for an early bird pass and skip Wednesday and early entry Thursday. One of the benefits of that move is that I waited until a little later to drive down to Denver, thus avoiding the rush hour traffic and arriving in record time before the 10:00 public open. Arriving this early got me a great parking spot - and for those of you that have attended events at the National Western Complex venue - that's a good thing. Parking can be very difficult when the venue has multiple events going on.

The new show owners did everything the could to create a fast and friendly show admission, and even allowed me to use the restroom that's in the back of the bourse before the show opened. I do believe that they are doing everything they can to make the show better after the old owners lost several good dealers over the years.

I had a pre-arranged buy with Ken Byrd, so I went to his table and bought a nice deal of raw Lincoln Cents for my new retail operation. For that, I decided to put 2500-3000 coins in flips priced from 50 cents to $4.00, and all priced at Greysheet levels with quantity discounts. These go to area low-overhead shows for retail-wholesale sales as part of my concept experiment of a "category killer" concept. So far I have about 1900 coins, and tried the concept at 2 local shows with promising results. Ken had many of the dates that I was light on inventory, and we made a quick deal. I also bought a batch of lower priced early Buffalos, and some other coins at some very good prices.

After a quick lunch on the venue café, I sold most of the graded and raw "Ring of Fire" hoard 09-VDB's and had to stop selling to hold back a few coins for my show stock.

I then had a 2-coin freebie at another grading service from the show postcard, so I dropped off a beat up 09-SVDB that I was not sure of and a pretty wholesome 1893-S half dollar. Free grading and free delivery for "show-to-show" pick up at the Albuquerque coins show. Can't beat that price!

The I bought two decent sized deals of some modern commem dollars that I have a pre-arranged flip for at 20% back of bid from the very nice people at Hallenbecks, , and another deal of some modern mint sets at 10% back as they were announcing the show closing.

Waiting that long did yield a quick drive through Denver and a fast trip home.

More in the second post on Saturday.

claychaser

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zippcity

sounds like your plan is working well , good luck with the rest of the show.

joebb21

why hold back inventory if somebody wants to buy it?

Treashunt

sounds like a good show

ricko

Seems like you are doing well so far... Look forward to the next installment... Cheers, RickO

1630Boston

Thanks so much for the report, I'm glad you could avoid the rush hour traffic and congrats on you purchases

CaptHenway

Careful driving home. There is a storm front moving down from Wyoming. Supposed to hit Denver around 6 PM tonight.

claychaser

Day 3:

Well, no Day 2 (Friday) for me. I had several chores to do around the house to prepare for an early hard freeze and snow this weekend.

Day 3, Saturday, was a delightful fall day here in northern Colorado. Driving down to Denver featured snow covered mountains in the west and a bright sunrise to the east. Almost too nice a day for a coin show, and I think that held down attendance a little. I got to the venue around 9:30 and secured a decent parking spot. The public open was at 10:00, and there were about 30 or so waiting for the open.

I bought 2 14-D Lincolns from Chick McCormick, and took them over to the other grading service for a free 2-coin submit. These are real, but with my experiment, I want to display only certified 09-S-VDB's, 14-D's, 22 Plains and 55 doubled dies. I also bought a nice crusty AU Barber dime and some other coins.

I then went through the wholesale boxes at Royalty Coins out of San Antonio, and bought several < $100 raw coins. And then this one caught my eye, and I bought it. This is out of the McClure collection that Heritage sold a few years ago:

It seemed to be a light public turnout, but most dealers report that the traffic was about average for the Saturday last day.

I left at 1:45 to pick my wife up from DIA as she was returning home today.

TJM965

Nice report. Thanks.