Coin Show Report - White Plains, NY

Today I went to the four-times-a-year, 100+ dealer, three-day show in White Plains, NY. I've been going to this show for six years and while it hasn't ever been very strongly attended over that time, it hasn't exactly weakened and died, either. Floor traffic was actually a bit stronger than usual today, although there seemed to be more than the usual number of "lookie-lous" and "little old ladies" selling their stashes of silver and gold. The nice thing was that there were more than the usual number of kids, too.

The dealers seemed pretty happy today. A couple reported that business yesterday had been pretty strong - usually floor traffic is pretty quiet on Friday (as most collectors have to work), so much of the business is dealer-to-dealer. One dealer I talked to said that prices on "generic" material were reported to be quite weak and that demand (and prices) for ultra-high-grade modern material was also reported to be weak. He said that he was usually a reliable buyer of Mint Sets, but recently, the guys he sells to weren't buying them, so he's backed off buying them.

There was a fair amount of buzz about the "3 coin sets" and the "reverse proofs", though, but I couldn't tell if it was positive or negative.

While I was at one dealer's table, another dealer came up and offered an ANACS VF (I think) Bust dollar. (From the one glance of it I got, it looked attractive - and the dealer didn't act as if it was an unattractive coin). The dealer behind the table said that he alread had three Bust dollars in stock and didn't want to stock another one, although he would have bought it if he hadn't had the three already. After the seller left, I asked the dealer if it was true that prices on Bust dollars had just gotten to the point where collectors weren't willing to buy them and he agreed. (I looked in his case and his two slabbed ones were priced around $4000.) So, it sounds like there should be some weakening ahead.

One thing I like about this show is that the floor traffic is usually quiet enough to allow me time to sit down and go through dealers inventories more carefully than I get to do in the mad crush at the monthly Parsippany show. I did manage to find a decent VF 1927-S Mercury dime for my Dansco set, so I'm down to about the last half-dozen or so coins. The last few dates are pretty tough to find in decent VF/XF condition, I must say!

Tom Hyland had picked up a whole bunch of large cents (raw and slabbed) and a medium-sized bunch of raw Bust halves. He said that the Bust halves had been eagerly picked through yesterday, but I still managed to find a nice XF 1828 (curled 2 - O-102) for my set.

The high point of the day for me was at Jon Lerner's (Scarsdale Coins) table: a PCGS XF-45 1795 half dime! It was to die for! Very original looking - dark gray with blue toning. WOW!

I also got to flip through the new Dannreuther Varieties of Early Gold book - it looked like the typical high quality Whitman product - big, well-bound, glossy paper, big color pictures. It had two pages to each coin, one page for the picture and one page for Bass' notes and Dannreuther's comments about the variety. Very nice, but I decided that I wasn't that into the early gold coins enough to justify the book.