Trade Dollar and Chopmark Summit 2025 & Winter Baltimore Show Report
lermish
Posts: 4,001 ✭✭✭✭✭
After a long delay the Chop Mark Collectors Summit was reconvened at the Baltimore Whitman show. (@Crypto's excellent report from 2017 can be found here -> https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/990180/chop-mark-coin-mini-summit/p1 )
We had a fantastic group of people from these boards and parts elsewhere consisting of @keoj, @ddr, @milkmandan, @chopmarkedtrades, @crypto, and myself. We were also joined by world chopmark collectors Nick Ostroy and Rich Licato and PCGS Registry collectors Black Cat and acacia1995. We also had a brief cameo from @EVillageProwler.
We spent a very fun couple of hours at the show sharing coins and stories. My favorite coin was Black Cat's 76-S 2/2 which was absolutely luminous; what a flashlight!
The good news is we had an amazing time and passed around many amazing coins, both trade dollars and some world coins. The bad news is that we were having such a great time that we neglected to take pictures. In lieu, here is a gorgeous coin and very tough date that @chopmarkedtrades let me take off his hands (after @DDR sold it to him at the prior Chopmark Summit).
After the show we adjourned to Pratt St Ale House where we had spirited discussions touching on all things numismatic. The servers were rolling their eyes at us discussing die varieties at 10:15p.
Overall, Thursday was probably the most enjoyable, entertaining, and satisfying coin day of my life.
Bright and early Friday morning, @keoj and @ddr convinced me to go to my first LSCC meeting where we convened a trade dollar quorum in the back corner. We heard a quite comprehensive talk on shipwreck coins and, from an unscheduled speaker, a dissertation and admonishment regarding USPS mail forwarding options 😂
A personal highlight from the bourse floor was listening to @keoj, Black Cat and @regulated discuss the newly recognized 74-P No Periods specimen/variety/semi-proof.
Outside of the trade dollar and chopmark fanaticism, the show was crushed busy on Thursday (perhaps partially due to the bourse not opening to the general public until noon) and every dealer I spoke with reported having a fantastic selling show with not much quality inventory available to replenish their coffers. Friday morning was moderately busy with the floor clearing out fairly quickly after lunch. I have one other quite big (for me) newp but can't take delivery for several months so I will refrain from showing one until it's in my hands.
(Bourse floor Friday at 3pm)
Only a short 2 months until FUN but I can't wait!
chopmarkedtradedollars.com
Comments
Oh so that's where that 76-P went, I thought I had dropped it - guess I can cancel that police report.
Glad this was able to come together so seamlessly, let it never be said that chopmark guys go for more than eight years without meeting. Plenty of new and returning faces (I believe from our last meet-up in 2017, all except one person was in attendance) and plenty to catch up on, between the publication of new literature - particularly @keoj's authoritative new reference on Trade Dollar varieties - and the coins floating around the room; we counted fully half of the 20 PCGS MS64 Chop Mark Trade Dollars of all dates among the collectors that had circled chairs around a tiny table on the top floor of the Baltimore Convention Center.
Thanks for the report! wish I could have been there but my semi-retirement means working Thurs and Fri! Oh well.
Congrats on your pickup and thanks for the show report!
Thanks for the interesting report and sounds like a great time!
Great report.
I’m curious how many of you came to collect chopmarked coins? Was it through being trade dollar collectors who then veered slightly over or was it a harder turn from some other collecting focus?
Latin American Collection
Thanks for this report @lermish! For me too, this was the highlight of my coin collecting year. The best part was not in seeing some amazing coins (although that was pretty cool) but rather in getting together in person with fellow collectors. Some of the East Coast guys-- @crypto, @ChopmarkedTrades, Rich Licato-- and @MilkmanDan I get to see from time-to-time. But it was the first time meet lermish, BlackCat, @keoj and others in person. Keoj and I have been corresponding for the past 20 years or so and this is the first time we've met face-to-face!
Here is one of my chopmarked Trades I was happy to show off: It was previously owned by two prominent chopmark collectors and is one of the rare, colorful chopmarked Trade Dollars out there:
Complete Set of Chopmarked Trade Dollars
Carson City Silver Dollars Complete 1870-1893http://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/showcase.aspx?sc=2722"
@Boosibri -- that's exactly what it was for me. I started out collecting Trade Dollars after reading QDB's opus Encyclopedias of Silver Dollars, where he pointed out how scarce they were compared to Morgan and Peace Dollars. I figured I had to have at least one chopmarked example. One example led to two and then to three and now to I don't know how many.
I love the history of the coin and the fact that because of the chopmarks, each chopmarked Trade Dollar is unique.
Complete Set of Chopmarked Trade Dollars
Carson City Silver Dollars Complete 1870-1893http://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/showcase.aspx?sc=2722"
I added them to my sets as I was trying to create ‘completeness’. Errors, items such as 4 of the first 5 trade dollars ever struck and chopmarks seemed like natural add ons to my unc and proof sets
Police canceled = no resentment 👍
I bought a chopmarked T$ for type my US type set. Once I finished the type set I realized that I had accumulated a bunch of coins which were nice and interesting but not really moving. The only coins I cared about were the gold coins (which I also still collect) and the chopmarked trade dollar. It got sticky in my brain for all of the same reasons @DDR mentioned..and here I am.
chopmarkedtradedollars.com
@lermish: thanks for the great report! I know nothing about these, but that doesn’t stop me from reading all your T$1 posts. Maybe someday….
“The thrill of the hunt never gets old”
PCGS Registry: Screaming Eagles
Copperindian
Retired sets: Soaring Eagles
Copperindian
Nickelodeon
@kaz @tradedollarnut
Hope to see you guys at the next one
11.5$ Southern Dollars, The little “Big Easy” set
Lovely coins and great report and recap!
Anthony the Coinman
_Keen Collector, Avid Researcher, Occasional Dealer
_
Instagram: @anthonythecoinman
@lermesh ” Only a short 2 months until FUN but I can't wait!”
Hope to see you there.
Hope you see lermish and not "lermesh".
The latter is an imposter.
Are you guys familiar with Hal Salvesen and his collection? Not chopmarks exactly but the Trade Dollars of the World original collector which has some natural overlap
Latin American Collection
Raufus and other buyers at this Baltimore coin show.
For very high dollar purchases, is the process literally 'cash and carry'? You slip the coin(s) into your pocket or hidden money belt under the shirt?
Or is their a protocol dealers have to use? For example, buy the loot and show I.D. , get a receipt, and later drive car to a loading dock where there is security presence and a verification process to pick up the goods??
Just seems that with all the people and eye balls, a Mr. Boris Badinov can be lurking for a hit !
Nice coins showed off. Thanks !!!