My New Orleans PCGS member show report for October 2019

ElmerFusterpuck · October 27, 2019 1:06PM

Another excuse for a vacation, a coin show plus the city of New Orleans, a great combo! It helps that we have direct flights that get us there in only an hour too. The member shows are a great way to talk about coins in a small venue, with dealers and collectors alike. Plus New Orleans is a fun city to visit; we did a distillery tour, visited a cemetery, checked out the oddballs on Bourbon Street, ate too much good food and I got to shake Bill Clinton's hand on Royal Street, happened to catch him out of the blue. No matter your leanings, that's something that just doesn't happen to the average person every day.

I went there on a mission: submit a few coins for grading, sell a few coins, find a 1955 doubled die that I liked, look for nice toners and find a proof Walker that I liked. As you will see in the pics below, I did succeed in my hunt. I attended part of the first day (Wednesday), and a little bit of the second day. Friday was a rainy soggy day where we spent most of the day in the WW2 museum, a very worthy place to visit. The food at the show was great, as usual!

I did get a chance to talk to a few fellow collectors and dealers, including a nice couple from Tennessee touring the country in their RV - both were coin collectors and planned their route to catch this show.

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My observations at the show - these are strictly my opinions, take for what they are worth:

Attendance seemed light to moderate while I was there, though it was fairly steady. I had no line to submit my coins to PCGS.

The Legend auction items were awesome to look at (I posted quite a bit of it on Instagram), including the toned CC Morgans and the old gold. I was tracking several items, but was pretty much blown out on every one of the coins I was tracking. It's always great to see Julie, Jessica and the others behind the auction table, they are great to talk to and deal with.

I did bring a handful of coins to sell to one of my Instagram pals and to anyone else if he passed. I ended up selling a couple to him, and the other two to a show dealer for decent prices. All were lightly toned MS-64 Morgans in various holders including an 1883-CC. Just trying to thin some of the herd, these were no problem coins.

From what I was seeing, it seemed that standards for DCAM for silver proofs from the 1950s and '60s have slipped. For DCAM, I expect pretty much a black and white cameo contrast between devices and fields, but quite a few I saw had CAM at best, at least compared to some older holders I have. I don't mess with this area much, but I do like looking at these coins.

Prices for nice type, toned coins and CAC gold seemed to be strong. Some of the CAC premiums for common date Saints in 66 or 66+ have me spooked about buying any of them. I guess the payoff for making the CAC approval on your own is worthwhile, if you have the $$$ to do it. OK, now to the coins I got:

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The first coin is something I thought was cool, since I didn't have any old Washington pieces in my collection. This 1783 engrailed edge is graded PF-63 and has a green CAC sticker. From what I was told, there was a very short time when coins from this era were being stickered.

The next coin pictured is this nice 1955 doubled die found in a dealer box search. It's a very lustrous AU-58 with a CAC sticker.

The next one is an almost flawless 1939 proof Walker - this con really jumped out of the case. I guess it jumped for CAC too, since it does have a gold sticker. This coin does have some cameo contrast too, I added an angled picture to show the surfaces.

The last coin is the craziest looking SBA that I've ever seen. I figured it needed another home, this 1979-D piece is graded MS-66.

DRUNNER · October 27, 2019 1:25PM

Beautiful coins . . . . . . .

The SBA is typical long-term Dansco . . . . . . . . so nice.

Drunner

ricko · October 27, 2019 2:07PM

Nice report and great pickups...Thanks for your report....Cheers, RickO

Smudge · October 27, 2019 2:19PM

Great report and coins. Thank you.

sparky64 · October 27, 2019 2:48PM

Great report.
Great coins.
I could go on but I risk not conveying how impressed I am.
Congrats and thanks!

Hemispherical · October 27, 2019 2:53PM

Thanks for your extensive show report @ElmerFusterpuck greatly appreciated and your picks are awesome!

Now, let’s get serious. What was your newp at the cemetery?

Lakesammman · October 27, 2019 3:15PM

Nice report - and NEWPS.

NOLA is a great place to visit - especially in February!

JonBrand83 · October 27, 2019 3:50PM

Thanks for the review. I enjoyed your posts on instagram aswell.

RichieURich · October 27, 2019 3:51PM

You got some nice newps, congratulations! Good report, thank you for posting it!

santinidollar · October 27, 2019 4:50PM

Thanks for the report! I set aside Friday to go but the roads around me got flooded. No damage to the home front, but a little frustrating coin wise.

coinbuf · October 27, 2019 5:13PM

Nice report, the 55/55 looks real nice congrats on the pickups. One question does the 55/55 look that silvery lilac color in hand? The reason I ask is I have a raw 1927 that looks identical in color but I've always wondered if it would grade nt, not really worth the grading fees to find out.

ElmerFusterpuck · October 27, 2019 5:18PM

@coinbuf I'd say that's close to that color. I've seen that color any quite a few brown cents, even on copper pocket change. It should straight grade.