Do any department stores still have coin and stamp departments?

291fifth

There was a time when such departments were common. Are any still operating? Here in the Detroit area the Hudson's coin and stamp department (originally downtown and later at Northland) lasted until the 1990's if I recall correctly.

pennyannie

No, now they have replaced those areas with TV's, cell phones and video games. some call it progress.

TomB

I used to go to the Gimbels department store in NJ when I was a kid in the 1970s to look at the coins. Gimbels went under in the 1980s, if I recall correctly, but I had a great time looking in the 1970s.

TONEDDOLLARS

In Boston, both Woolworths and Raymonds (The home of uncle Elf) in downtown Boston had coin dept's.

LindeDad

Sears is a sponsored ad on my eBay quite often. Way overpriced for the items I saw.

Nap

Macy's in Herald Square had one up until the early or mid 90s.

I used to go browse there while my younger siblings waited on line to see Santa.

TwoSides2aCoin

Saw some statehood quarter albums at WalMart, once.

COALPORTER

<< <i>Sears is a sponsored ad on my eBay quite often. Way overpriced for the items I saw. >>



Really, that is SEARS MARKETPLACE and the items belong to third party vendors not sears and the
items will not be found at a store. Sears is trying to be like Amazon.

COALPORTER

<< <i>Sears is a sponsored ad on my eBay quite often. Way overpriced for the items I saw. >>



You would think that ebay would block that stupid stuff, because, at first glance, I thought it was
items for sale on ebay.

RedTiger

Not a department store, but the New York Times gift shop sells what they call historical items. Coin related items on the list are a four Morgan BU set for $300, 1943 cent cufflinks for $29 and a Walker money clip for $39. There are also baseball related items (Jeter, Mantle), and a model of the Titanic with a signed letter from a survivor. I'm guessing most buyers are tourists or might give them as gifts.

bronco2078

I remember seeing them in Sears when I was a kid but I have a 1927 and a 1955 Sears catalog and there are no coins in them. Either they didn't have them back then or they just were a store only item.

numisma

When I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, I could buy coins and supplies at Woolworths and BenFranklins. The Sears also had a coin area under the escalator. That was a cool little coin store.

They are all gone now, and I am forced to buy my numismatic items from the coin section of the local Piggly Wiggly.

bolivarshagnasty

Our local Books A Million has a section of literature and supplies. Whitman folders of all kinds, tubes, C/P's Guide and the like.

BAJJERFAN

Dayton's in Minneapolis used to have coins as did Woolworth's. Not sure if S. S. Kresge carried them or not.

Weiss

I still remember pleading with my dad to buy me a gold coin at Marshall Fields in Chicago. I was maybe 7 at the time, so maybe 1976 or so? It was a Byzantine piece, IIRC, with a price of $75.

I've never begged so much in my life, and it fell on deaf ears.

pf70collector

I bought many a stamp at Hutzler's Department store in Towson, MD when I was a kid.

BillJones

Gimbels Philadelphia ... Many happy memories ...

I know ... Too expensive, but my holding time was so long that it did not matter ... And I ended up with ZERO gold coin counterfeits when buying one was so easy in the 1960s ... Plus my first job offer when I was 16.

nwcoast

Had a Newberry's (or something like that) that had a revolving display case with coins for sale...
Good times as a kid!

coindeuce

I'm sooprized that major sporting goods merchants (Bass Pro, Gander Mountain, Cabelas etc.) haven't thought of this. Ya know, like guns 'n coins or fishing tackle 'n coins. I'd spend a lot more on either or both if they were consolidated.

BillJones

On the much lower end of the scale, Woolworth's five and dime had a coin book that I spent hours reviewing. I grew up in Southern Delaware and there were no coin dealers in the area. I had to go to Philadelphia to find "real coins." Everything in the book was over priced and sometimes damaged. The Woolworth stores in the larger cities had more. For example there was a store in New York City that was next to the Hotel Taft that the book that was the same size, but there was a better selection, which included things like Civil War tokens.

Someone else also mentioned the downtown Boston Woolworths which was billed as "The Largest Woolworths Store" because had two floors. The coins were in one of those electric swing cases that moved when you pressed a button. By then my collecting tastes were way ahead of what they had. All of the prices were way too high, of course, but then the silver market caught up them. I remember looking at the case, and it had been wiped. All of the silver coins had been purchased because the one time high prices were now below the junk silver price. That was end of the Woolworth coin department at that store, and soon the whole Woolworths chain would be history. Up in heaven old Frank W. Woolworth who founded the store in the late 1800s must have been crying.

garrynot

<< <i>Macy's in Herald Square had one up until the early or mid 90s.

I used to go browse there while my younger siblings waited on line to see Santa. >>



Marshall Field's had a coin shop till the mid 90's when Macy's took over

291fifth

<< <i>

<< <i>Macy's in Herald Square had one up until the early or mid 90s.

I used to go browse there while my younger siblings waited on line to see Santa. >>



Marshall Field's had a coin shop till the mid 90's when Macy's took over >>



The downtown Chicago Carson's also had a coin department. I don't know if it was still operating when Carson's closed that location several years ago.

Another point: I believe that the department store coin departments were a major outlet for Library of Coins albums until those albums were discontinued in the early 1980's.

johnny9434

not up here in the connecticut area i dont believe that there are any. i do remember them from many years ago thou. (woolworths, wt grants, g fox, and a few others. good memories to

bsshog40

I remember when walmart carried the red book. Don't see them anymore. I still see a few things at hobby lobby.

Cougar1978

I have not seen any of that since the mid 1960's - I think now every shoplifter around would be targeting those.

WillieBoyd2

My grandmother lived in Chicago in the 1950's and collected coins and stamps.
She saved this envelope:


Marshall Field & Company Coin Store Envelope

The back reads:
Marshall Field & Company
Collector's Stamps and Coins - Third Floor, North Wabash
Phone: STate 1-1000, extension 2281
Field's offers collectors these services:
Want lists, approvals, new issues, U.S. First Day Covers,
Complete accessory line, Stamp & Coin News, latest publications

From the style of the telephone number this envelope dates to the 1950's.

RichR

In the early 1980s at the flagship Macy's in Herald Square, I bought a nearly complete run of GSA hard case CC Morgans for something like $125/coin on average, including the now much pricier dates. Probably the best long term investment I ever made.

Unfortunately, I probably turned away quite a few more of those rarer dates because a kid could only afford so much...and who needed more than one of each date...and who wanted those "cruddy" toned dollars (as was the feeling at the time)?!?

Or at least that's what I tell myself now not to get too depressed!

Geez...I should have begged my parents to buy everything in sight and put them all in the safe deposit box!!!

ElmerFusterpuck

I remember the coin sections in the Woolworth's/Woolco stores. Usually cleaned and overpriced, but in rural South Carolina it might be the only coins you would see in person.

In the 1980's, San Antonio had a store chain called Joske's. They did have some of everything with their coin department, including lots of rolls. They were mostly overpriced but you could find good stuff if you looked hard enough. I purchased a 1926-S Lincoln in XF for $1.89 back in the day, and still have that coin.

WTCG

Coins have a much, much smaller customer base and far thinner margins than other department store merchandise. If I ran a department store I wouldn't consider a coin department when you can sell clothing or electronics instead.

ColonelJessup

Have you tried the Walmart in Pocatello, Idaho?

ricko

When I was about 8 or 9, J.J. Newberry's had a coin and stamp counter.....never bought anything there. Cheers, RickO

Meltdown

I seem to recall being very young and the Montgomery Wards where I grew up had a coin & stamp counter. I was not into collecting as a kid sadly, wish I would have been.
I did find these mint sets at a small shop about 5 years ago here in Portland. I bought them because the sets are pretty high grade, but also because of the sticker on the back.

Wolf359

<< <i>I bought many a stamp at Hutzler's Department store in Towson, MD when I was a kid. >>



My future wife worked there in the late 70's. I bought some Morgan dollars at the same place and still have them.

Frankcoins

These department stores in Italy surely have one.

291fifth

<< <i>Coins have a much, much smaller customer base and far thinner margins than other department store merchandise. If I ran a department store I wouldn't consider a coin department when you can sell clothing or electronics instead. >>



I believe that most, if not all, of the department store coin departments were leased space operations. It would be interesting to know just how much they paid for those leases. My recollection is that the coin and stamp departments were quite busy back in the 1960's but business had fallen off sharply by the 1990's when many of them closed. Stamps were a big part of those businesses so the decline of that hobby would have undermined the viability of the department store operations.

thebeav

We had a department store here in Buffalo called 'Sattlers'. They had a great coin department, probably into the seventies. In the early sixties, when I would go downtown with my grandma, she would always let me pick out a coin there. We also had a 'Grants' and they usually had some stuff too.

BillJones

<< <i>

<< <i>Coins have a much, much smaller customer base and far thinner margins than other department store merchandise. If I ran a department store I wouldn't consider a coin department when you can sell clothing or electronics instead. >>



I believe that most, if not all, of the department store coin departments were leased space operations. It would be interesting to know just how much they paid for those leases. My recollection is that the coin and stamp departments were quite busy back in the 1960's but business had fallen off sharply by the 1990's when many of them closed. Stamps were a big part of those businesses so the decline of that hobby would have undermined the viability of the department store operations. >>



Yes, those coin and stamp departments leased the space from the department store and were independent operations. Back in the 1960s, the Gimbels stamp department, which was run by the same company which marketed the coins, claimed to be the largest stamp dealer in the world.

Dentuck

This may have already been mentioned, but didn't Art and Ira Friedberg's father, Robert Friedberg,
run or franchise out a bunch of department-store coin shops, through the Coin and Currency Institute,
back in the day?

Coinosaurus

<< <i>Yes, those coin and stamp departments leased the space from the department store and were independent operations. >>



Sometime in the early 90s the Chicago Marshall Field's offered a one-time 15% discount if you opened a charge account.

I decided it would be a profitable endeavor, if I applied the 15% against AGEs being sold by the guy in the coin department.

Everything was going swimmingly until I presented my discount coupon.

You can still hear the latent echo of profanity over Lake Michigan.

He wasn't happy about it, but the customer service guys made him do it. I only wish I could have purchased more (the limit was $1000).

Kaline6

<< <i>

<< <i>Yes, those coin and stamp departments leased the space from the department store and were independent operations. >>



Sometime in the early 90s the Chicago Marshall Field's offered a one-time 15% discount if you opened a charge account.

I decided it would be a profitable endeavor, if I applied the 15% against AGEs being sold by the guy in the coin department.

Everything was going swimmingly until I presented my discount coupon.

You can still hear the latent echo of profanity over Lake Michigan.

He wasn't happy about it, but the customer service guys made him do it. I only wish I could have purchased more (the limit was $1000). >>



Hah! Great story. I worked at the flagship Macy's at herald Square in the late 70s and used to kill my breaks browsing in the coin department (I think it was on the 4th floor). The 20% employee discount was definitely not usable there. (The only bullion I recall from those times was the Krugerrand, and if you were socially conscious you avoided those. Lots of activity in that fall of 79 though!)

BillJones

<< <i>This may have already been mentioned, but didn't Art and Ira Friedberg's father, Robert Friedberg,
run or franchise out a bunch of department-store coin shops, through the Coin and Currency Institute,
back in the day? >>



Yes, that is correct. Their most famous coup was the purchased of an 1894-S dime in Good that "walked in" to their New York Gimbels store. I believe they paid $2,000 for it in the early 1960s.