Coin Show Report - Parsippany, NJ

[DaveG]

I went to the First-Sunday-of-the-Month 80+ dealer show in Parsippany, NJ today. As I've often written, this is reputed to be the best one-day show in the country. It features a wide range of material and a lot of collector traffic. It also draws a number of large dealers, including a few who are nationally known.

 

Today, it was a busy show. Perhaps not quite as busy as last month, but it was still hard to get down the aisles.

 

As has been usual lately, I spent most of my time at the show talking to ATS boardmember njcoincrank, so I only took a quick turn around the floor.

 

Jon Lerner (ATS boardmember scarsdalecoin) had a lot of nice material today. (He said he brought the "big show" inventory instead of the "small show" inventory.) What did he have? Well, he had a half dozen or so old-tenor half eagles, including an 1818, all in PCGS slabs and many in MS grades. He had a PCGS slabbed Chain cent and he had a lot of other nice things, too. He was also showing off a UHR. I must say, it was in a pretty da*n fancy wood box! In fact, you could barely see the coin for the box.

 

I was also worried, because Jon seemed to be offering lemon drops instead of his usual Tootsie Rolls! I was most distressed, until he revealed that the Tootsie Rolls were under the lemon drops (being saved for their favorite customers). Jon usually gets the flavored Tootsie Rolls, which are unusual and therefore, usually go quickly.

 

Tom Hyland had a number of nice new acquisitions, including a lovely toned 1874 Seated Half in an older ANACS XF-45 slab. I asked why the coin was still in his case (at 10:20) and he said that no one had even looked at it. So, I promptly went over to Pete (a fellow NJNS member) and smacked him and told him to go buy the coin, which he did. The coin had some nice blue tint on the obverse and a lovely ring of blue toning around the periphery of the reverse.

 

I only stopped by Larry Greenstone (ATS boardmember SeaEagleCoins)'s table briefly, as he was very busy, but he had some nice Bust halves in addition to his usual inventory. When I was there he had a customer who seemed to be in the midst of a multi-state run of coin shows (perhaps he was acquiring new inventory?).

 

Like last month, njcoincrank had taken a table and had two display cases. One (purely for display) had several finest-known counterstamped Stone Mountain commemorative halves, reprints of two articles from The Numismatist and a recently discovered certificate that accompanied the auction of a counterstamped half. njcoincrank said that the certificate was unknown to the numismatic community until it appeared at a coin show a couple of months ago.

 

While I was talking to njcoincrank, a couple of relative novices stopped by the dealer at the next table and he was asked to consult on a coin being offered - a cleaned Bust dollar that the owner had bought from a "home shopping" show in 1990. Apparently, the owner had paid about $5700 for a $3000 coin, but he has now been bailed out by the passage of time and the big rise in the prices of Bust dollars. He was advised to get the coin slabbed prior to any sales attempt, but that he might very well be able to sell it for twice what he paid for it. (Sometimes, bad stories do have happy endings.)

 

Today was a somewhat light day for seeing fellow New Jersey Numismatic Society members - I only saw five. If you're interested, our next meeting is in Madison, NJ on March 16th, when njcoincrank will speak about "Coin Glass", which is table wear (platters, pitchers, etc.) that incorporates pressed glass images of silver dollars (mainly Morgans) and half dollars.

 

Coin Glass was originally manufactured by the Central Glass Company of Wheeling, WV, for five months in 1892, before production was shut down for fear of potential counterfeiting. (Coin glass featuring images of Spanish coins was also manufactured in the 1890s.) Modern Coin Glass was manufactured from the 1960s until 1986 by the Fostoria Glass Company, although their glass features less accurate images of Morgan dollars, for example.

 

[BillJones]

I lived in New Jersey in the 1970s and used to go to the Parsippany show on a regular basis. I had to move for a job to New England in 1979.

 

There used to be some nice coins at Parsippany show, but rarely anything like the stuff you mentioned here. I guess the good stuff has migrated from the New York City shows. Shows like the Grand Central and others used ot be the source for high end coins.

[Houston Investor]

Very interesting show report. Certainly not the typical small show. Looks like its evolved into a major. I would have loved to have purchased that 1874 half - sounds like a keeper.

 

I never hit the PPY show but wish I had. I used to travel to Jersey on business (company HQ located there) about once a quarter and to hookup with a woman I met on the net which made the trip all that more interesting as we really hit it off when we met after a couple months of just chat (people back at work amazed I wanted to take all that vacn time up there after the business meetings ended ). This was a little over ten years ago and have not been there in awhile. The last I heard of her is she moved to Florida along with her husband and kids. I had some really great times with her (during that 3 year period) when I could get up there but it was simply too far to maintain a relationship once the business end of the travel ceased.

 

I did make out to the Sparta show a couple of times - Lake Sparta on the Boardwalk. Acquired some nice material there. I liked the parsippany area especially the running trail in Mountain Lakes, a neat place to run. I was also a regular diner at Fudd Ruckers and dined once at the Empire Diner but turned off by the atmosphere (are some of those folks like in the mob?). I also made to a show in Camden - Garden State Show on one occasion. Got turned around on way back to PPY and found myself in Pa after crossing the Palmira bridge.