Pictureless Show Report -- Grand Junction, Colorado!!!

DRUNNER · October 22, 2023 8:09AM

Yes, from the land of Hal Borland's "When the Legends Die" comes a report written with typical 'elan and self-perceived humor, heavy on information, but traditionally light on pictures or descriptions of exterior hall balustrades and Roman columns decorated with shoddy show banners.

Specifics. The show was a 2-dayer (is that even remotely grammatically correct???) but my attendance was Saturday only. Size was a bit on the small end, with perhaps 30 tables spread amongst approximately 24 dealers and their cronies/table help/wives/overweight security back-up/snack delivery adjutants. Location was the Clarion Inn off the Horizon exit of I-70, and the show rate for staying was highly competitive. The arena for this numismatic rodeo was comfy but unfortunately rather dimly lit (like some of my 12th-grade English students). Food options are close and typical, but the penchant for 'roundabouts' and the spinning disorientation you get from travelling Horizon Avenue would give nausea to even the most seasoned AF Academy pilot trainee from C-Springs. Bill Arnold (the consummate gentleman) from ANACS was supporting the show and accepting submissions, and the Western Slope Coin Club was positively perfect in hosting. It was a genuinely fun experience, and they even had a table of snacks and coffee right up front in the prime real estate always gobbled up by the promoters here in Utah at our local shows.

The 'market', according to my eclectic taste and a rather small sample size . . .

As you might expect due to the overall locale, ANACS and Dan Carr ruled the day. If you were into ANACS slabs, you experienced sensory overload once you hit the show doors . . . or perhaps the parking lot . . . or maybe even that "Welcome to Colorado" sign as you crossed the border! Couple that with Carr's apparent dynamic hold on the numismatic interests in the area, and you ended up with people giving thousand-yard stares when you asked for any PCGS or NGC coins in the backstock. "PC what?" "Oh, yeah! I have a PC at home in the basement! You wanna see some of these ANACS slabs I got back here under the pallet of other ANACS slabs?" There was exactly one Rattler (1904-O Morgie in MS63 available for the paltry sum of $175) on the entire floor, a total zero sum of NGC fatties, a few OGH PCGS, and a veritable plethora of self-slabs. If you were into plastic, this was not exactly nirvana (unless we consider the aforementioned ANACS). Nothing at ALL against ANACS! There were many, many very fine and varied types of accurately and efficiently graded ANACS coins . . . I just noticed how different the volume was as we got a bit geographically closer to the stomping ground of that service.

Traffic was expectedly slow, and the club members and their connections carried the day as to most of the attendees. There were a few drifters from the puiblic who came in, but it was a bit slow. Apparently, the main club event is a spring show, which is much more highly attended and substantially larger. This event was just added for the fall.

Two (mainly) bullion dealers were there, but I did not see a lot of action on silver. Two guys were barking requests for gold, both numismatic and generic, and that was a huge amount considering the size of the show. Dealers had Ziplock bags of 90% running at around 18-19x but there wasn't action. Again, that might be due to overall lack of show velocity and traffic. I noticed a bit more 'raw' selection than normal, but well-organized and fun to sift through. Not a lot of high-end coins (I REALLY wanted that 96-S Barber Q but a guy who wasn't selling that much just refused to come down at all over the outrageous price -- even a token $10 would have cemented the purchase, but my pride would not allow the purchase). I had a 'feel' of sales tightness and market slow-down, but again, the sample size here was small.

I took a PCGS box of Type and keys in collector grade and got positively blitzed. Selling was not a problem at all, especially if you had competitively priced stuff and were 'fresh-meat'. I think the area is coin-starved a bit.

Overall . . . just a delightful experience, but typical for a small show, run by dedicated and seasoned numismatists. No . . . Denver it was not. But Grand Junction was a mini-window into the backwater world of that vast majority of US coinaholics who don't normally shop only at Legend and Angel Dees. They are the meat-and-potatoes of what keeps the hobby alive.

No. I came up bereft of parking-lot finds, although I did look every time I went out to the truck cooler for a Diet Rockstar.

Drunner

golden · October 22, 2023 8:33AM

Thanks so much for your report.

Walkerguy21D · October 22, 2023 10:04AM

Quite a write up!
Thanks for taking the time to post and share your experience.

ms71 · October 22, 2023 10:10AM

Just an outstanding show report; all germane to the hobby.

dcarr · October 22, 2023 4:02PM

Was the parking lot paved or dirt ?

The joke here along the Front Range is that all the coin shows in Colorado have dirt parking lots (mostly because there is a tendency to conduct them at county fairgrounds).

messydesk · October 22, 2023 5:13PM

Not even a picture of a bottle of whatever you were drinking?

Nice report, nevertheless. I would think the abundance of ANACS slabs has more to do with the types of dealers that set up at smaller, local shows than it does location. Grading is a necessary evil, keep costs down, do more retail than dealer-to-dealer business.