Portland show report....
coinlieutenant
Posts: 9,310 ✭✭✭✭✭
Hello everyone from beautiful cold and rainy Portland!!!!
Just thought that I would drop a line as to how the show is going and a timeline of events.
Got here Wednesday night late (midnight) and crashed pretty hard at my friends place. Got up early, was eager and ready to do my first set up as a "dealer" as I was sharing a table with Rick Kay and JB. Went to look at the Heritage auction first as no one was quite there yet. I might have been a bit overeager but the convention center night shift cleaning staff and I are quite tight now
Heritage auction was very dissappointing. The early draped bust left half eagles were poor and not pleasing to me. Looked thru alot more of the auction in chunks. A few spotlights of brilliance to include a beautiful proof 66 barber half that I almost bid on but thought better of it. I ended up getting the dates mixed up so it would have been moot anyway. All in all though the auction sucked!!!
About 11ish on Thursday met Boiler for the first time in person even though we had talked on the phone quite a bit and have about 500 pm's between us. We ran into Rick K. whom we had both met a few minutes later. Mark introduced me to Lakesamman and then to JB. JB has inspired me to write a great new book title called "Me, My Mullet and I"
Went and had some drinks with Mark while we waited for 3 oclock, h-hour for the bourse to open. Shot the breeze, had some margaritas and looked at some of his coins. WOW!!! The 1879 pattern is a show stopper... Gorgeous.
Set up the table with the guys and generally had a good time. Lots of dealers asked about my early gold but my prices were firm... right Mark Feld? My early gold combined with JB's toners and Rick's gorgeous patterns made for an ecclectic table, especially when I put out my complete cameo frankie set. 
Went out that night to Ruth Chris steakhouse with Mark, Rick and Tim (lakesamman). Had some tremendous steak and some mediocre seafood but the company was superb. We laughed quite a bit and Rick Kay got VERY abnoxious after about his eight.....teenth beer.
I cant say too much but I will add that the evening turned into dawn quickly and you have it on good authority (me) that Rick came to the show today (Friday) in a shower cap. I would hope that Tim will post the pictures to back me up, unless Kay wants to pay to keep them off the net....
Today seemed fairly busy at the show but was generally lackluster as far as the quality of the coins available at both auction and dealer cases, except ours of course. Think that the proximity of this show to Baltimore and Santa Clara next week might have been a bit much to support...
Met lots of forum members. Eric (BigE) and his lovely wife were there. I think that they had a good show and Eric is alot of fun in person and you can tell good hearted. I met Clankeye briefly, although I was so busy talking to kids that were part of a numismatic treasure hunt of sorts that I didnt get to talk to him much. Met cashman and spiky (excuse the spelling) and some others. Pls forgive me if I have left anyone out. Oh yeah, I met Lustig and he doesnt look like his icon.
Went to dinner tonight with Boiler again at Jakes seafood. Very good food!! We survived a crystal meth lab explosion across the street and Mark and I both were hit on repeatedly by the waitress. We informed her that we were both married, which drove her into a rage of sexual frustration that was unmatched in intensity. Chalk one up for the guys!!!!
Overall, the show(read coins) were average to below average, the experience was excellent and the company superb. Mark, Rick, Tim and JB are great fun and great people. JB was doing excellent with toned stuff. Patterns seemed quiet since not alot of fresh stuff was out there and early gold was hard to find and expensive. Excellent material was bringing excellent prices. Average stuff was bring average prices. Still Saturday and Sunday to go. Very tired at the moment but will hit it again tomorrow and Sunday. Hope to meet you all eventually and maybe see you this weekend. Table 917!!
Very respectfully,
John
Just thought that I would drop a line as to how the show is going and a timeline of events.
Got here Wednesday night late (midnight) and crashed pretty hard at my friends place. Got up early, was eager and ready to do my first set up as a "dealer" as I was sharing a table with Rick Kay and JB. Went to look at the Heritage auction first as no one was quite there yet. I might have been a bit overeager but the convention center night shift cleaning staff and I are quite tight now
Heritage auction was very dissappointing. The early draped bust left half eagles were poor and not pleasing to me. Looked thru alot more of the auction in chunks. A few spotlights of brilliance to include a beautiful proof 66 barber half that I almost bid on but thought better of it. I ended up getting the dates mixed up so it would have been moot anyway. All in all though the auction sucked!!!
About 11ish on Thursday met Boiler for the first time in person even though we had talked on the phone quite a bit and have about 500 pm's between us. We ran into Rick K. whom we had both met a few minutes later. Mark introduced me to Lakesamman and then to JB. JB has inspired me to write a great new book title called "Me, My Mullet and I"
Went and had some drinks with Mark while we waited for 3 oclock, h-hour for the bourse to open. Shot the breeze, had some margaritas and looked at some of his coins. WOW!!! The 1879 pattern is a show stopper... Gorgeous.
Set up the table with the guys and generally had a good time. Lots of dealers asked about my early gold but my prices were firm... right Mark Feld?
My early gold combined with JB's toners and Rick's gorgeous patterns made for an ecclectic table, especially when I put out my complete cameo frankie set. Went out that night to Ruth Chris steakhouse with Mark, Rick and Tim (lakesamman). Had some tremendous steak and some mediocre seafood but the company was superb. We laughed quite a bit and Rick Kay got VERY abnoxious after about his eight.....teenth beer.
I cant say too much but I will add that the evening turned into dawn quickly and you have it on good authority (me) that Rick came to the show today (Friday) in a shower cap. I would hope that Tim will post the pictures to back me up, unless Kay wants to pay to keep them off the net....
Today seemed fairly busy at the show but was generally lackluster as far as the quality of the coins available at both auction and dealer cases, except ours of course. Think that the proximity of this show to Baltimore and Santa Clara next week might have been a bit much to support...
Met lots of forum members. Eric (BigE) and his lovely wife were there. I think that they had a good show and Eric is alot of fun in person and you can tell good hearted. I met Clankeye briefly, although I was so busy talking to kids that were part of a numismatic treasure hunt of sorts that I didnt get to talk to him much. Met cashman and spiky (excuse the spelling
) and some others. Pls forgive me if I have left anyone out. Oh yeah, I met Lustig and he doesnt look like his icon. Went to dinner tonight with Boiler again at Jakes seafood. Very good food!! We survived a crystal meth lab explosion across the street and Mark and I both were hit on repeatedly by the waitress. We informed her that we were both married, which drove her into a rage of sexual frustration that was unmatched in intensity. Chalk one up for the guys!!!!
Overall, the show(read coins) were average to below average, the experience was excellent and the company superb. Mark, Rick, Tim and JB are great fun and great people. JB was doing excellent with toned stuff. Patterns seemed quiet since not alot of fresh stuff was out there and early gold was hard to find and expensive. Excellent material was bringing excellent prices. Average stuff was bring average prices. Still Saturday and Sunday to go. Very tired at the moment but will hit it again tomorrow and Sunday. Hope to meet you all eventually and maybe see you this weekend. Table 917!!
Very respectfully,
John
0
Comments
<< <i>JB has inspired me to write a great new book title called "Me, My Mullet and I" >>
maybe I will become famous!
Show is going well, we set up Thursday but covered it to spend the day buying. Spent some money but fresh nice material is difficult to find. Anytime we went back to the tables we were bombarded by dealers looking for coins.
Friday spent the first 2 hours again looking for material but it was still tough to find bargins. Finally unlocked the cases when the public was let loose and we were busy. Most people were looking for "stuff", and passing by the better material. Did buy a nice circulated set of Lincolns from the public along with a few other items. Business was good and less expensive material is selling well while the more expensive is only being looked at by other dealers. Bought a slew of Accented Hair Kennedys, enough to make Russ drewel, along with about 10 - 1960 small date proof sets with cameo coins in each set.
We'll see how the rest of the show goes but we will be focusing our efforts on selling the rest of the show.
J&J Coins
website
Wild Ebay Toners for sale
The big O
<< <i>Geez Louise!! Portland is not that cold! I didn't even wear a jacket today!
I wore a jacket and I was still froze my %@# off! I was born and raised in Oregon, so you would think that the cold and rain wouldn't bother me, but I guess I've just gotten used to living where I currently do. It was 92 degrees at my house a couple weeks ago.
I did see coinlieutenant having a discussion with Mark Feld though. Wonder what that was about?
The show was somewhat of a disappointment, coin wise, but was just great for the experienceof being at a larger show.
Being able to meet the four members mentioned in this thread was a pleasure along with some of the National Dealers that were present also.
Ken
<< <i>you have it on good authority (me) that Rick came to the show today (Friday) in a shower cap. >>
The show was slow, but fun, though I had to return home for kids' games. As for the shower cap scandal, CoinLt brought that on himself.
<< <i>Went out that night to Ruth Chris steakhouse with Mark, Rick and Tim (lakesamman). Had some tremendous steak and some mediocre seafood but the company was superb. We laughed quite a bit and Rick Kay got VERY abnoxious after about his eight.....teenth beer. >>
I never get obnoxious.
<< <i>I would hope that Tim will post the pictures to back me up, unless Kay wants to pay to keep them off the net.... >>
I pay off no one.
Specializing in 1854 and 1855 large FE patterns
<
Have a great story to tell about the #1 most obnoxious buyer ever... Cant tell it now since I am bushed but will share when I get back to Monterey...
Bought a 1803/2 Half Eagle from Pinnacle (so much for my selling trip....
All in all a mediocre show but a good experience.
John
siliconvalleycoins.com
And?
Hey...there's always the Sunday crowd to look forward to...
We had a good, not great show. Sales were ok and thankfully, we were able to do a good bit of buying. I say thankfully, because our inventory had gotten lower than we wanted it to be.
My impression of the Heritage sale was that, as a whole, it was very strong.
Odds were against the show being a particularly active and/or strong one, coming just two weeks after Baltimore and a week before Santa Clara. Additionally, PCGS did not do on site grading there - that limited the available supply of coins for dealers such as ourselves, who do much of our purchasing from others who get their (sometimes fresh) coins back at shows.
Did I miss them?
siliconvalleycoins.com
Link to Showercap