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Why I stopped attending coin shows...3 words
opportunity
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Low turnover dealers.
I started going to shows in my quadrant of the country about 3 years ago, and it became apparent that I would be meeting the same old over priced dreck dealers each time. Sure, at some of the bigger shows, there is stuff to be found, but the internet is really where it's at. If you want to revitalize shows, become a low margin dealer and bring fresh material...or just keep passing the same old stale material around the room to each other.
I started going to shows in my quadrant of the country about 3 years ago, and it became apparent that I would be meeting the same old over priced dreck dealers each time. Sure, at some of the bigger shows, there is stuff to be found, but the internet is really where it's at. If you want to revitalize shows, become a low margin dealer and bring fresh material...or just keep passing the same old stale material around the room to each other.
Early American Copper, Bust and Seated.
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Bigger shows is where it's at since you get first shot at fresh items before they hit the websites.
Even the bigger shows are like this for me, although once in a great while something might turn up.
I mostly go to BS, drink coffee and eat donuts & hot dogs.
At the bigger shows; I spend more time at the TPGS booths, taking classes and looking at displays.
I always like to check out the books, too, as you can find some real interesting bargains.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
I think finding a small group of dealers you can trust and who know what you like works better in the long run than random purchases from random dealers at shows.
But shopping eBay in my relatively small focal area (love tokens), where there are a little over two thousand listings at any given time, I feel the same thing.
By far the majority of decent pieces listed are in the hands of one particular dealer, who prices them 3x to 5x over realistic retail, in my humble opinion, and it gets tiresome scrolling through the same old overpriced stuff (some of it nice, some of it dreck and still overpriced), month after month after year after year.
After a two-year hiatus since I sold my love token dime set and recently picked back up to attempt a type set of them, I returned to eBay to find many of the very same pieces I used to scroll past two years ago, still horrendously overpriced.
That, and the usual fantasy brothel tokens and cutesy-pootsey pewter pocket angels that clutter up the category, are my main headaches in shopping for that sort of thing. And I haven't found too many dealers outside of eBay with any kind of decent selection of them online.
Coins are nothing more than a cherrypicking treasure hunt for me so Ebay is useful.
My cash flow and knowledge are finally about to the point where it will be interesting to see how well I can do over several days, several series, and a 1000 tables.
My local club just shuttered their annual show. Went to "show" a week ago and there were about six club members and one smallish dealer. One shocked me with a bunch of French tokens that I remembered from a post here not long ago.
Five hours of driving for about an hour... ugh.
I made a list for 2016 and there are likely a half dozen shows across the state that will give me a day of challenge and work. Few if any shows I would call local. I will make a few of them but in reality it's a lot of wasted time.
Latin American Collection
Back then I used to see a number of "dealers" who seemed to be doing it for a hobby, not a business - they had a lot of stale inventory and never seemed to have customers. As the years passed, those dealers faded away and the coin market got a lot busier. The smaller shows were more active and so were the bigger shows.
By that time I had built up relationships with the dealers from the smaller shows who had also moved up to the bigger shows and I often got opportunities to buy some of their newest purchases.
The other thing about bigger shows is you have an opportunity to meet national dealers and advanced collectors, go to specialist club meetings, get books autographed and see some educational displays - it's hard to do most of that on the Internet.
It looks like we're seeing the coin market start to turn down again - take some time to enjoy the hobby and increase your store of numismatic knowledge.
Check out the Southern Gold Society
were dealers with stale inventory, but that was offset (especially at small shows) by other
dealers who were willing to negotiate a bit. Now, where I live, there are NO coin shows...
I would relish even a small one with stale inventory. Best I have is an antique shop with some
way overpriced Buffs and Mercs in parking lot condition. Cheers, RickO
parking lot condition.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
Coins/people - 50/50 for me in this hobby
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
one can argue if you cant find something good at a show, you arent looking hard enough.
or dont buy diversely enough.
wish i had $1,000+ cash for every show (4 monthly) and shop (5 shops once every 2 weeks) within 2 hours of me. no bs.
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"Just because you were born on 3rd base doesn't mean you hit a triple"
Not Enough Money (Thanks to a certain penny)
PCGS Registries
Box of 20
SeaEagleCoins: 11/14/54-4/5/12. Miss you Larry!
Some of those coins have been to more shows than most collectors will ever go to.
When the market is soft then buying nice coins for the grade can happen but you have to look!
Eventually, more and more dealers will adjust their selling prices to the current market prices. Right now about 5 plus percent of the dealers have adjusted their pricing.
As a result, coin shows here in Ontario Canada are close to a complete waste of time.
Year after year, I see the same, over priced coins in the dealer's showcases that go unsold show after show.
It is only on the odd rare time, you encounter something new in their display that is also priced reasonably.
I still attend shows, but not as many as I used to.
"“Those who sacrifice liberty for security/safety deserve neither.“(Benjamin Franklin)
"I only golf on days that end in 'Y'" (DE59)
But I really do most of my buying on the internet.
I think the key is to save some money up and fly to shows far from home. Im on the West Coast and I flew to Baltimore one year to visit friends and hit up the show. Sure there were some dealers there I knew from LB but there was a lot of new fresh material to see from local dealers that never make it out there.
If you've never seen it before, well its new to you.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
High costs of shows, wasted weekends at bad shows, market conditions, etc.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Even at small stale coin shows there is almost always one dealer who wants to deal and has low margins, just stop at the entrance of the coin show and look to see who has a crowd around their table and that is were I go.
This is true. There's always dealers out there who are net sellers and want to continually turn inventory. I'm not proud. If I have something a little too long, the price gets lowered. I don't want to have a museum. I want customers to continually see new coins being offered. We actually track our inventory turns annually.
For a large selection of U.S. Coins & Currency, visit The Reeded Edge's online webstore at the link below.
The Reeded Edge
I'll probably quit going to shows when I don't see any friends there.
Coins/people - 50/50 for me in this hobby
My YouTube Channel
Not sure I agree with your "3 words." Just because I do not sell a nice coin the very first couple of times I put it out does not necessarily mean it is dreck or overpriced. Your conclusion assumes every coin has been looked at by every potential buyer. Also, please consider that most of my "fresh stuff" does, in fact, sell on the bourse floor instead of the internet.
There are a lot of acute eye-balls on the floor.