Coin Show Report - a little different perspective.
Tade
Posts: 284
We held our 40th annual Coin Show, Salisbury, Maryland last Sunday. It is held at the Civic Center and the local Stamp Show is held at the same facility, but in a different room.
We had 20 dealers and 365 people came through the door. The dealers were doing well from their reports, about $5000 to $10,000 each depending on their items.
The civic center this year banned all food or drinks in the auditorium. In years past, we provided coffee and donuts for the dealers when they set up and had it all day for anyone. Not only did they ban refereshments, they wanted us to pay them to open their consession stand. There was a vending machine outside, but that was all. We are not going back next year.
I spent the day running a State Quarter Contest. For a quarter, you could answer a selection of State Quarter Trivia questions like " If you laid all the State Quarters struck for circulation end to end, how many miles would that cover?" Closest guess recieved all the State Quarters that were used to guess the answer and a holder. The young people loved it.
Then we had the dealers delights. Since our club members were in the center of the auditorium manning the exhibits and contest, we got the first shot at the people looking to sell or with questions.
The first was a guy with an rolling airport bag that was looking anyone interesed in tokens. Then he drags out junk from Vegas as representing wonderful gaming tokens. Following that was a plastic sack of world coins that he wanted $150. One or two coins were worth a few bucks, but the rest junk.
The next was some spook who spent the day looking for mint and proof sets. He was going to buy as "many as possible". But he wanted to pay somewhere lower than wholesale because he was going to buy so many. What a creep.
Then we had the people with the containers and old drawers from a roll top desk that had "valuable" 100 year old coins and wanted to know just how much they were worth. A few bucks for old morgans was not acceptable. We just sent them to dealers.
I have no idea what was hot, except the dealers with sets and modern coins were busy all day much like the ANA convention in the non carpeted "budget" section back in the corner of the auditorium.
The most popular exhibit (Peoples Award) was the display of Silver Eagles. Even though the adjacent exhibit had a single coin worth 10 times the eagle set, people liked the display because it was affordable and looked nice.
The show did not have the rare or expensive coins, it was only small time. And unllike the ANA show, there were no "day trader" collectors who bought a valuable coin from one dealer and ran up the floor to sell it for a profit at an another.
This is a report with a slightly different persective.
Tade
We had 20 dealers and 365 people came through the door. The dealers were doing well from their reports, about $5000 to $10,000 each depending on their items.
The civic center this year banned all food or drinks in the auditorium. In years past, we provided coffee and donuts for the dealers when they set up and had it all day for anyone. Not only did they ban refereshments, they wanted us to pay them to open their consession stand. There was a vending machine outside, but that was all. We are not going back next year.
I spent the day running a State Quarter Contest. For a quarter, you could answer a selection of State Quarter Trivia questions like " If you laid all the State Quarters struck for circulation end to end, how many miles would that cover?" Closest guess recieved all the State Quarters that were used to guess the answer and a holder. The young people loved it.
Then we had the dealers delights. Since our club members were in the center of the auditorium manning the exhibits and contest, we got the first shot at the people looking to sell or with questions.
The first was a guy with an rolling airport bag that was looking anyone interesed in tokens. Then he drags out junk from Vegas as representing wonderful gaming tokens. Following that was a plastic sack of world coins that he wanted $150. One or two coins were worth a few bucks, but the rest junk.
The next was some spook who spent the day looking for mint and proof sets. He was going to buy as "many as possible". But he wanted to pay somewhere lower than wholesale because he was going to buy so many. What a creep.
Then we had the people with the containers and old drawers from a roll top desk that had "valuable" 100 year old coins and wanted to know just how much they were worth. A few bucks for old morgans was not acceptable. We just sent them to dealers.
I have no idea what was hot, except the dealers with sets and modern coins were busy all day much like the ANA convention in the non carpeted "budget" section back in the corner of the auditorium.
The most popular exhibit (Peoples Award) was the display of Silver Eagles. Even though the adjacent exhibit had a single coin worth 10 times the eagle set, people liked the display because it was affordable and looked nice.
The show did not have the rare or expensive coins, it was only small time. And unllike the ANA show, there were no "day trader" collectors who bought a valuable coin from one dealer and ran up the floor to sell it for a profit at an another.
This is a report with a slightly different persective.
Tade
0
Comments
hopefully the next location that is found for this show will be much better...
"Senorita HepKitty"
"I want a real cool Kitty from Hepcat City, to stay in step with me" - Bill Carter
The last I saw of him, he was taking up space in a chair in front of a dealer looking at sets. I doubt he bought anything.
For example, I bought a 1958 proof set for $50.00 which was fair from a fellow member who was selling a few he had accumumlated. This guy thought all my friend's prices were too much, and wanted a better deal. Of course, we sent him to a dealer table. That's what they get paid for.
I like your club's idea on having the public vote on the exhibits. Some exhibits look great.
FrederickCoinClub
Small shows in this area are not having dramatic activity in moderns though it is more prominent
than a few years back.