Gettysburg Battlefield Show Report

MEJ7070

I live in Northern VA, which gives me the opportunity to attend several coin shows a year from Baltimore to Richmond. A very busy work schedule had me doubting that I’d be able to make it up to Gettysburg on Friday, but 2 or my 3 kids had soccer games yesterday so I knew we wouldn’t be able to make it up there. Decided to rearrange my Friday work schedule and cleared my day up til 3:00 PM, when I’d need to be back in NoVA to run a workout for my HS baseball team. Dropped my daughters off at school and was headed up the road by around 8:00 Friday AM. I planned to get there around 9:30 and have around 2.5/3 hours to hit the bourse floor before I’d need to turn around and head back

A beautiful hour and half drive without a cloud in the sky put me at the Eisenhower hotel, where I was immediately blown away by the amount of vehicles lining the driveway entrance and basically filling up any empty space available beyond the normal parking sports, which were filled.    This was going to be a busy show!


Walking into the show provided immediate confirmation as the floor was packed……not in a bad way, just a lot of traffic that was going to necessitate efficiency from me due to my tight schedule.    I generally don’t like to do coin shows this way.   I like to take my time, chat people up, and familiarize with several different inventories (I collect both US and dark side, so unless your an ancient only dealer you probably have something that will pique my interest.  

First table at the entrance was The Reeded Edge.   Great guys who I’ve bought and sold with a few times over the years.   Say hello to Robbie and immediately notice he’s got a drop dead gorgeous Coronet cent in his case.   Hmmmmmmm, that’s one of the few remaining coins I need for my 7070 registry.    

While Id come to cruise the room and see as many coins as possible in the short amount of time I had, the dream result was finding coins that would fit for my 7070 set.   I’m down to just a few coins needed (always upgrading), and they are almost exclusively EAC.   Since I was so back and forth on whether I was even going to the show or not, I didn’t make it to my bank beforehand as I always do.    I strongly prefer to pay in cash (as long as it’s sensible) at shows, as I find it can help in negotiations, and it also keeps me to a budget and helps keep me disciplined.    A bank trip wouldve cut time out of being able to hang at the show, so I grabbed some recently graded coins not in my set to trade, and little bit of gold out of the safe as well just in case I came across a banger and needed to make a deal work.  

Needed to organize myself and go through my bag to make sure I’d brought the right PCGS boxes (a mistake I’ve unfortunately made more than once before), so I stepped away and walked a couple tables down to Ed Rothe’s table.    Ed was displaying an AWESOME group of PCGS/CAC Seated dollars, all in XF grades.   A very impressive group.   He also had a nice case of entirely raw 20th century US material, including a group of 3 very nicely toned Roosevelt dimes that I happily purchased. 

I think 2/3 have a great chance at FB grades, and since my current 7070 Roosie (bought when I was 15 I think) lacks full bands, one could potentially jump into my set. I could go out and just buy a 67FB right now……but that’s not as fun for me I guess. Also bought a gorgeously toned raw 1910 Lincoln from Ed that will head to PCGS for grading at some point as well.

So now I’ve been there about 20 minutes, purchased a few nice and modestly priced raw coins, and seen one coin I flat out know I want to add to my set. Old me would’ve walked around the bourse for an hour or so before circling back to TRE and the Coronet. 2025 me is sick of being a silver medalist at coin shows. Had to learn that lesson again earlier in the year in Baltimore as Dave Kahn had a Reeded edge half dollar I loved and I missed out on it by hemming and hawing internally for literally 5-10 minutes, which was all it took for it to be snatched up. So I marched straight back to Robbie and asked him to pull the coin for me and price it.

They priced it as any successful coin dealer would have; as a PQ example at the top end of its grade. I was immediately very up front with Robbie that I wanted it but would need to get creative to make a deal work. We sat down for maybe 10 minutes and came up with a great deal for both sides. I traded a quarter ounce gold eagle, some cash, and 3 coins that I’d recently graded after being in my albums for years. They were:

F15

VF20

VF35

In return I took this home with me:

MS64 (CAC)

Thanks again @Shortgapbob!

At that point I had tapped myself out from any more large purchases, and DC area Friday traffic can be a gigantic crapshoot, so I decided not to risk any highway nightmares that would mess with any of my obligations that afternoon. Another gorgeous 2 hour drive got me home with plenty of time to spare.

This was an impressive show with an array of material from all niches of the hobby. Seemed to me there were a lot of folks there looking to sell……probably due to the metals prices. I had a few brief but very pleasant conversations with both dealers and fellow collectors. I just wish I’d had more time! Still a great morning of coins for me, and I walked away with probably my nicest EAC now in my collection.

I’d definitely recommend this show to everyone here. Nice work @MICHAELDIXON.

MICHAELDIXON

Very glad you could make it and found a few coins!

golden

Thanks for your report.