Gerry Fortin retiring in early 2026 - he announced it in his blog today
ms71
Posts: 1,595 ✭✭✭✭✭
The business will continue under new ownership. Link below to see his today blog. I sure will miss his daily numismatic ramblings.
Successful BST transactions: EagleEye, Christos, Proofmorgan,
Coinlearner, Ahrensdad, Nolawyer, RG, coinlieutenant, Yorkshireman, lordmarcovan, Soldi, masscrew, JimTyler, Relaxn, jclovescoins, justindan, doubleeagle07
Now listen boy, I'm tryin' to teach you sumthin' . . . . that ain't an optical illusion, it only looks like an optical illusion.
My mind reader refuses to charge me. . . . . . .
Coinlearner, Ahrensdad, Nolawyer, RG, coinlieutenant, Yorkshireman, lordmarcovan, Soldi, masscrew, JimTyler, Relaxn, jclovescoins, justindan, doubleeagle07
Now listen boy, I'm tryin' to teach you sumthin' . . . . that ain't an optical illusion, it only looks like an optical illusion.
My mind reader refuses to charge me. . . . . . .
7
Comments
Interesting. I wonder who the new owners are. Guess we'll find out tomorrow.
Solid first class dealer, very fair and knowledgeable, great inventory… he’ll be missed in my opinion.
I stopped reading his blog a few years ago due to increasingly political commentary, unsure if that is still the case but there’s too much of that everywhere else.
Yes, Gerry will be missed. Today's blog indicates that he intends to be at the usual shows for awhile beyond the business ownership change. But eventually that will end. I tend to be a bit of a lone wolf in the numismatic world, but Gerry is one of the few dealers I think of as a friend. He was always willing to chat at shows (when not busy taking care of business).
"Funny" story: One time, I showed up at a show and found another acquaintance who told me that Gerry had a coin for me. Gerry had a coin newly on consignment, but he wanted to offer it to me first, knowing I'm collecting half dime varieties. The coin is really nice, the finest known of its variety. He quoted me the price simply as a two-digit number, leading to a mis-understanding. I walked away thinking that many hundreds would be way too much for a common variety of the date. But I checked sales records for the variety, and concluded it would be a good price, actually a little low. So I went back and started writing the check, when Gerry re-quoted the price, this time including the zeroes, all three of them. I did not follow through. Pricing finest known examples of rare varieties that don't sell often is difficult. Apparently, the consignor paid a lot more than sales records I had found would suggest. In the years since then, I've come to see that five digits might be reasonable. But I ended up buying a different one that's two grades lower (but still maybe third finest known) for more than that voided check. Anyway, Gerry and I had a good laugh at the time.
Looking at my purchase records, it looks like I obtained 8% of my half dimes (67 of 842) from Gerry over the past decade. I hope the business continues to be a source of quality coins, and I wish Gerry well in retirement.
Here's my coin from the story above. 1858 V-10 PCGS MS63 CAC.
Collector of Liberty Seated Half Dimes, including die pairs and die states
Enjoy it, we worked for it 💪
Great variety and story @epc
I would need to stay in the kiddie pool on that one Inverted Date.
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Proud follower of Christ!
I saw Gerry at the WFoM a couple months back, but did not interact since his table always seem to be crowded when I was in the area.
One purchase i recall from Gerry was a 1877-S over Horizontal S 25C PCGS AU58 CAC
...but i sold it. 😞
BST transactions: dbldie55, jayPem, 78saen, UltraHighRelief, nibanny, liefgold, FallGuy, lkeigwin, mbogoman, Sandman70gt, keets, joeykoins, ianrussell (@GC), EagleEye, ThePennyLady, GRANDAM, Ilikecolor, Gluggo, okiedude, Voyageur, LJenkins11, fastfreddie, ms70, pursuitofliberty, ZoidMeister,Coin Finder, GotTheBug, edwardjulio, Coinnmore, Nickpatton, Namvet69,...
V-10 is the RPD/MPD - with the date originally punched in the proper orientation, but way too high. The variety with the original date inverted is the V-9. Another difference is that the V-9 has the corrected date offset horizontally from the inverted digits, so that the inverted remnants appear between the corrected digits. For the V-10, there's little horizontal offset, so the corrected digits overlap the original digits. The V-10 is notably harder to find than the V-9.
Here's a V-9 obverse for comparison.
Collector of Liberty Seated Half Dimes, including die pairs and die states
Will definitely be missed... I got a few pieces from Gerry for my 7070. This one completed my Seated Liberty issues...
Successful BST transactions with: SilverEagles92; Ahrensdad; Smitty; GregHansen; Lablade; Mercury10c; copperflopper; whatsup; KISHU1; scrapman1077, crispy, canadanz, smallchange, robkool, Mission16, ranshdow, ibzman350, Fallguy, Collectorcoins, SurfinxHI, jwitten, Walkerguy21D, dsessom.
I look at his site every day. I just have not found very much to purchase.
I wish him luck in his future. I've purchased from him, sold to him and sold with him and have always been pleased. He was unquestionably one of my favorite dealers.
The only GFRC still in the collection today...
Good luck and best wishes to Gerry moving forward and entering a new stage in life. I’ve purchased a handful of very nice coins from Gerry over the years but the one thing I won’t miss are his outdoor photos.
Gerry has played a major role in my collecting and selling the past few years. He's been a terrific dealer to work with in selling and obtaining coins. I'm also a lone wolf, not attending shows or interacting with other collectors for 30 years. eBay drew me back into collecting 20 years ago and became my marketplace for obtaining raw coins and the occasional slabbed coin. However, without feedback from other collectors for many years, I didn't know how my initial consignment (and the first coins I ever sold) would be regarded by a top numismatist like Gerry. I was relieved and delighted by his descriptions and my coins sold for a solid price very quickly. He also took time to look at my 74-S WB-4 (R8) at a FUN show and offered encouraging words regarding its chances to straight grade, which it did.
I've also purchased 8 coins from GFRC, and they have been significant additions to my collection to say the least. He was always helpful if I had questions about a coin. For me he offered an interesting range of neat quality coins to purchase. The two seated halves below illustrate that well.
PCGS Fair-2 CAC 1873 NA Open 3 - plate coin for the grade "AG" in QDBowers, "A Guide Book of Liberty Seated Silver Coins" and a nice opportunity to acquire the second rarest SLH for an affordable price. This is THE most worn 73NAO3 that has been awarded a CAC green sticker.
NGC MS64 1877-S WB-6 "Weird F" (R7) - this is the "top pop" example of this rare DM by two grades. It was purchased by deducting the price from the balance of my coin sales. All I had to say is, "Yes, I want it" and it was delivered to my front door in three days.
(Photo by GFRC) - some criticize his 'in-hand' photos, but for this "weirdly" toned coin, he absolutely nailed the look in-hand, and his written description of its obverse toning change under direct light was very accurate.
I wish him well as he winds down and transfers his business to others so he can have time for family and personal interests.
.
Do you still have the Bowers plate coin in your set? I hope so.
I have several plate coins from the Fortin dime books. The thing that got me interested in matching coins with publications occurred many years ago.
I had purchased an 1824 bust Half that had a few specific die variations plus some die cracks and a cud in a specific spot. You would have to take a time ship back to the 1970's when Coin prices were looked up in monthly magazines; but a friend noticed my coin was an exact match for the coin that headed the Bust Half section in Coin Value Mag.
I realize now that there were probably several coins with those features but back then those were heady days. james
CAC people.
Darrell and Matt are good people...the legacy is in good hands
Jon, thanks for the kind words. We hope to carry on Gerry's legacy and be a trusted resource to serious seated and bust collectors, as well as other series that Darrell and I enjoy.
Matt
Oh yes. I really like the 73NA O3. It was fun to discover later that my coin was in QDB's Seated coins book.
Early in my die marriage collecting, I started having my collection slabbed and decided to have these mostly R3 coins attributed. I thought the attributions would help when it came time to sell the coins. It turned out that so few R3 coins are attributed that many of my coins, even a G6 that one can barely attribute (below), became the plate coins for these die marriages, which was cool. However, paying $20 or more for an attribution where I would do all the work for them, and doing that for over 100 coins would be a large expenditure when I could simply add my own sticker to the holder.