Local Coin Shop Observation
MJPHELAN
Posts: 801 ✭✭✭
I have noticed that my local shop's inventory of key coins has really dropped lately (last year or so). The owner told me that most of their business is in gold bullion now. They rarely get a collection where there are key dates in any condition to sell. Has anyone else seen this trend at the local level?
Mark
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Comments
One local shop owner told me he couldn't stay in business without ebay.
i guess it really depends on what you consider to be the keys and what series you're talking about. certain stuff that's always been hard to find is still that way while other stuff like 1909-S VDB Lincolns are surprisingly easy to locate. for me it's a double edged sword that cuts both ways. keys and nice coins are appearing like never before due to high prices while at the same time they seem to be dissappearing just as quickly. do a search at eBay and you'll find most of what we'd consider keys available while the truly rare(and i mean rare) stuff isn';t available and hardly ever is, even in a down-market.
<< <i>last week i was in the shop helping out and a vest pocket dealer came in. conversation eventually got around to the 1932-S Washington he bought but wasn't sure of the MM. the dealer said he had one too and also wasn't sure about the MM on his coin. a comparison settled....................nothing, since both MM's were the same. either they were both fake or both genuine. my point; i only found out that either guy had the coins because i happened to be there when they discussed them. if you don't ask you may never know stuff is in a dealers inventory, and even when you do ask you may not know since stuff is often held.
i guess it really depends on what you consider to be the keys and what series you're talking about. certain stuff that's always been hard to find is still that way while other stuff like 1909-S VDB Lincolns are surprisingly easy to locate. for me it's a double edged sword that cuts both ways. keys and nice coins are appearing like never before due to high prices while at the same time they seem to be dissappearing just as quickly. do a search at eBay and you'll find most of what we'd consider keys available while the truly rare(and i mean rare) stuff isn';t available and hardly ever is, even in a down-market. >>
Any decent size coin show will probably have a fairly wide variety of 1909-S VDB Lincoln cents available but try finding a decent VF or XF
Barber quarter of any date. In this case "scarce or downright "rare" would carry more clout than "key date" as far as acutally finding
what you are looking for.
The local dealers still get some material from the widows. A few weeks ago I was in a local shop when an older woman and her daughter came in. I was just exiting the store and they asked if I would help them carry in some coins from their car. The dealer and his assistant heard the conversation and nearly knocked me over as they rushed out to help the lady carry the coins in. I'm quite sure they didn't want to give me a chance to say something like, "Make sure you get more than one offer." I have no idea what the lady actually had for sale.
<< <i>i guess it really depends on what you consider to be the keys and what series you're talking about. certain stuff that's always been hard to find is still that way while other stuff like 1909-S VDB Lincolns are surprisingly easy to locate. for me it's a double edged sword that cuts both ways. keys and nice coins are appearing like never before due to high prices while at the same time they seem to be dissappearing just as quickly. do a search at eBay and you'll find most of what we'd consider keys available while the truly rare(and i mean rare) stuff isn';t available and hardly ever is, even in a down-market. >>
Well said. I have a couple automatic searches on ebay and they almost never hit. And on the off chance of a match, the coin listed is some problem POS. Some coins are rare in terms of a popular series, like lincolns. And some coins are rare in absolute terms.