Is the demand starting to cool ?
WaterSport
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So I went to Baltimore show on Thursday and I must say after arriving at 12:15 after the show just opened - we just walked right in. I was not at any point feeling crowded like at other shows in the past despite expecting standing room only. In fact, given that there were only 2 forum reports on the show so far, I have to wonder if the pent-up demand is waning since shows are now back on routine schedules. I am anguish to hear dealer show reports and see what Charmy has to say. And no, I did not find a thing but my buddy did pick up 2 $10 gold pieces which he readily found both dealers willing to barter. Another change from earlier messages when dealers were not suppose to be budging on prices. Did anyone else attend? Your opinion please.
WS
Comments
One of the forum threads has many people reporting not being just outbid, but blown out of the water:
Anyone chasing coins in this weeks Stack’s auctions?
I'm not sure that is answering the question he was asking.
A couple of coins I was watching in the stacks sale, just went to the moon.
also, one i am watching in the fairmont collection is getting beyond reach as we speak.
On a smaller scale, prices realized on my ebay auctions are still quite strong for morgans, gsa;s, 70 eagles, shipwreck crap, etc Havent had any gold lately, but last week it was fierce.
Let's try this again. So from what I witnessed at Baltimore is - the big crowds, no deals to be had days may be in the rear view mirror but this is just my impression. I am looking to see if anyone else feels the same or its just my imagination. I am not saying strong demand is over - heck I was blown out on a recent GC bid. But Baltimore for me was NOT what I was expecting it to be based on post concerning big crowds at other shows.
WS
Interpretation: demand is super strong, except for perhaps horticultural medals
Lol. True
But he was mostly talking about show attendance.
Personally, I thought the Stacks prices were mostly in line with recent trends. A few surprises in both directions.
My interpretation is that in-person shows are not as important after the coin market survived Covid. Many more people are comfortable purchasing sight unseen now.
I’ve even started to do virtual attendance show reports!
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1069710/my-armchair-fun-show-report#latest
I don’t think show attendance is as important as it once was (I still love shows). There are tons of new collectors who have never been to a show and don’t know (or care, probably) what they’re missing.
The last couple of regional shows I have attended did not have any PCGS CAC coins at all. I have been buying everything on line in auctions or by purchasing almost instantly after a dealer sends out an email with new items. If you hesitate more than a few minutes anything good is gone. I will attend central states in April with the hope of finding some items on the floor for my Dansco and auction previews. But there really is not much of a need to attend shows anymore for more than an hour or two.
I can't say anything as to Baltimore and what it is or was like before covid. All the shows that I have gone to have been very well attended by the public except for the Broken Arrow, Oklahoma show a few weeks ago, which at this point I think was an anomaly. I was set up at a show in Ames, Iowa back in February and it was packed as was the February show in St.Louis. The first Sunday of the month Show in Kansas City has been very crowded for the last several months including just this past Sunday
I was at Baltimore at about the same time as you, WaterSport, and my impressions were that it was busy and even crowded at many tables. To be fair, I haven't been to a big show in three or four years so maybe my altimeter was a bit off. It is also true that I signed up and walked right in, not long after you did.
I do think the amount of dealer-to-collector transactions at coin shows continues to recede and is almost beside the point for many.
"Look up, old boy, and see what you get." -William Bonney.
Could it be that the dealers don't want to sell to the general pubic seeing what auctions are bringing in? I know several dealers that will not budge on there prices and if it doesn't sell they just put it in an auction. Note: These dealers are not poor, they can afford to wait and hope to get the moon money in an auction.
Mike
My Indians
Danco Set
I'm in a similar boat. I find so many more quallity coins through different avenues other than shows. Most of the dealers at shows I would attend have websites or pricelists, so I've already had a chance at a lot of things they'd bring to a show.
IG: DeCourcyCoinsEbay: neilrobertson
"Numismatic categorizations, if left unconstrained, will increase spontaneously over time." -me
Is it truly "purchasing sight unseen" when the seller provides high quality pics? I remember the pre-internet, pre-third-party grading days when dealer price lists only had a verbal description and their grade of raw coins they were selling. I wasted a lot of money on insured postage returning coins that were misrepresented.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
No
Dealers prefer to sell directly.
The issue, alluded to above, is access to eyeballs. Even a big show only has a tiny fraction of market participants in attendance. Auctions can get more eyeballs but you pay for those eyeballs.
Reading show reports here over the last few months, they have been extremely well attended and sales reported to be booming. This is the first I have seen indicating the contrary. I would be surprised if it continues. Direct, person to person sales have usually been favored by dealers due to reduced costs (although table fees are incurred). Cheers, RickO
Those are my thoughts exactly and why I decided to make a major change to my business model. Ironically one of my customers from Baltimore must not have been able to find anything at the show so he bought a pretty nice coin from me the evening he returned from the show.
I hope this trend continues. I can sell a lot of coins on ebay for the $2,000.00 + it costs me to do the Baltimore show. I was also tired of the nerve racking 22 hours of driving required to do the show! Now if I decide to go as a buyer I can just jump on a plane for way less than the cost to drive!
I plan to attend the Michigan State Numismatic Society show tomorrow. I haven't been to this show since before Covid hit. The show is usually very well attended so it will be interesting to see how things go. The local show I attended in February was packed so I will be surprised if the MSNS show is any different.
I concur. I'm not sure anyone who hasn't set up at a show realizes the overhead.
It's one of the things that drives me nuts when people complain about those "high" eBay fees. High compared to what? Cheaper than opening a B&M. Cheaper than going to shows. Cheaper than consigning to auction. The only thing cheaper is to have your own website which will cost you a lot of time and effort to duplicate the eBay eyeballs - and it will still cost you around 5% in overhead.
The local and regional shows around here, have been well attended, based on what the customers that come in here have said. I have not personally attended any in the past two months, so i cant 100% confirm that.
I dont think they bought much, said prices were strong, but again, most of my customers are cheap so again, hard to guage
I got to the show at the Baltimore Convention Center around 12:30 on Thursday... no line to get in, but I had to wait at the tables for coins I was interested in. It wasn't 3 to 4 deep like pre-pandemic shows, but my impression was that it was well attended... at least for the first day. I'm told Saturday was sort of a bust with vendors already packing up... Sundays are typically slow for this show, in my experience.
As far as getting deals, I think they were there to be had, but it depends on your interests. I was solely focused on getting an 18th C copper type piece, so the offerings were already going to be slim... and prices strong.
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Well I was going to miss it but I'll go to a local show this weekend and see what the crowd looks like. I have skipped the last couple as pickings were slim and prices have been high but for a couple of bucks entrance fee it is an hour well spent. And I need a few coin supplies anyway!
K
Reading several well known dealer reports, they report their strong buying activity and difficulty in finding quality. State that market is very strong. Seem robust to me.
"Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
Yes, based on the long-established use of the expression. If you haven't seen/viewed the actual coin in hand before buying it, you're "purchasing sight unseen".
That doesn't mean that you don't have a much better idea what it looks like than you would without seeing images, but it's still sight-unseen.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
It's not only the number of eyeballs, it's who they belong to. If you consign to auction, you don't know whose eyeballs they are while if you sell directly, you do. And when you do, you have the opportunity to sell other coins to the buyer (now or later) and even perhaps repurchase (and resell) those coins when that buyer changes his focus and wants to sell his collection.
I am consistently getting outbid.
I am also selling quite a bit of inventory, and thinking that I may have to raise my prices
Agree. Photos are still far from holding a coin in hand.
The fact that people don’t grade from photos is all that is needed to support this.
Like the rest of the world, we're learning that money spent for in-person gatherings wasn't always worth what we were paying. Shows will continue, but there will be changes over time.
Am I the only one who sees more in a great photo than looking at a coin in-hand?
I way prefer a great photo over in-hand viewing
I’m still trying to figure out how to rotate your photos!
I think in hand is very important for toners, proofs and luster bombs.
Maybe not as necessary for errors!
Any editing program will do that.
I use full version Photoshop because it is the best of the best for image processing.
What I meant was tilting so I can see the edge and the light bounce off the surfaces in different angles. Can Photoshop do that?
NuTilt and CoinsInMotion are trying to do the computerized coin rotation it still has a long way to go in my opinion.
@ErrorsOnCoins If you do something like this, that would be pretty cool:
oh, I misunderstood.
Well that ain't gunna happen. The rotating coins view are really cool. But .....
I already spend way too much time processing photos and have zero desire to learn new software.
I stand by my images.
Perhaps if we knew the photos were indeed “great photos” and lighting was standardized and use of ‘unsharp mask’ or other photoshop tools was limited so we might be assured that hairlines and a cleaning haven’t been concealed.
I’m all for great photos- having spent most of my life as a professional photographer, but many sellers go way overboard to make their coins look better than they really are.
Happy, humble, honored and proud recipient of the “You Suck” award 10/22/2014
The day that PCGS grades coins from photos is the day looking at photos will be sight seen
If you are a professional photographer, then you should be able to decipher the images sellers put out.
So all coin buyers need to be professional photographers now too?
What a great hobby! Oh, the things you'll learn
And many sellers are not professional photographers to begin with (or don't hire them). You can do all you want with technology, but images on a computer screen will never be assured of being comparable to seeing a coin in hand.
For sure professional photographers have a huge advantage in the coin market.
In both buying and selling.
And indeed I can, and do.
I like Heritage photos, and can read a lot into their photos. GC too. Just straight HONEST pics is all I ask for.
Many sellers online have obviously juiced photos, some consistency have their stuff way too warm, others oversharpened. It’s all over the map on there and I can see through that fluff.
Graded coins in the slab, with a slab shot are helpful as the label is some guidance and standard.
It’s sellers on the Bay with raw coins I have the problem with.
Hairlines are easily concealed on raw coin images and when shopping for raw coins, I’ll take a handheld observation any day over a photo from an unknown source.
And that’s where coin shops and shows shine.
That said, I do appreciate online purchases with good photography for certified coins and have enjoyed that experience too. And, if buying errors, a trustworthy photographer such as @ErrorsOnCoins can be reliable. Now, if we can extend your consistency and skills to other vendors- then I’d be thrilled.
Happy, humble, honored and proud recipient of the “You Suck” award 10/22/2014
You can see it in the auction link above. The True View looks completely different than the Stack's photo. Which one do I believe? And often, the slab photo looks completely different than the coin only photo at Stack's. Now, the differences are fairly consistent, in my experience, but that means either viewing coins in hand to compare or buying enough of their stuff to know what it will look like in-hand.
This is a HUGE issue for toners, for example, where the hues can look much darker or much lighter depending on how much light you flood the coin with. It's also a huge issue for cameo and deep cameo coins.
Apologies to EOC, but there is no way that "great photos" replace having it in hand. Heck, sometimes a coin looks very different under my home lighting relative to the show lighting. I sometimes feel like I need to carry around a lamp when I go to a show or coin show.
Well when viewing a great photo, on a large computer screen, and the ability to zoom in, you will see things that you will NEVER see in-hand.
I absolutely stand by my statement.
I'm sure you do.
And I'll even assume that your photos are 100% representative of what your coins look like in hand.
BUT, when looking at a photo taken by someone else of a coin you've never held in hand, you cannot possibly know with certainty what it looks like in your hand.
And that is where the arbitrage big dollars are made
Demand for what? Coins? or Attendance at Coin Shows? Where is everyone, sick in bed with Covid?
Coins are especially tough to photograph even with a fairly deep set of skills.
Back in the day when I photographed weddings, you had to be top notch as an editor (or pay someone).
The computer, software, and storage needed was not cheap.
All the other hats you had to wear are comparable to being a coin dealer (ie... run a business)
Currently dealing with the overwhelming volume of liquidating my baseball card collection.
After, three decades, I figure the needle moved on this market and there will be a cliff for common date stuff.
Just don't have the time to devote myself to numismatics outside of looking for cherrypicks and crackout candidates.
Staying liquid and looking.
Anytime I try to mix a hobby with making money it tends to sap the joy very quickly.
See the above... photography and sports cards.
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Get a good loupe. Problem solved.
Image magnification on a high end photo is way better than with a lupe and with zero eye strain and carpal tunnel that is associated with a lupe.
Is the performance of any one show representative of the general market?
Anecdotal? Yes. Maybe an outlier maybe not?
As someone who exclusively buys "in the blind" (auctions only) I'm still having great difficulty obtaining DE's that I want at prices that my budget will allow.
Until I see myself with no money (Thus, bought too many coins online) the market is too hot for my liking.
Often wrong... never in doubt.