The Centrality Report aka my trip to the CSNS Show
U1chicago
Posts: 6,585 ✭✭✭✭✭
Greetings all,
I have read some coin show reports before and thought I'd try penning one as well.
This was my 4th major show, all in Illinois (2nd Central States and I've twice been to the ANA World's Fair of Money when it was in Rosemont). The Schaumburg Convention Center is a nice location with plenty of free parking and easy access.
Going in I had a plan. I wanted to sell some coins to fund future purchases as well as look for anything that caught my eye (like unusual holders, toners, and Perth Mint coins). One of my first stops was with Greg Krill at North Bay Rare Coin. I have been by his table before and he's always fair. He does a little bit of everything: some US gold, some platinum, Morgans, and Modern Chinese Coins. I was able to reach a satisfactory deal and bank some future coin funds!
My next stop was Apmex. From my experiences, they offer the buy price (if available) on their website at the show. However, on their website they usually require one to have at least $10,000 in items to be sold and one has to ship to Oklahoma. At the show one can receive a check on the spot. They are popular among many of the dealers and collectors as the line to sell to them can get long. I had to skip them at first and then check back a few times before their buyer was finally free. It was well worth the wait! The buyer offered me a fair amount and the deal was done. A somewhat funny moment did occur at the table. While I was showing some Lunar coins for sale, some guy (I was never able to confirm if he worked for them or not) kept telling the Apmex buyer that those coins would never sell. He kept insisting, "don't buy, you'll be stuck with those forever." I wasn't too fond of this random guy trying to ruin my deal, so I told the Apmex buyer, "Prove that guy wrong; you'll do well on these!" The Apmex buyer had a laugh at that and did buy the Lunars from me. So random dude, please learn your manners and let the pros do their job!
With those sales complete, I went looking for some toned coins. There were some very eye appealing options, but the prices...high is an understatement in many cases! One dealer had a nice reverse toned MS-64 common date. To me it was a $300 coin. I guessed that the dealer would quote me $400…boy was I off! He wanted $1,200! Another dealer had a monster reverse toner. The coin was raw though. I know not everything needs to be slabbed and raw coins used to rule the day. Heck even in the early 2000s when I started going to my LCS, there were no slabs at all. This Morgan however should have been slabbed. The color was nice and this type of item usually gets graded. At $500, I wasn’t comfortable taking a gamble. Maybe it had come back as AT (artificial) before?
Seeing the high asking prices for these toners, I tried offering some of my own to these sellers. Well, here I got another education! Unfortunately for most dealers, toners are a one-way market. The dealer that wanted $1,200 for his reverse toned MS-64 had no interest in my obverse toned MS 64, even at $400. There was one guy in particular that was the worst offender. I was waiting at his table and a person wanted to buy one of his toners. The dealer looked at him and said, “I won’t even sell that coin to you since I’ll get a record price when I consign it to an auction.” That potential buyer left and I showed the dealer some of my toners. Suddenly his tune changed. “Look,” he says to me, “I have a full case of these toners and I’ll never sell them.” But…but…you just had a buyer right before me who wanted to buy and you didn’t even give him a price! These are the types of people that really get to me. Be honest; don’t lie right to my face when I saw what happened. Oh well, I brushed this off and moved on. Eventually I sold four of my mid-level toners for a small gain (not much at about $15 profit per coin, but I can combine the money from those four and hopefully buy 1 nice Morgan in the future). One recommendation I have for others (if your asking price is fair) is to definitely walk around and show your coins to multiple people. With the four Morgans I received a wide range of offers. Some said they weren’t even interested. Others quoted greysheet or slightly more ($50-$60) for one of my MS-64 toned Morgans. However, by about the 7th dealer, I found the one who appreciated that MS 64 toner and paid a fair $125 (and I’m sure he can sell it for $150-$175 in-hand to a customer as similar toned examples have been bringing that lately at auction or buy-it-now on ebay).
In the end, I only bought one coin: a toned Susan B. Anthony (pictures coming soon). In general the prices were just too high and I can usually do better from ebay or other auction sites. I was still happy since I sold most of what I intended to sell and built up some funds for future purchases. Plus, I met Bob Campbell, who was very kind and took the time to talk toning with me. I’ll definitely be looking to attend one of his seminars at a future date.
A few more things that I noticed:
*I did not find any unusual holders (I did not look everywhere, but still nothing...some common PCI holders are about all that I did see).
*My SEGS experience: I had one SEGS Franklin that I wanted to show to Larry Briggs since it's his holder. Well he wasn't interested. On top of that, he couldn't even tell me a value for it saying that he doesn't deal in that stuff. He did mention he had one somewhere but wouldn't even know how to price it. I realize this isn't his specialty, but I would appreciate it if he'd at least be able to give a value to coins he slabs.
*I saw a few collectors actively buying; one in particular mentioned that he spent his entire budget before even making it around the bourse!
*The spread on gold was interesting. I had a 1/10 MS 70 bullion gold Eagle. Some dealers said it was worth spot (a 70 might as well have been raw for them); some were between 1%-7% over spot. The best offer was 14% over spot.
*I saw bullion (silver, gold, platinum) in multiple cases, It looked like some was selling (buyers taking advantage of a small dip in spot?)
That is all for now. I’ll try to add some pictures to make this thread more exciting. Please feel free to ask any questions or post your own experiences if attending this show. For those that have not been to a large coin show, I highly recommend going at least once. Whether you want to buy, sell, or just look around, the experience is well worth it!
Comments
Needs pix.
Here is my purchase (the photos aren't the best yet):
Here are the free items:
And finally the SEGS coin that Mr. SEGS didn't want.
It looks dcam to me (note: the scratches are on the slab). What do you all think this should be worth?
*I saw a few collectors actively buying; one in particular mentioned that he spent his entire budget before even making it around the bourse!
There is a good chance you were standing next to me
Good show report, a lot of details and I would agree with the majority of it.
I have a PCGS PR69DCAM with similar toning as yours. I couldn't get $20 for it on eBay.
Do you have a picture? Your price seems more than reasonable and I'm surprised it did not sell.
There are all types of people walking on this earth and coin shows are no different; you take the good with the bad and learn who to shy away from. Glad to hear that you got some "walking around" money for your wares. Nice report!
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That is very true! I also realize someone could just be having a bad day, so I'll usually try to stop by their table the following year to give them another chance.
Very thorough report and you certainly seem to have the proper attitude for shopping around coins for sale. Good job on being able to raise some money for future purchases and noting those individuals who left both positive and negative impressions.
Bob Campbell is a good guy. Knows his stuff, and is fair to boot!
Great report with some interesting detail.... Thanks for taking the time to put it all together... Cheers, RickO
” That potential buyer left and I showed the dealer some of my toners. Suddenly his tune changed. “Look,” he says to me, “I have a full case of these toners and I’ll never sell them.”
I sware I was right there when the dealer said that (pretty big group of people around this area), some of these dealers are out of touch and I dealt with a prominent dealer that complained from the moment I started to talk to him.
I always do a quick scan for my main coins and go back and do a serious look see. I got to this dealers table at about 10:30 and he started in that he hadn't sold a coin for the whole show and he will never come back because this show stinks (a half hour after the public admittance). I have bought a few coins from this dealer because he always has a nice group of my series, and this year he a more than ever but the reason he did not do dealer to dealer sales was because he was asking moon money.
Maybe he should have his own show next year.
Rant over.....OOPS not yet.
I asked him to look at a couple of my coins and they happened to be in old ANACS holders and he said "I don't bother with anything that's not graded by PCGS" and I said "I would just like your opinion", he than turned his back on me and started talking to his wife.
Do these people even look at the coins anymore or is it just about the holders?
Coins......... easy to buy, hard to sell.
Thanks for the show report!
Actually coins are very easy to sell but harder to buy if you know what I mean.
I understand your frustration. I've been to enough shows to understand the dynamics at work. Many Dealers fly in to the big shows, rent nice rooms, have living (eating) expenses taxis and the table fees are $1000 or more. They will typically leave their marginal inventory at home due to the limitations of space and transit of inventory so it's reasonable that they ask something over bid for the coins they bring to sell.
Some Dealers forget that they have bills to pay and then quote you $1,200 for an MS 64 common date coin they would sell to a Dealer friend for, say, $200. Then they wonder why they haven't sold anything. It's pretty normal.
Regarding selling your toners. These are hard to come by. Every Dealer in America knows that there are customers for them so the question becomes,,,,,,,at what price. I know a few Dealers who are asking so much for their toners they will absolutely own them STILL on the day they die. Those coins are really the Dealer's collection. My recommendation in those cases it for you to quote the price you want. There is no reason to think that a lowball offer will do the trick when you set the bar.
Thanks and nice report.
@Raybo I know what you mean about Anacs. I had the same experience with that guy and others last year when showing Anacs coins. Even NGC gets scoffed at by quite a few dealers. To me the coin is what matters. A few of my nice toners are in Anacs holders and some in NGC. I am a big fan of the small Anacs and even earlier ANA holders. In fact, I'm trying to put together a mini type set of coins in those holders (i.e. one of each denomination from 1/2 cent to dollar).
No Raybo, I don't know what you mean. Please enlighten me, I may be doing this all wrong.
It was a good selling show for me. Sold Morgan's to Gary Adkins, Pandas to Greg Krill, ancients to Jonathan Kern, exonumia to Paul Cunningham and discussed a couple of southern gold coins with Doug Winter. It was my first time meeting Doug and he sure lives up to his billing. I told him so and thanked him for his counsel. I also sold a cool 1917 off-center Buffalo Nickel to Sullivan Numismatics.
I was able to talk to several currency dealers about confederates, obsoletes, and fractionals and came away smarter for the experience.
The book dealer is always my last stop because I don't want to carry around heavy stuff all show and I added a couple of titles to my library.
I capped it off by sitting in on the Heritage auction for about 20 minutes during which more than $1 million in coins was sold.
All in all it was 8 hours well spent before heading off to give a coin talk to a local historical society meeting. Good coin day!
I actually had a good and bad year at the CSNS, the good is I met some nice people/dealers, the bad is I had a bad experience that I shouldn't have had.
I'll just put it in a nut shell......I left my Walker set along with my 1867 DDO and 1872 2 cent pieces (both AU) in Schaumburg and left with a 1867 DDO in a PCGS 63 and an 1872 PCGS 63 both with green beans and a nice pile of cash.
Did I lose money?.....If I think about it yes I did, most real collectors don't really think all that much about money because it's about the chase and the hobby (the real collectors), and I love it!
My problem came when the dealer acted like I was bothering him, can't stop thinking about it......
I went again today (Friday) and here are a few observations:
*Many dealers had packed up and left by 1PM and even more by 4PM (plenty of empty tables)
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*I saw a cool holder: a Stone Mountain DDO in an MS 62 PCGS Regency Holder...asking price of $2,700
*There was a better date gold Panda in an ACG holder...this is the first Chinese coin I have seen in an ACG holder
*I was able to sell some smaller items (my $15-$50 toned coins)
*I had one dealer tell me (jokingly) that he'd offer $1.51 for my Morgan ($1), Commem (50C), and Lincoln (1C)...I told him sure thing if you sell me that Gold Saint for $20...his partner at the table enjoyed that...unfortunately he wasn't willing to sell me the Gold Saint even at $25 (I'm not sure how soon he'll see an offer like that again
*The Apmex line was still long and Heritage was busy yesterday and early on today (people were selling 100s of coins to each of those two).
*No purchases for me today...again the prices were high (one item in particular that I asked was a grouping of raw 83/84 CC Morgans...likely MS 62/63/64 coins...there was a little toning on the reverse, but nothing special...price=$250 each or $235 per for the entire group, which was 7-10 coins)
*Some of the people with signs saying "buying" or "please offer your coins" are the ones that were the least likely to buy or pay top dollar (not all...some with those signs were more than fair)
Heavy Storms for Saturday ,Sunday 1-3 inch rain .. may have chased some dealers to leave
You sell at a low price than you buy at a high price!
What's so hard about that?
If you do the opposite than you should be a dealer or just call yourself fortunate, that's the way it has been since the beginning of time.
Yep I could easily have sold one of my UCAM Lincolns to a dealer for $10 and then bought one like it for a $100. It's getting the $50 true value that is the hardest (whether buying from someone or selling to them).
The reason I take Thursday off every year for CSNS..... it's a one day show and don't bother to go on Saturday, it's the one day that working people would like to attend and most of the dealers are gone by than.
My guess is half of the vendors are gone by Friday afternoon, they do most of their deals by Thursday afternoon (dealer to dealer) and just go bye bye because the bulk of their business is done by the interwebs........What a rip off!
I miss the "good old days"
Interesting reports following on my first read of this thread.... Such a shame about the early departures... many collectors work and can only get there on Saturday.... Certainly seems to be the complete spectrum of dealers though... some great, some not.... Cheers, RickO
Nice report and a beautiful Franklin at that! It should DCAM?
"Jesus died for you and for me, Thank you,Jesus"!!!
--- If it should happen I die and leave this world and you want to remember me. Please only remember my opening Sig Line.thanks for sharing
One other thing that I noticed when selling:
I try to see what a dealer has before offering something to them. For example, if they mainly have Morgans, then I'll try to sell my Morgan to them. However, I have run into those that say they have too many of that item (even the ones that have the "buying" signs). So I'll show them a Lincoln Cent and they say they don't deal in that area. So they really are not buying at all it seems.
You are doing better than me for offers. I only trade really but I found a dealer that said they were buying and asked if they did any trading "Sure! Let's take a look at what you have". I proceeded to show him my coin and was offered $225 when GS was $585
Needless to say we did not make a deal.
Yes I found that to be the case too. The range of offers, from those that even gave one, was pretty wide. Like I mentioned earlier, a 1/10 gold eagle MS 70 received offers from spot to 14% over (sold). An 1881-O PCGS MS 63 Morgan was from 35 to 60 (sheet is 65...I didn't sell that one since I thought it was too nice to sell for a discount).
I only offered it to two dealers and I received that offer and one just below GS. I probably should have taken it but I had a few other coins so I sent them all to GreatCollections and figured I would find out their true value. 14% over sounds like a pretty good price selling to a dealer.
Make a note not to do any business with that dealer in future
The dealer either sized you up for an easy mark , thought to were desperate to sell ,or thought you didn't know the value of the coin.
Thank you! SEGS did DCAM it
I think it deserves the dcam. Unfortunately dealers at the show saw SEGS and just said no. They didn't really even look at the coin. I believe my asking price of $50-$60 was reasonable. A few said they would pay $60 if it was PCGS...I'm not sure though where one could find a PR 67 DCAM PCGS Franklin for $60 (it looks like ebay prices are at $140-$190 for that grade).
Yep, it all depends on what holder. You know PCGS is "THE MAN"!
"Jesus died for you and for me, Thank you,Jesus"!!!
--- If it should happen I die and leave this world and you want to remember me. Please only remember my opening Sig Line.I was at the show Friday and had a good time. I like going to the local dealers and smaller bargain tables in the back. They actually had lots of raw coins and boxes and books full of collector coins. I bought about 75 coins from a smaller dealer who was super nice and friendly letting me pick through his red 2X2 boxes. It was refreshing finding a talkative, happy, friendly dealer who actually seemed like they wanted to sell me something
90% of my purchases were at this one table.
You can get lucky and find a dealer who doesn't appreciate toning at all and will sell you nicely toned coins for no premium. Fortunately, I know a local one that does. I've found that the older dealers do not really care about toning and prefer blast white, while the younger dealers understand the premium a nicely toned, PCGS slabbed coin can bring.
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Thanks for the report(s)!
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
You happened on one of the dealers that will stay until Saturday and I love these people, the "big" dealers are on their own planet, they could care less about the true collectors.
Have I become one of the later, or is it just a sign of the times?
I'm still looking for one of those dealers. All the ones I know don't pay much of a premium for toning, but they will definitely charge an arm and a leg if they have something.
I once bought a nice toner from one of my local coin stores and it was a good deal at $125 for the color. Outside of that, not much luck.
The tables back by the concession stand where they charge $6 for a soda?
Seems like they throw the dealers without the locking cases and tons of slabs out of the line of sight, you know...... the old school dealers!
I think the ANA should offer a course at the World's Fair of Money teaching selling principles for coin dealers. I am not trying to be negative but I have worked in Sales and taught selling and I think many dealers would benefit from a nice little seminar teaching relationship selling.
Some of those dealers had some really cool stuff. I loved the guy who was selling a bag of Morgans with the black marker on the bag that said something like, "The worlds worst Morgans". Had a great laugh with him.
Some of those dealers had some really cool stuff. I loved the guy who was selling a bag of Morgans with the black marker on the bag that said something like, "The worlds worst Morgans". Had a great laugh with him.
I love those dealers, you know, the dealers that let you get up to your elbows in their coins and don't really worry about it!
I actually had a few encounters where I had well over 20K+ worth of coins in my hands and the dealer had no problem with it, they just turned away and started to look up prices on their laptop, on the other hand a few dealers just snatched them away because I must of looked like a thief, or maybe a terrorist?
I miss the Saturday/Sunday local shows that I use to attend in the past.