Baltimore Coin Show Report Thursday and Friday... Better Late than Never!

airplanenut

I've been extremely busy recently, so excuse the delay in this report. I hope it's still worth reading.

My trip to Baltimore started on a tiring note. Severe thunderstorms closed the New York airports and delayed the whole coast. My flight left at around 11:00PM, scheduled for 8:05. There were a few good notes about this, though. First, another guy on my flight was very friendly, so I was able to have a nice conversation while waiting. Secondly, Boston got some of the diversions for New York flights, which meant I got to see some airlines that NEVER otherwise fly to Boston, and of course, that makes me very happy Third, when we finally left, we flew for 20 minutes over the most amazing light show I've ever seen. The thunderstorms sure were severe, but were they a sight to see! Anyway, I was delayed another half hour after landing at BWI, and I finally made it to my hotel (aka, my house) at 1:15. I was finally able to get some dinner at 1:30, and I went to bed a bit after 2:00. Of course, weather around the country was also terrible. Anaconda drove 22 hours from Dallas to make it to the show in the middle of Thursday due to cancellations, and quite a few dealers couldn't make the show at all because of flight troubles. Tons of people had stories about weather, and it proved to be a bad few days to fly.

I went to the earlybird to get in on the action early, as well as talk to a few dealers I needed to see. After getting into the show, my first stop was a hello to Julian Liedman, who has absolutely prime table space at the entrance, and then over to John Agre and Dave Wnuck at Coin Rarities. We were able to have a nice chat, as always, and they showed me some of their very cool pieces. One I should have bought, and on Friday went to go take a look at, but had sold. Anyhoo...

I split my time on Thursday talking and looking for coins to buy, but nothing really jumped out at me. Eventually I picked up a nice 1881-S PCGS MS65 dollar, but only because it was in a doily holder. I figured I'd make a few dollars on it, and early Friday, I proved myself correct. But other than that, I looked at some pieces and kept my wallet in my pocket. I hoped better luck Friday.

Thursday night I had been looking forward to for quite a while. After much difficulty, I was able to get Mark Feld's agent to put me on his schedule (actually, I simply sent him an email) to go to the Orioles vs. Yankees game. If you know Mark at all, he finds the coldest conditions the same way you would find the Sahara--a wee bit warm. So, given that Baltimore was feeling around 100F with tons of humidity, he wasn't planning on staying too long. But, we got a breeze where we were sitting, and managed to stay through the bottom of the 7th, when a rain delay convinced us (ok, he was ready to go after the second inning) to go. Since it's said time and again, Mark is an extremely fair guy who really thinks things through, so it was nice to be able to get his thoughts on lots of goings-on in the coin industry, as well as experiences that were closer to home, and some not even coin-related. As an added bonus, I was very excited to get a real kosher hot dog at the stadium, and happily paid the rip-off price of $9 for two.

Friday I returned to the show with high hopes for some good purchases, but ended up empty-handed. As I mentioned earlier, Coin Rarities had a really nice NJ copper that, if I weren't stupid, I would own now. I thought about it for a lot of Friday, and when I made my way back to go look/buy it, it had finally sold. C'est la vie, I suppose. As with Thursday, I saw a few pieces, but nothing caught my eye enough to make me buy it. One dealer had what looked like a beautiful silver Jefferson with fantastic toning, but when I asked to see it, his response was "$3000." I guess it's just as well; at $3000, I wasn't going to ever buy it, because the premium seems absolutely ridiculous to me, and from the case, the coin couldn't have been that nice. But, I'm still deciding whether such a response was rude or not. It saved us both time, sure, but it just seemed as if he was trying to turn away customers by saying that.

It turned out that Friday was really just a day to sit down and have some nice conversations. I spoke with all of the Herdons for quite some time, and must say that for someone with Harvard blood, Wayne and his family are OK I picked up some Intercept Shield boxes from them that I've been needing for quite some time, and that ended my show. I had a lot of fun, but it wasn't my time to purchase any coins. Since I began taking flight lessons, I've been much pickier about what I buy--I really have to want it and it has to be extremely nice for me to lay out the money to make a purchase. But that's just as well, as it helps ensure that I'm not adding coins that aren't really the best that I can get into my collection.

I spent Saturday with my family, and flew back on Sunday. Since my parents were going on a trip to Spain, I was lucky (?) enough to fly through JFK, instead of BWI. That meant a 3+ hour drive to the airport and a more expensive flight, but it also meant I got to watch planes at JFK for a while, and that's always fun We were #47 for takeoff at one point, but eventually I made it back to Boston in one piece, very tired, but having very much enjoyed my long weekend.

Jeremy

PS- I purposely didn't name many people in this report. I know I'll forget people, so I don't bother trying to remember them all, nor list them

ColonialCoinUnion

At least you have the satisfaction of knowing that the NJ copper sold to a serious collector who already has 12 (that's correct) examples of this type and needed this one for a die state study.

WTCG

What's the most shocking revelation is that Jeremy actually got Mark Feld to go out and do something after a coin show, and to stay until the 7th inning, nonetheless. If I recall, the 7th inning is about six innings past Mark's typical bed time.

123cents

Nice show report Jeremy even though it was just a little bit late.