New Haven coin show -- a review

gyocomgd

I began my last post with a line referring to this terrific local show, and after one sentence segued into a selfish tale of a transaction I made.
Back to the show: It really was terrific. A fine job my board members Alex and Vic promoting; the large hall was packed with tables, parking lot was loaded and many, many people. An upbeat, almost carnival-like atmosphere prevailed. Lots of smiling dealers who, on the whole and as a group, do not have good dental hygeine.
As promised, a bag of goodies for my 7-year-old, who also got to pull the winning ticket for a 1/4 oz. gold coin. The auction also was fun--slimmish pickings but a very nice touch. Great snack bar.
A great day. Can't wait till next month.

michael

ScarsdaleCoin

Reprinted from the other side of the street ............. PS: FYI we will not be there in March since we have the AC showed booked....if you are in NJ, please stop over and say hi! AC convention center

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Today was the third New Haven coin show and this one happened to be the first that I attended. It is a smaller show than I typically attend, but it still had perhaps 35-40 tables of coins. Approximately 25% of the table space was devoted to either foreign pieces or to medals. The US coin selection was mostly raw, though there were two dealers there who had higher priced slabs. Floor traffic was relatively light in the morning but had picked up considerably by the time I left. This is the type of show where you could be in and out within 45 minutes if you had to fly through, or you could stay for a few hours and inspect material closely while talking to the dealers. I stayed for a few hours and conversed.

Ira Meltzer had a table and also had his usual assortment of tougher date, raw coins. This was the first month he has done this show and he seemed to be in good spirits. Scarsdale Coin was also set up, as was Ellsmere Numismatics, and both of those tables had slabbed coins running into the thousands of dollars range. I stopped briefly at Scarsdale Coin and looked at a few attractive three cent silvers, both MS and PF. One dealer sold medals and so-called dollars (SCDs) exclusively and we spoke at length about the SCD market. It has exploded recently and he has had a difficult time keeping anything other than the most common SCDs in his inventory. The common ones are some of the Columbian Exposition pieces and the 1939 World's Fair pieces. His opinion is that he is not in favor of the slabbing of these SCDs as it seems to be driving up the prices dramatically. He has also had a very difficult time buying any tougher SCDs since the sellers of these pieces are ahead of the market considerably in the pricing.

I had with me only a single proof set to sell, something that I had gotten as part of a larger deal and had never disposed of. One dealer was selling modern proof sets and I asked him if he was interested in buying this one. He took out the Greysheet and spent a solid three minutes looking up the bid price and giving me an offer. That might not sound like a lot of time but it is an eternity when one is standing there, waiting. His final offer was a joke, as he pointed out (incorrectly) that bid was $6 for the set (it's really $10.25) and he offered $2. I passed. Another dealer was also selling these sets and he immediately gave me $9 and that was a fair deal.

Oddly, I saw 30+ counterfeit Trade dollars at one table and all the holders were marked clearly as counterfeit. It was obvious that these were modern made, die struck pieces meant to deceive the numismatic market. He told me he thought the source of the pieces was Lebanon. They were all different dates, but they all had the same look. Their look was one of an artificial patina that had been wiped onto the pieces. To a novice I am certain they looked real, to someone experienced they may also have looked real, but the wiped patina was a dead giveaway. He was selling these at $34 each and I did not ask how he was doing.

There was no selection of toned coinage. This market has become intensely competitive in the last few years and it is nearly impossible to pick off nice, raw pieces at the smaller shows. I searched for Barber halves and found the usual assortment of cleaned or otherwise mistreated coins. However, I was also able to find an original 1913-D in VF20 and I bought that piece immediately. Later, I stopped by the table of a dealer who is also an engineer and so we talked science for a bit. I ended up buying a very original and attractive 1826 CBH from him and am quite pleased with it. Here is the 1826 CBH.

Nocerino18

Hello All,

This is Alex, one of the show promoters. I would just like to say thank you for the positive feedback, and I am glad everyone had a good time. I would like to add to some of the highlights of the show.

There were 40 tables occupied by dealers.
250 + People walked through the door.
A coin was sold for $7,700.
Great deals were found on the bid board with a Peace Dollar selling for $4.00

Hopefully the success of the show will continue to grow. The next show is March 13th.


- Alex Nocerino