What percentage of business at a B&M coin shop is actually numismatic coins, exonumia or paper money
291fifth
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I suspect that these days most business is bullion related items, not numismatic material. Does anyone know? Use dollar volume as the basis for the answer.
All glory is fleeting.
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I am interested in this issue as well. In Tucson, there is a bit more than 1 B&M coin dealer per 100,000 residents. Most of the dealers sell other collectibles (e.g., stamps, autographs, fossils, etc.) in addition to numismatic collectibles. Many have been buying old jewelry and silver flatware too. There are still bid boards in some of the shops, attracting lots of collectors of modest means on Saturdays. With one exception (Eagle Eye), the others don't get out much, except to go to Long Beach. The inventories of at least half of the dealers are so modest (much less than the value of my collection), and many of their coins have problems, that I don't know how they could stay in business on the basis of just numismatic sales. When the recession hit and bullion started to rise in value, a number of them started moving far more bullion-related material than numismatic collectibles, based on what I saw, and they were making 3-4% each way too. Two of them did well enough within 6-8 years to move into much nicer digs.
About four years ago, I simply gave up making the rounds of the Tucson B&M shops every couple of weeks. I think that they are making most of their numismatic dollars buying from walk-ins, and then flipping the 'better' coins to other, out-of-town dealers. I rarely saw another customer spend even $1-2K on a coin, but did witness LOTS of bullion trading.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
less than half overall but this week it would be around 80% for some reason, had plenty of nice stuff come in. coins are overall slow and bullion is steady but not a whole lot better. people get skittish whenever spot moves down so they are in their bomb shelters right now.
There are very few of those shops in this area, but there is a lot of jewelry.
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2021 Young Numismatist of the Year
Most of the B&Ms in my area (Ohio) diversify in something, e.g. watches, antiques, jewelry, currency, bullion (naturally), etc. They can't survive with just coins.
ANA LM
USAF Retired — 34 years of active military service! 🇺🇸
On the buying side:
we buy approx. 55% in scrap (jewelry, sterling, etc)
25% 90% , 999 etc
10 % nice collector coins/ nicer gold coins, etc
another 10% junk like buffalo nickels, wheats,