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Bidask's ANA Report
bidask
Posts: 13,865 ✭✭✭✭✭
So I have been here a couple days having driven up from St Louis.
I am setting up with some local B&M guys ....Midwest Money company....guys I have known for 35 years.
Fred Weinberg told me yesterday that seeing these guys ( Barry Faintich and Tom Kolbrener) will make his week as they go way back as well!
Coming to a show like the ANA for 6 days is like a vacation for me......it really relaxes me and makes me forget about work.
I set up today and the others are coming tonite.
Also, I am willing to do some selling of my collection as I want to pay down a mortgage or use the money to invest in securities.
I am delighted that my wife came along and she will be with me the whole week.....I was really surprised she wanted to go
as the kids start school this week .....but she arranged to have grandma come in.
Its great having her here, she is such a lady, great with the public and I truly believe she will protect me from the coin dealer wolves who are really professional at this business.
I spent hours at home preparing for this show to hopefully get my pricing right.
I have some great US and foreign coins to offer all slabbed, most CAC.
Yesterday I went to the PNG show and talked to some old coin dealer friends, Julian Leidman, Mark Teller, and James Ricks, Andy Lustig and Todd (Blue62Vet) among others and met John Brush from DLRC for the first time. Seemed like an honest guy.
I stopped by Heritage booth and tried to pick up a couple lots I bought but they had already shipped them back to Dallas.
I had received a email message from them they were going to ship immediately ( I guess that meant I could pay later) so I advised the woman in charge of lots to please wait till the 19th of August to ship the coins I had won to me.
Later that evening I took my wife to Gibson's, one of my favorite restaurants, and we had a grand meal.....way to much that we could not finish so we took it back to the hotel and I snacked on it later that evening as we watched the new Gatsby movie. The table next to us was Steve Ivy and another fellow so I introduced my wife to Steve......then proceeded to give my wife a little history of watching Steve go from a proprietor to the main principal at privately held Heritage auctions.
Monday morning after breakfast and after checking in with the office and doing a few trades we decided to go to the Art Museum. My wife is such a good sport that I wanted her to have some fun and do something that interests her. She feels the same about me which is great. So I plugged in 111 S. Michigan Ave into google maps on my I Phone and we had off. She was driving and Im looking down at stuff on my phone not paying much attention so 25 minutes later we came to 111 S Michigan ave alright but it was not in Chicago but out in the burbs somewhere , I could not believe I needed to add Chicago to the address I inputted on the I Phone to get to the art museum......sooooo I asked if she still wanted to still go and she said do I want to look at coins and I said yes I do. So we came back to the hotel where she did something online with a ministry she is involved in and I went straight to Stacks Bowers at the convention center to view lots.
And I have to tell you ........for the 300 or so lots I viewed I was mostly unimpressed with the quality of coins in both PCGS and NGC plastic.
Most did not look original to me.
For example there was a collection of dollars called the Freedom collection......OMG !
Now every coin has its price mind you but it was scary seeing all those coins that did not belong in the ascribed plastic imo.
Same on the bourse today......sorry Im getting stricter in my grading and I still need the eyeballs of an expert from time to time.
However what 20 coins or so I did note I will review later for possible bidding.
Now don't get me wrong every coin has a price. Matter of fact much coin business dealings are in coins that are not all there and certainly raw coins, both US and especially foreign as there seems to be plenty of such material. Plenty of collectors and dealers in this these areas ( I noted as well today too during setup).
And in addition to coins like this there is an over-abundance of morgans, commems, and 61-63 common gold in case after case.
How do these guys make it in the business with so much of the same coins being offered?
An even a bigger question is how do the bid/asks hold in there for this kind of material......
I guess there is demand.
By and large I am disappointed with what I have seen so far in terms of coins I am looking for but I only briefly saw maybe 40% of the bourse today during dealer setup so I'm sure the best is yet to come, hopefully. From the dealers I did see Joe O'Conner had some really knockout coins for the eye candy I like.
I did run into Laura Sperber and told her I bought 2 tickets to the ANA dinner Friday night to watch her and others get installed as governors.
That should be a fun evening and I like forward to it.
I also saw Todd at his booth and plan to give hims some coins for photoshoots but he suggested I come by tomorrow as he was not fully set up.
Then I walked by the Penny Lady who was setting up and I remarked that where Todd was I could find the Penny Lady....then briefly thinking about it
I said I meant where the Penny Lady is I could find Todd....she said that's more like it. She had a great inventory of pennies.
Well the 3 hour set up went pretty fast today (as always attending coin shows the time flies)....maybe I will again post later.
I am setting up with some local B&M guys ....Midwest Money company....guys I have known for 35 years.
Fred Weinberg told me yesterday that seeing these guys ( Barry Faintich and Tom Kolbrener) will make his week as they go way back as well!
Coming to a show like the ANA for 6 days is like a vacation for me......it really relaxes me and makes me forget about work.
I set up today and the others are coming tonite.
Also, I am willing to do some selling of my collection as I want to pay down a mortgage or use the money to invest in securities.
I am delighted that my wife came along and she will be with me the whole week.....I was really surprised she wanted to go
as the kids start school this week .....but she arranged to have grandma come in.
Its great having her here, she is such a lady, great with the public and I truly believe she will protect me from the coin dealer wolves who are really professional at this business.
I spent hours at home preparing for this show to hopefully get my pricing right.
I have some great US and foreign coins to offer all slabbed, most CAC.
Yesterday I went to the PNG show and talked to some old coin dealer friends, Julian Leidman, Mark Teller, and James Ricks, Andy Lustig and Todd (Blue62Vet) among others and met John Brush from DLRC for the first time. Seemed like an honest guy.
I stopped by Heritage booth and tried to pick up a couple lots I bought but they had already shipped them back to Dallas.
I had received a email message from them they were going to ship immediately ( I guess that meant I could pay later) so I advised the woman in charge of lots to please wait till the 19th of August to ship the coins I had won to me.
Later that evening I took my wife to Gibson's, one of my favorite restaurants, and we had a grand meal.....way to much that we could not finish so we took it back to the hotel and I snacked on it later that evening as we watched the new Gatsby movie. The table next to us was Steve Ivy and another fellow so I introduced my wife to Steve......then proceeded to give my wife a little history of watching Steve go from a proprietor to the main principal at privately held Heritage auctions.
Monday morning after breakfast and after checking in with the office and doing a few trades we decided to go to the Art Museum. My wife is such a good sport that I wanted her to have some fun and do something that interests her. She feels the same about me which is great. So I plugged in 111 S. Michigan Ave into google maps on my I Phone and we had off. She was driving and Im looking down at stuff on my phone not paying much attention so 25 minutes later we came to 111 S Michigan ave alright but it was not in Chicago but out in the burbs somewhere , I could not believe I needed to add Chicago to the address I inputted on the I Phone to get to the art museum......sooooo I asked if she still wanted to still go and she said do I want to look at coins and I said yes I do. So we came back to the hotel where she did something online with a ministry she is involved in and I went straight to Stacks Bowers at the convention center to view lots.
And I have to tell you ........for the 300 or so lots I viewed I was mostly unimpressed with the quality of coins in both PCGS and NGC plastic.
Most did not look original to me.
For example there was a collection of dollars called the Freedom collection......OMG !
Now every coin has its price mind you but it was scary seeing all those coins that did not belong in the ascribed plastic imo.
Same on the bourse today......sorry Im getting stricter in my grading and I still need the eyeballs of an expert from time to time.
However what 20 coins or so I did note I will review later for possible bidding.
Now don't get me wrong every coin has a price. Matter of fact much coin business dealings are in coins that are not all there and certainly raw coins, both US and especially foreign as there seems to be plenty of such material. Plenty of collectors and dealers in this these areas ( I noted as well today too during setup).
And in addition to coins like this there is an over-abundance of morgans, commems, and 61-63 common gold in case after case.
How do these guys make it in the business with so much of the same coins being offered?
An even a bigger question is how do the bid/asks hold in there for this kind of material......
I guess there is demand.
By and large I am disappointed with what I have seen so far in terms of coins I am looking for but I only briefly saw maybe 40% of the bourse today during dealer setup so I'm sure the best is yet to come, hopefully. From the dealers I did see Joe O'Conner had some really knockout coins for the eye candy I like.
I did run into Laura Sperber and told her I bought 2 tickets to the ANA dinner Friday night to watch her and others get installed as governors.
That should be a fun evening and I like forward to it.
I also saw Todd at his booth and plan to give hims some coins for photoshoots but he suggested I come by tomorrow as he was not fully set up.
Then I walked by the Penny Lady who was setting up and I remarked that where Todd was I could find the Penny Lady....then briefly thinking about it
I said I meant where the Penny Lady is I could find Todd....she said that's more like it. She had a great inventory of pennies.
Well the 3 hour set up went pretty fast today (as always attending coin shows the time flies)....maybe I will again post later.
I manage money. I earn money. I save money .
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
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Comments
Enjoy and please keep an eye out for Talers
Taler Custom Set
Ancient Custom Set
Coming to a show like the ANA for 6 days is like a vacation for me......it really relaxes me and makes me forget about work. I set up today and the others are coming tonite.
The markets are going to go up 10% while you're away, spot gold should drop 15%, and I'll make a fortune in DUST!!!
If I have a down day (waiting for settlements) I may try to swing over for a few hours......happy sales, to you!
Let me know if you're liquidating some of your Mexicans - I'm always a buyer for your stuff.
8 Reales Madness Collection
I will probably only get Saturday to come to the show unless I get really squirrelly and sneak out on Thursday. But the point of the matter is to take my daughter and gf. I took my gf to CICF this spring and she was very intrigued and a great sport about all of my introverted nerd self bathing in the glory that are coin shows for eight hours with only a break for lunch and an hour to get some work done while I watched the Chicago Coin Club presentation "AD LOCVTIO" I believe. I am lucky to have a gf much like your wife who is intellectually curious and a good sport about things she may not exactly be passionate about.
My daughter is 10 and ANA will be her first show. I passed down my British collection to her a few years ago and now she is very much into filling dates in her penny set so it will be junk box heaven for us for several hours.
A word of advice on the Art Institute of Chicago: there is no chance that you will see it all, even if you devoted the rest of your trip to it. Give your wife and yourself several hours and pick a few areas that would be memorable to the both of you or to each of you individually and focus on those areas so you can absorb and enjoy them. There is a $5 iPhone app for the Museum's French Impressionist Collection which is worth the price of the app by far and gives you a bit of a cheat sheet before you walk in the door.
I would take a ride up to the top of the Sears (Willis) Tower if you've never done so, especially if you can go in the early evening during the week. The weekends are a madhouse. But the views of four states are spectacular and walking out onto "The Ledge" which is a plexiglass platform 100 stories above the street will send your survival instincts into a frenzy because all of your being will try to pull you off out of self preservation. Unless you are a kid. Then you jump up and down on it.
If your wife likes boats and wants to see more of the city, find an architecture tour by water. Groupon usually has deals. Lots of old and new architectural sights and a way to spend a nice summer day on the water yet still in the city.
For deep dish pizza, Gino's East on Superior downtown. Great pizza, nice bar or table seating and good beer selection.
And a cheeseburger at Billy Goat's Tavern wouldn't hurt either. Old school Chicago, that is.
For pizza/Mediterranean food on the North Side, try Pizza Art Cafe. Outdoor seating, call for reservations though, very busy, BYOB and excellent food. On Rockwell off of Lawrence and Western.
Sorry for such a long response. This is home, so I want everyone who comes here to enjoy and have the best time that they can.