Baltimore show
kevinj
Posts: 989 ✭✭✭
I have not been to the Baltimore show in probably a year or two as I am up in Boston
I got there Sat at noon, was shocked that half of the dealers were packing up, many had already left
by around 2ish, half of the tables were empty, by 4ish, about 3/4 were empty.
Kind of surprised, thought there are probably others like me who have to work, and could only get there Sat.
Sad that some of the people I always see there, such as Patti Finner who always ran the Kids Korner were no longer there.
Went to PCGS to submit coins, they were past their deadline for submissions, NGC was mostly empty
Only saw a handful of kids there the entire day, but as a parent, why bother if there are few dealers there.
Kevin
Kevin J Flynn
2
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Timing is everything..Most of the other members who have posted about B'More, have had mostly positive comments.
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I read that, which is why I kept this separate, also so if someone is considering going to Baltimore, they know what to expect, and that they should go Friday if they want to see more dealers and coins
@kevinj
Was this your first trip to the Baltimore show on a Saturday?
I was there on Friday and it seemed pretty well attended by both Dealers and Customers.
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When I live in NJ, I used to go at least twice a year, sometimes Friday when i could sneak out of work, and
sometimes at Sat, I saw a decline, but never like this. Sat was always fun, as I sometimes tried to help Patti
with the Kids Korner, she used to have a long line for the grap bag, fun to watch, but I guess those days are gone.
I remember a few years ago, Whitman kinda attempted to stop dealers from leaving early as they advertised
the show until Sunday.
You have come to the Baltimore show on Thursday or Friday. Some of them are pulling the plug late Friday afternoon, and some are only around on Saturday morning. Even among those who are left, the inventories start to look "picked over" by Friday afternoon.
My perception, right or wrong is that the opportunities from new, nice material are on Thursday or Friday morning. After that there is a lot of "dead stock" left that has not sold in months. According to one dealer, it's over before then because he's been to all the usual sources and bought up the coins before the rest of us have had a chance to see them.
The selection at the shows has not been great for least a year. The last FUN show as a disappointment for me.
How is the Bay State show now, since it has moved out of Boston? When I first moved to Boston in the 1970s it was like going to the shows in New York City with some of the same dealers. Now I don't think that there are many New York City shows any more, like GENA and Grand Central. The overhead costs have killed the shows, and I think the same thing has happened in Boston.
BillJones
Thanks for the update, will have to find some local shows here in Boston
@kevinj thanks for the review. I was half-considering going but would not have be able to do so until Saturday. Glad I did not bother. I live local to this show, but I'm not really interested if the only day worth going would involve me taking a vacation day just to attend.
I'm probably not the only one....but I remember not THAT long ago when the very same complaint was waged against dealers leaving early on SUNDAY.
So, the organizers gave in, and banished Sundays for the big shows, and Saturday became the victim of the Ghost Town syndrome.
I saw the same thing at the last Long Beach show. Luckily, I was there Friday, but I went on Saturday just because I could. And by noon, it just wasn't even worth it.
The dealer's perspective is, "Hey, it's my time, I should be able to do whatever I want". Sure...fine....whatever. But what about a LITTLE sacrifice to support the show in general?
If you keep chipping away days on the shows, it just isn't worth it anymore. You'll get the Professionals, Retired, and Rabid collectors, buy the locals are just elbowed out.
I kinda feel the biggest victims are the kids, doubt they can take off during week
Actually this is our lost, no more kids, no more future generations.......
I do not blame the dealers, obviously they are there to make money, and if Sat is a lower probability then why stay.
A smart solution might be to have a special rate for dealers to come on Sat at noon, charge them $100,
choose an open table.....
Thanks for the report.... very sad.... Saturday used to be a big day at shows because of the working collectors... Now if they are leaving early, shows will soon be just Thursday and Friday... So many seem to mourn the lack of YN's...this is not reality, YN's are there, especially on the internet. The real disaster will be the end of coin shows....and it looks like that is a real possibility. Cheers, RickO
RickO,
Sorry, did not mean YNs so much
What I was talking about is the walkins that we used to get Sat, that the family would come in to explore, perhaps
they were down the harbor, or somewhere just visiting, they saw there was a free give away, we would get them in the
door, and perhaps a small percentage might walk around the show, this was a good opportunity to get some new
blood and kids into coins. There were also boy scout groups usually on Sat as I remember Patti was a national
chair person on the subject of scouts and coins or something like that.
My favorite is seeing the grand-parents with their grand-kids who I had interviewed over the years for different books
on the subject, it was a common interest they could share and bond on.
My kids never got into coins, they thought I was crazy as I spent so many hours on them, but my son promised me that
someday, when he had kids, he would strive to motivate his first child to enjoy coins so I had someone to give them to someday. LOL, I told him smooth move, nice try......
Kevin
I can remember a decade or so ago when it was actually worth staying on Sunday! About 1 out of 3 or 4 I would do 5 figures! The excuse I hear now that is killing Saturday is due to the cost of plane tickets being so much higher on Sunday vrs. Saturday.
Well if they are going to go ahead and kill Saturday they might as well kill the show. I say this because the rent for doing business at a table has more than doubled over the years since there is hardly any business on Saturday or Sunday due to this.
Attending one show, every 3 to 5 years, how many times per year is the Baltimore show?
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From a dealer standpoint, the shows are simply too long at three days. The business is usually done early. Convention center contracts may force shows to officially remain at three days but the third day is likely to be disappointing for dealers who stick around.
Wow, I am clearly not a dealer but had a good saturday morning of it (though NGC packed up at 11 am), had some excellent discussions and bought a few coins that I rather liked naturally. I also liked the US Mint exhibit & they were most gracious as well. To me, better than many of the shows I have been to and a good cut above average.
Well, just Love coins, period.
sounds like a good title for a new book, death of a coin show
remember of bunch of large and small that died over the years
We had one at a convention center in Palymra NJ, 150 tables, pretty nice, till one day, the NJ tax man came in, with assault rifles, full combat gear for some, illegally locked doors, went to every dealer, demanded to see all receipts, NJ sale tax lic, if you did not have it, they put a yellow tape around your table, calculated the value of your coins, then demanded tax on 10% of the value, given that you should have sold 10% of your stock. That show ended, never recovered
Philadelphia was short lived, I remember the unions, who John Burns told me that they demanded to move his books into the convention center at a cost, and that other dealers said they demanded stuff like setting up lights..... Attendance dropped and so did the show.
I have seen the number of local shows/clubs drops over the past 28 years in NJ, especially with clubs aging out. I had one show club secretary who was 94 who called me to come do a talk for them.
Kevin
I believe they hold it three times a year. The summer show is usually the smallest. At one time a local club held the summer show, but I think they gave up on that.
I often go to the fall show, go to the winter show a bit less often and now skip the summer show and go to summer FUN instead. When I was dealer I used to go to all three Baltimore shows to walk the floor for want lists.
I remember when New Jersey did that. Really stupid and heavy handed. They might have signed up the dealers on the spot or handed out some warnings. They don't take into account the meal and hotel tax they collected from dealers and collectors. Instead they killed the golden goose forever.
But government is greedy. Now those your who want to censor me for political statements can clear your conscience and do you good deed for the day.
Don't laugh, that might work. It did in my case. My paternal grandmother was a coin collector, but could not get my father interested in coin collecting. She did manage to get me hooked, and my father was very supportive. After my father passed away in 1997, my mother gave me a letter from him and ca. $25K worth of my grandmother's coins, which my parents had been saving for me since my grandmother died in 1983.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
Shows being what they are...may we be seeing a shift in business practice where it is less of a public venue and more about dealer and high end collectors getting what they need first and the heck with the rest ??? just curious.
I always enjoyed Long Beach, usually went on Fridays as I knew Saturday would suck...
WS
I agree with you.
IMO, a coin show of this magnitude should be geared toward the public and make it easy for them to attend. It used to be Fri-Sun before, which allowed for the whole weekend to fit into your schedule. Then whichever day might have been best, being Sat OR Sun, made sense. Now with the show being on a workday, for most people, Thursday and Friday, it only allows time for a majority of the public to attend on Saturday. Aside from that some dealers have already packed up and headed home. The ones that are still there don't usually last throughout the day. As mentioned, PCGS also didn't accept submissions until the end of the show either.
Isn't the point of coin shows to attract business and make the hobby appealing to present AND future collectors? I too have kids and understand completely that if I were to take them on the last day of a show and they had a "not so great" experience, it may be hard for me to convince them to pursue any interest they may have had.
Are these shows just for dealers to do business back and forth with each other?, or are we trying to grab the interest of new and present collectors too...
I myself have been kind of discouraged over recent years from these certain points. Maybe It's just me...
.................Are these shows just for dealers to do business back and forth with each other?,.............
I think you answered your own question. Dealer's actions speak for themselves.
The pardon is for tyrants. They like to declare pardons on holidays, such as the birthday of the dictator, or Christ, or the Revolution. Dictators should be encouraged to keep it up. And we should be encouraged to remember that the promiscuous dispensation of clemency is not a sign of political liberality. It is instead one of those valuable, identifying marks of tyranny.
Charles Krauthammer
It would be interesting to know when (which day) most sales take place. My experience is that Saturdays are filled with tire kickers and people who enjoy looking at coins but very few who are buying much. Long Beach does have an excellent Saturday program for kids including the Treasure Hunt.
Explain to me in one word or less if this show was as exciting as last year?
I still do more business on Saturday with Thursday a close 2nd and Friday far behind Thursday and Saturday. My Saturdays would be even better if 75% of the dealers around my table weren't gone by 2:00.
No, it was not, I primarily go to shows to see and talk to many of my coin friends, > @BillJones said:
I remember sitting with my good friend Bill Paul at the show, who had is lawyer on the phone the entire time, and when a NJ tax man would stop by, he told them to speak to his lawyer, they walked away. He also cover several dealers around him. Bill was not afraid of a fight.
I knew a lot of the coin shops around me in NJ. One was telling me that it was not the tax man, the the NJ forms or something like that, who came in with two state troopers, demanded all sales receipts for the last year, left, levied $15,000 in fines for not being exact on the rules, which they obviously interpreted in the strictest manner, and which they duplicated many times over. Yeah, I agree, why do business there when they are beyond reasonable and they make it difficult to make an honest living. IMO, as you suggest, the right move would be to take an example, show the error, and say do not do again.
Kevin
That is so cool, thanks for sharing, someday hopefully, I will be able to share with my grandkids
When I was researching this subject for a book on coins for kids,
I sent my 16 yo son around Baltimore with $100, told him to go to every dealer, buy what he wanted
3/4 of the dealers refused to show him a coin
I found that if you have kids, smaller shows are much more open and oriented for kids
A few years ago, I proposed to Dave of Whitman that for Baltimore, have a public vote at the show for best kids
dealer, and at the next show, list him in the pamphlet as such. This will generate a little competition to help kids
and also show parents what dealers were better with kids.
The dealer's representative said it was a bad idea as other dealers would be jealous. Kinda laughed on how sad that was.
I tell parents to find smaller family friendly shows if they want their kids to have a positive experience.
Some larger shows such as PAN, FUN, and Central States have many kid focused and friendly activities.
Kevin
Enter any large show. What do you see?
There is no visual excitement, color or interest. Row-after-row of sameness. The promoters have to market the shows and dealers have to sell their products.
I have not been to the Baltimore show in probably a year or two as I am up in Boston
I got there Sat at noon, was shocked that half of the dealers were packing up, many had already left
by around 2ish, half of the tables were empty, by 4ish, about 3/4 were empty.
Kind of surprised, thought there are probably others like me who have to work, and could only get there Sat.
Sad that some of the people I always see there, such as Patti Finner who always ran the Kids Korner were no longer there.
Went to PCGS to submit coins, they were past their deadline for submissions, NGC was mostly empty
Only saw a handful of kids there the entire day, but as a parent, why bother if there are few dealers there.
Show dealers don't do nearly enough to help keep the hobby alive.Kids are the future of the hobby. Too many dealers will let the "other dealers" serve the kids. As a result,hardly no dealers serve the kids.
I would have a "kids only" spot at my table and give hobby related stuff away to kids. Have a wheel they can spin for a free item if modest amount spent. All kinds of things could be done to better serve the YN. My sign at the table would say,"Kids are welcome here."
Coin collecting has turned into largely a big boy hobby. When the big boys move on to the next life who is
going to collect coins?
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
I do not get much vacation time at work nor does my wife. I also frequently work weekends, as is expected in my field.
I don't want to take time off to go to coin shows. I do that once a year for the Friday of the NYINC show, that's pretty much it. I could drive down to Baltimore for the day on a Saturday but what's the point if half the show is gone by the time I get there.
Roger
I remember Baltimore in the 90s, there was a buzz in the show, people excited to be there, the promoters were doing family/kid interaction games such as trivia, whereas the kids would go to different dealers and get clues. There would
be a section for competitions so you could see some great presentations, learn, be interactive. The Mint would do
more than just sell stuff, they would set up coin striking sections and other cool areas. There's a lot they could do
to draw more people in and make it interesting. As some have said here, some of the shows have gone the route of
just a place to do business. Others, such as FUN, PAN, and Central States still follow the old school hobby environment.
That is where I enjoy the most. Seeing people excited to be there, parents/grand parent sharing the essence of the
hobby with their kids/grand kids. I can walk into a large show and feel the difference.
Kevin
Agree, wish someone told me about this, as I would not have wasted the time to drive down from Boston.
Perhaps the majority of business at coin shows is for dealers to buy from each other and the true retail business for them is done via the internet nowadays? I would assert that the slow death of coin shows is a result of the advent of the internet.
"Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
One very simple method is to use several large LED displays outside near the entrance and then more inside. They can show auction lots and viewing, featured dealer content, informative videos, the diversity of numismatics, books and authors, directions, activities -- almost anything that moves, has color and indicates there is "life" in the place -- otherwise it's like entering the Great Dismal Swamp at night.
Also, encourage table renters to install interesting company background materials - stuff hanging from the metal bar where the name signs are and filling the length of the booth. This will cut the flatness of the scene and add visual interest.
Aisle signs should be digital and illuminated -- and much larger than the simple printed things now used.
All this requires a solid marketing plan for the show, inside the show. Right now, all the shows are mostly about logistics -- getting stuff from point to point. This is, in reality, just the necessary background as much as security or restrooms.
The major show sponsors have resources to do this, but it is a long-term depreciating asset. This also requires the corporate will to plan, and make it happen.
Thank you, Kevin, for sharing these thoughts and observations, and for encouraging this conversation. Lots of good ideas here!
Roger, I agree with your remarks on visual interest, and would expand that to include other senses, as well. Here are some thoughts I wrote down a few years ago, following a show in Philly:
Music and Other Sensory Stimulation
One afternoon at the Reading Market Terminal they had a man playing piano in the middle of the dining area—ragtime, jazz, classical, and other songs. It made for a lively and fun atmosphere without being distracting, overwhelming, or annoying. That kind of live background music can pick up the tempo, keep people talking and entertained, like at a party. It gives a sense of movement, liveliness, activity, excitement.
Notice the way people always describe a “dead” bourse: They say “You could have rolled a bowling ball down the aisle without hitting anyone.” In other words, quick visual input is enough to tell someone if a bourse is active or inactive. Why not expand the visual into auditory and olfactory? Upbeat music, the motions and sounds of a live Dixieland band or a piano player, YN pages running back and forth with song requests, “Play ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’!”—the scent of cinnamon buns pumped into the air, colorful balloons, large-screen video displays, etc.—not trying to create a circus atmosphere, but boosting the sensory input so when a collector, immersed and concentrating on a dealer’s cases, snaps out of “Coin Mode” and looks up for a moment, he doesn’t see a dead floor, but he hears music, he sees action, he smells comfort food, he senses laughter and activity, etc.
Maybe this is the way dealers want it to be as far as the shows environment/presentation is concerned.
Dennis
If half of the show is empty on Sat, IMO having stimulations would not matter
Is there a way to offer local dealers to come in for $100 Sat for all of the empty tables?
Kevin
I don't see internet as the death of coin shows, I see internet as an opertunity for coin shows to stand out.
Compared to traditional printed advertising internet is way more bang for your buck, and you can measure results. This does not mean you can advertise on some website and forget all about the printed ads. The reality is we are in a transitional period where the older generation still uses the printed publications but the younger generations will seek out our friend internet.
One way to combat empty tables would be to give priority treatment to those that stay for the whole show. Simple solution, alter your contract, if you leave before (insert time) we can not guarantee your table position for the next show.
Another solution could be give discounts to those that stay after (insert time)
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Hey Alan,
I remember your last Gettysburg show, you had someone with an incredible voice singing the National Anthem before the show, really set the tone for the spirit of the show.
I wound up helping Larry Briggs out there as he had no one else at his table, and we were busy to the end of Sat showing coins. When I see shows like Gettysburg busy all Sat, I am surprised Baltimore is not the same. Perhaps, as someone said
earlier, the majority of business for dealers is other dealers and they can accomplish this on Thurs and Friday, along with
those collectors who can take off during the week.
I did wind up buying coins Sat in Baltimore, perhaps in part to show appreciation to dealers who stayed.
Kevin