PCGS Las Vegas Coin Show Report

I want to share with my fellow board members my thoughts on the PCGS Coin Show in Las Vegas. I love reading show reports – so I try to write one whenever I attend a decent coin show.

First off, I was really excited to go, partially because I planned it at the last minute – a pleasant surprise for me, and I have not jumped on an airplane to attend a coin show in over a year. I attended four big ones in 2013. Life gets in the way of coins from time to time, a new baby, and two other kids to raise, coaching their teams, work, etc etc, same stuff everyone deals with.

The was my second PCGS Vegas show. My first was in Dec 2012.

I live in San Francisco, and flew to Vegas yesterday in the morning and flew back at night. I had about 7 hours at the show. This show is great, no doubt about it. It is different and not for everybody. The best was to describe it is super casual, but if you are in the mood to buy, there are many hardcore coins to buy.

I was excited to see my great friend, Jim Essence – we were scheduled to arrive at The Bellagio at the same time, so we agreed to meet in the lobby. As I am waiting, tradedollarnut walks in – errrrr – limps in. Surgery on the foot. We have a really nice conversation and new babies, the show, his collection, and the Pogues. It was nice to catch up – haven’t seen him in a year or two.

My buddy Jim shows up – we proceed to track down the show. (The Bellagio is HUGE). Concierge didn’t know. They had to make a few phone calls, but it took a little while. (note to PCGS, makes sure the Concierge knows about the show).

When you walk in, what hits you is how small it is. 30 or 40 tables? At most. The large PCGS booth and the Legend Coin Auction Booth.

Immediately, Jim and I sat at one of the empty tables in front of the PCGS booth. We both had a few coins to submit, some for show grading others for regular submission. Then I see TahoeDale, I scream at him to come on over and hang out. We have known each other for over 10 years and I really like Dale. He knows his coins and I greatly admire the collections that he has built. His Bust Dollar set is really coming along! Congrats buddy! I proceeded to do a show and tell with some coins I brought. Dale and I were both pretty excited to see the Sunnywood toned dollars in the Legend sale.

Then Gregg Bingham walks by, I snag him. Now we got a little crew going, and the coin stories start flying. Actually half our discussions are about life in general. For those of you that do not know Gregg, he is very opinionated. He has a lot of thoughts. I told him he should have his own radio show in Houston. One of the big reasons I like Gregg, is that with my conversations with him, he is so pro-collector. He, as a collector, understands the biz side of coins more than most, and he just doesn’t want to see any type of injustice. Everyone gets a fair shake. Gregg had his Columbian Half PR68 on display – one of the best commems of all time! Spectacular!

As part of my show and tell, I had a somewhat recent purchase, a 1907 High Relief Twenty PCGS MS66+ CAC Flat Edge on the table. Another collector walks up, Gregg and Dale introduce us, and the collectors sees the High Relief and starts talking about Saints. I tell him to pick it and check it out – that’s why we are here! He starts to list how many were graded, prices, and mentions how many he owns. Turns out he has a complete set of Saints. Really a cool guy and passionate collector. You never know whom you are going to meet.

Next, Don Willis, walks over to our table. Now we really got a crew going. We all had a nice pleasant chat with Don. Grading, how’s biz?, crossovers, how show grading is done, just a lot of nice info that I have not heard before. The one big thing I like about Don, is that his is a coin collector first. He is really into coins. We had several conversations at the show about what he has collected and his current endeavor, colonials. The passion was all there. And this really shows when he is talking about PCGS, as his answers and observations are very frank and from a collector point of view. Just a great guy. That’s what makes this show special, imagine how busy he would be at the ANA, FUN, etc, shows?

I headed on over to the Legend Coin Auction lot viewing. What a neat auction this is, and congratulations to Julie and Laura, it aint easy, but I feel they are doing a great job. It is such a nichey, high quality, concentrated auction. Always great stuff. Laura was very kind to offer her observations on many of the coins in general.

The coins. The Sunnywood Dollars are better than what you would expect. Really. Then you start to think how rare many of the coins are with bag toning (or nice album toned), coupled with way less than average bagmarks – you really begin to appreciate how tough it was to put this group of coins together.

The 1880-CC, 90-CC, and 91-CC in hand meets all the hype. Off the charts. The 90-CC and 91-CC have the most dramatic colors. The 80-CC is a completely different animal, you cant imagine a toned coin looking like this. A greenish blue color, its hypnotic- with very clean surfaces.

The 81-S, is hand down the finest toned Morgan around. It is the King. If you were going to create the most perfectly toned Morgan from scratch - this is it.

My favorite was the 1893-S in 65. Not really a toned monster, but the second finest 93-S. I could not put the coin down. Imagine a really nice 1880-S in 65 – that’s this coin – only a 93-S.

I sat next to David Hall at lot viewing. And as he his looking at the Sunnywood Dollars, he just screamed out “This is one of the coolest things I’ve every seen!” To no one in particular. I asked David what he is collecting now – since he sold his awesome set of $10 Liberties. He mentions LP (records?) and a certain type of baseball cards. What about coins???!!! There wasn’t really an answer – but I had the feeling he was working on something special. His passion and excitement were evident when he talked about his collecting.

I had a brief chat with Bill Shamhart. I regretted not spending more time with Bill. He is always one of the sharpest guys in the room, and will always offer to help in anyway he can. Plus, he is really into coins and the Americana that goes with coins.

Jim and had grabbed a quick buffet dinner at The Bellagio – one of the best around and I was off to the airport.

I really had a great time, my wife could clearly tell when I got home. I made one purchase, I will post when I get a better image of it.

Hopefully, you enjoyed my report.

Seth