Wait I second, Am I missing something about the Long Beach Show ?

WaterSport

No amazing auction records,
No amazing Sales
No amazing coins being available.
Early and flat dealer activity
Lower than expected numbers
Lower than usual forum attendance.

Is this the beginning of the downward spiral and the dealers do not have the guts to say so?????

I mean if you look at the past forum traffic on the Long beach show...NADA.

WS

SkyMan

I don't know about the show per se, but it was interesting to a dealer friend of mine who was at the Goldberg auction. He said it was very impressive the BREADTH of the bidding... e.g. when coins went for over the estimate it wasn't just two people duking it out for the coins, but many people.

tradedollarnut

when coins went for over the estimate

How can coins NOT go for over their estimates?

garsmith

What would be nice is if they gave some consideration to those who work in other fields and run the show on Sunday also so that those that have to work during the week can get more time at the show than those few hours available on Saturday!

Coxe

The big problem is lack of quality material on the market. Laura used to harp on about htis too and it is just as true now, if more moreso, as it was 6, 12, 18 months ago. Yes, every sale has some highlight pieces. But there just isn;t enough of the good stuff to go around. And when something marginally good comes to auction, more often than not, the seller starts it with too high of a reserve. Great coins are nearly immediately saleable to a collector or fellow dealer. That stuff isn't going to be hauled to a bourse and won't make it to print ads and often even the dealer's website.

When it comes to varieties, dealers are more educated than ever. They have the CPGs and similar references after realizing how much profit thay have been giving up easily. Two years ago, they were maybe a couple dealers with VAM attributions in their cases at a big show like LB. That is not the case anymore. And I whole heartily welcome their participation even if it dramatically increases the cherrypicking challenge. But since many variety collectors are cherrypickers, getting that 2-way market going outside the redbook varieties is slow but is developing. But I digress. Overwhelmingly, I saw undeniable widgets, in great supply, at LB. Also there was a lot of overgrades stuff in PCGS and NGC slabs. A few folks had featured toners (Mikey had a case of them but I didn't get back to look at them better) but it looked like the rank-and-file dealer is out not playing with them as much these days. Maybe most of the nice ones are in stable collections now?

291fifth

The key to how the auctions did is to find out how the "ordinary" material sold (or didn't sell.) I haven't heard any comments on this.

So far as the bourse activity is concerned, it must have been really dead. I can't recall any major show since I joined this forum that had less buzz than the recent Long Beach.

coinsarefun

I went to the show but, did not have a lot of time to look
I showed my coins to David Hall and left them to be graded.
After scanning the tables it appeared to me that it was very similar to the last few shows. Not much new material, but then again I did not have the time that I wanted to spend at the show.