But in the end, it turned out well, the law of "Reciprosity"

Greetings Collectors,

Yesterday, today and tommorow is Jacksonville Florida's anual coin show. It was a nice sunny day and while it started yesterday, I was tied up with work and made it down to the show today around noon. I do not remember ever seeing such a crowd at past shows here. We were suposed to have around 70 tables but there was close to a hundred. People from all age groups and I witnessed patrons doing nearly zero selling but lots of buying. I was a few people away from a little old lady and man who had 6-8 large "ziplock" bags of silver halves quarters and dimes and as I made my way up to this dealers table, I watched as this elderly couple deposited these fairly heavy bags of coin into a "medium size carry on bag" and walk slowly away. I asked the dealer, "were they selling or were they buying? He replied that "they were buying and that was their second trip to his table". Everywhere I looked I saw more of the same, lots of buying of gold and silver. I stopped at one dealers table who I had bought mint rolls of silver eagles from in the past and he was out. He showed me his list that he had made up to hang at his three tables to show what he had and all of the many assorted dates he had, were gone, sold to one person, who was not a dealer, just a guy and his wife paying cash for a bunch of "silver". I had my heart set on getting one or more of the three rolls I lack from having all the dates from '86 and saw on his list where he had the '95, the '97 and the '98 and several of each 'til just a few minutes before when he sold the some fifty odd rolls to that one couple. There were piles of money changing hands everywhere.

I had brought some duplicate coins to sell or swap and was looking for those silver eagle rolls among other misc. dates and types of coins I needed/wanted. My best dealer friend had a 2x2 box with a dozen or so $10 Liberty gold coins and he said someone had already bought them. There was about 10-12 1907-P's and one 1901-P. all of them NGC MS-62's. I would have liked to have had one to finish off my 20th century gold type set, but it wasn't to be.

I then started to go from table to table looking for a 1900-1907 $10 lib. and saw a few 61's and a few 60's but I wanted a MS-62. I found a nice 1904 but it was a 63 and I didn't want to spend that much. I then came across a table where a dealer looked as if he had opened the glass case and just dumped all these $10 liberties in a pile. I looked closer and saw they were all 1907's but one and it was a 1901. I asked the guy if he had bought them from Emory, my friend and he snapped back, yea, but "the price of poker has gone way up since then". I have never seen this guy before but there was something about him I knew I did not like. There was another dealer sitting on my side of the table going through some junk coins and this guy was looking at me, like "what do want to do?" I then politly asked could I look at the $10's in question and he sighed and fumbled with the glass case which appeared hard to open due to the fact that he had just thrown the pile of "slabbed gold" in there and forced it closed. He gets the case open after 20-30 seconds, which seemed like an eternity to him and me. He grabs four of them, drops one, closes the case and then drops the other three on top of the glass case. I asked him politly if I could see the others also and he snaps back, "I don't have time for you to cherry pick through all of them". By this time I was pissed. He had no right to have acted the way he did and was continuing to act. I then said "well look, I am here to buy a $10 lib. and if you don't want to sell them that bad I would "hit the road". He then becomes more agitated and opens the case back up and gets the ten or so coins out and drops them on the case and then standing there with folded arms and patting his foot says, "now I got to stay here while you go through all these, you don't think I'm gonna walk away with all this gold out on the table?" I at this point was getting hot but I had not seen hardly any other "tens" at any other table so I just ignored his last comment. He then said, well let me count them, and as he stacked them up and started to count out loud, three, six, nine, twelve, thirteen fourteen. I did not even look up, I just started to examine the coins, one by one. I picked out the nicest 1907 and the 1901 looked good as well. As I was looking through the coins this a--h--- is berating the guy two chairs away saying something like "I told you forty dollars, I ain't gonna keep repeating myself to you Carl and then he throws a coin across the glass top and it slides off into this Carl guy's lap and on to the floor. The phone rings and then I hear this guy letting someone else "have it". Meanwhile I am standing there finished with my looking and I'm waiting for him to get off the phone which by this time I could tell it was either his wife/girlfriend or his boyfriend. Anyway he gets off the phone and mumbles something to Carl and then looks at me and says "well? what you want to do. I then say to him " I just wanted to make sure you got all these coins back before I left since you all but called me a potential thief while ago" I went on to say that had he not acted like a jerk to not only me, but to this Carl dude and whoever he was on the phone with, I would have more than likely bought at least one if not two of those eagles. As it is you can put these three, six nine.... fourteen coins back in your case and good luck with whats left of the weekend, 'cause you're gonna need it. I then turned and walked away. This fellow did not have one nice thing to say to anyone about anything. I kinda felt sorry for him, as it seemed like he was angry with the whole world. I thought as I walked away of others that I am sure he came in contact with that would have a negative feeling about numismatics in general. I just hope the contact he had with kids just starting out in our great hobby was minimal. Fortunately all others I came in contact with were the exact opposite of him

I had had such a good time up to that point and this insufficiently_thoughtful_person did everything he could to spoil that but I didn't let it go that far. I then found a really nice dealer who had a beautiful 1905 NGC MS-62 $10 who let me have it for $640 which was $60 less than the previous "golden jerk". It was a short time later that I heard raised voices and looked over to see this same guy having words with someone else. And then a few minutes later he was packing up all his stuff and leaving. Come to find out he had several people complain about him so he just was told to pick up his marbles and go home. Actually I heard it was more like he was told to get his s--- and git.

While this episode was unpleasant, everyone else "hands down" were the nicest bunch of people you would ever want to be around. I am sorry this post is so long but I felt this worth mentioning and I needed to give you the details. All in all the day was a "nine" and I not only picked up the last piece to my 20th cen. gold type set but was able to get one more "old green holder rattler" Mercury dime to go with that set I am building. It was only a MS 65 WITHOUT the "full split bands" but nice and it filled that 1940-S slot 'til I can upgrade it with a full band specimin at a later date. The only other items I picked up were a half dozen one ounce silver rounds. To sum it up it was a very good coin day. One last tidbit of info is that the first 2009 Lincoln cents in the "mint