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Long Beach conclusions: Saturday update

Started by truthteller,

12 posts in this topic

truthteller

truthteller

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Posted

Well, I arrived at Long Beach on Saturday at about 12 noon. Heritage was packed up and ready to go home. Most of the larger dealers were packing up, with several mid level eastcoast dealers already gone. However, the smaller dealers were sticking it out to the end and had customers. I talked to about 15 dealers on Saturday. Most said they sold a ton of coins, many said they bought quite a bit, but not as much as they sold. A sprinkle of dealers said that this Long Beach was above average, but not super. The consensus was that the show appeared strong and dealer to dealer action was great. I found the Saturday crowd to be poor in attendance, parking was at a premium due to another convention. Rates for parking are now $8 a day and entrance fee was $4.00. Quite a bit of money to enter the convention hall.

 

What was very interesting is the consensus that the coin market is linked to economic factors. Most, if not all, dealers I talked to feel the market will continue to roll along so long as

 

1) interest rates are low

2) dollar is devalued

3) bullion remains firm at current levels

 

Myth or not, many feel that investors are "parking" money into tangibles such as coins, but will move out of coins once economic factors change. A large movement out of coins cannot be sustained all at once, and this is the scarey aspect of the coin market. Values of coins are determined with a "thin" overview of pricelevels with absolutely no support, merely speculation. If a large volume of sellers hit at the same time, there is not enough money reserves in the coin market to sustain any type of price support. Dealers appear not to be hesistant to carry a large inventory so long as coins are selling.

 

Many dealers left the show with smaller inventories. A smart move? The collapse of the 1989 bull coin market caught the midlevel dealers offguard, since they had huge inventories expecting coins to sell well. Of course, that led to frenzied selling because of no price supports. I think many dealers are positive about this bull market now, however, more inventory cautious and they are not buying just "anything", but coins they know they can sell.

 

 

TRUTH

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Hoot

Hoot

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Very interesting report - thank you!

 

How did you do in your areas of specialty?

 

Did you you run into the regular So. Cal. crowd from these boards? Did you have a chance to beat up Margulies? insane.gif

 

Hoot

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truthteller

truthteller

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"How did you do in your areas of specialty?"

 

 

Commems were everywhere, mostly trading at market. For some reason, there was an unusually high number of older green tag commems in PCGS64 and 65 in many dealers cases. confused-smiley-013.gif Colored commems were absent, athough I did manage to buy a very nice better date Boone commem with rainbows. A dealer pulled it out of a package before she shipped it to a client. thumbsup2.gif

 

 

"Did you have a chance to beat up Margulies?"

 

I had a Saturday lunch with JamminJ, Gmargulies, Cameron Kieffer. Lots of gossip, lots of coin stories. Greg bought some cool Russian coinage and showed it off. thumbsup2.gif JamminJ bought some nice european coinage. I tried to buy better Mexico, but found asking prices to be quite unsually high.

 

 

 

TRUTH

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jom

jom

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I had a Saturday lunch with JamminJ, Gmargulies, Cameron Kieffer

 

893scratchchin-thumb.gif Avoiding me, eh? I paged you dolts at 2pm. Damn...

 

Anyway, I saw some very unusual stuff. Saturday I went by some high-priced dealer who much have had well over a million dollars worth of coins in one of their cases. They were "Rare Coin Wholesalers" and the coins they had were far from "wholesale" stuff.

 

They had MS65 09-O and 11-D half eagles and another rare date I don't remember AND a 1933 Eagle all in ONE case....ALL in gem. 893whatthe.gif893whatthe.gif

 

The 09-O was the VERY first one I have ever seen with luster in the reverse fields. The FIRST one. Unbelievable. The asking price wasn't too bad...right in my range. The paultry sum of $325 THOUSAND and I'd have one of my dream coins. yeahok.gif

 

There seemed to be a lot of activity on both Thrusday and Saturday...not so much on Friday...although I was only there a few hours.

 

I bought a 09-P Eagle in MS63 and a AU50 (yes, you heard that right) 11-S half eagle. Both are very nice "original" skinned gold coins. After going thru the garbage in the Heritage sale these were a nice surprise. The 11-S was in an old PCGS holder (not the rattler but the other one with the thin font on the label) and it probably grades AU58 today but I had to pay MS money. You just don't see them like this too often...I suppose I could have bought a typical coin for $300 in an NGC holder. Yuck.

 

However, I also need to check the auction prices to see if a few coins I looked out went for well above "sheet"...which I predicted when I saw them...there were a few that stood out...some Eagle specifically.

 

jom

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Hoot

Hoot

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Sounds like you had a BONANZA of a day, jom! thumbsup2.gif Are you going to submit the 11-S for a re-grade or are you simply going to crack it? makepoint.gif Pictures!

 

Truth - how about a shot of that Boone with Rainbows?! I think that all I've ever seen in Boones were basically white. tongue.gif (Not that I've looked hard, but nonehteless...)

 

Hoot

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jom

jom

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Are you going to submit the 11-S for a re-grade or are you simply going to crack it?

 

Me? Submit? BUHAHAHA! grin.gif

 

Probably not crack it. It's instructive to see how the grading has changed since the early 90s on these coins.

 

There was an auction at Superior (when the Goldberg's ran the place) in early 1996 that had a bunch of $10s and $5s in that were graded earlier in the decade. Many of the coins went for MS money that night. I particularly remember an 08-S that was marvelous...it was in a PCGS AU53 holder. 893whatthe.gif Most $5 Indians today in AU holders are garbage...."stripped" (ie dipped) and life-less.

 

Unfortunately for NGC they have a $hitload of these in their holder and it doesn't reflect well on them. Even the dealer I bought this 11-S from mentioned this (without me bringing it up). I must say it isn't their fault as they have no control over the coins submitted to them but there are a glut of these on the market.

 

jom

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JamminJ

JamminJ

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893scratchchin-thumb.gif Avoiding me, eh? I paged you dolts at 2pm. Damn...

 

foreheadslap.gif Lunch was at 1:00 on Saturday, and we wandered out by about 1:20.

 

-JamminJ

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gmarguli

gmarguli

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I had a Saturday lunch with JamminJ, Gmargulies, Cameron Kieffer

 

893scratchchin-thumb.gif Avoiding me, eh? I paged you dolts at 2pm. Damn...

 

Anyway, I say some very unusual stuff.

 

 

You admit that you say very unusual stuff and you wonder why you weren't invited to this lunch. 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

 

 

 

devil.gif

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truthteller

truthteller

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"Truth - how about a shot of that Boone with Rainbows?! I think that all I've ever seen in Boones were basically white."

 

 

It was a nice 1934/35S Boone in PCGS66 with medium pastel obverse color and fully rainbow reverse. The coin comes a mattelike finish, so it was an unusually pretty coin. How does $20k sound? I'm trying to keep in line with the auction numbers. confused.gif

 

 

 

TRUTH

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jom

jom

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You admit that you say very unusual stuff and you wonder why you weren't invited to this lunch. 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

 

27_laughing.gif I meant "saw". tonofbricks.gif

 

Another one of my classic misspellings. Such as using "con" instead of "coin". 893whatthe.gif

 

jom

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Hoot

Hoot

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"Truth - how about a shot of that Boone with Rainbows?! I think that all I've ever seen in Boones were basically white."

 

 

It was a nice 1934/35S Boone in PCGS66 with medium pastel obverse color and fully rainbow reverse. The coin comes a mattelike finish, so it was an unusually pretty coin. How does $20k sound? I'm trying to keep in line with the auction numbers. confused.gif

 

 

 

TRUTH

 

A "shot" as in Photograph, not shot at buying the coin! 27_laughing.gifforeheadslap.gif

 

Hoot

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Gregg Bingham

Gregg Bingham

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>>>Commems were everywhere, mostly trading at market>>>

 

not for the ones i saw...larry shepherd sold 500,000 worth of comems at the show..i got a shot at a few at 5 times sheet and glad to get them...then after going to lunch i came back for a few more and they were gone!!!!!!!!!!classic you snooze you loose...........as far as the auctions

 

a 69,000 lexington in 68

a 58,000 pan pac in 68

a 46,000 roanoke in 68

a 50,000 gettysburg in 68

 

i could go on and on......geez....cash was flying everywhere

 

btw me likee my 69 antietam at these levels

 

 

i know 2 guys who spent 700,000 on commems between them and i was happy to get out for only 43,000

 

 

monsterman

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