Coin Show Report - GSNA (NJ) Annual Show

[DaveG]

I just got back from the last day of the three-day (Thurs-Sat) annual GSNA show. Although this show is smaller than the monthly Parsippany show (60 dealers vs. 80), it attracts dealers who don't go to Parsippany and floor traffic is a lot less, so it's much easier to get to the dealer's tables. I was told by a couple of dealers that while floor traffic was down in comparison with prior years, there was a lot of wholesale business being done on Thursday and Friday.

 

I had a long chat with book dealer John Burns, who, as usual, had a very nice inventory. We chatted about some books that I haven't been able to find recently, including Overton (he says that he talked to Parsley, who said that he'd be bringing out a new edition instead of just doing a reprint) and Bust Half Fever (John said that there'd be a second edition of this book, as well). He also said that he'd talked to the folks at David Lawrence about reprinting some of their books, including the Fox book on Walkers and their books on Barbers, but they didn't display any interest in doing so. I told John about my Numismatic Scrapbook score, and while he commented that 25 cents each was a good price, he said that he has "tons" of them for sale, including multiples sets of several years - so if you want them, you know where to get them! (I picked up a copy of Marsh's book on Gold Sovereigns, second edition.) John also had a very nice copy of the 1885 London edition of John Jay Knox's book, "United States Notes", with some very nice plates (illustrations of early Treasury notes!).

 

As far as the show went, I was disappointed to see that a couple of dealers weren't there today, including our own njcoincrank and Don Hosier. (I also noticed that Bob Beels wasn't listed at all.) Dr. Saslow of Ye Olde Curiositie Shoppe in South Orange was there, so he seems to be making more of an effort to get out to shows (he also goes to White Plains now).

 

The Mint was at njcoincrank's former table, and even though I didn't talk to their rep, they had a nice display about the new nickels.

 

Doug Bird had a truly awesome inventory of raw coppers, as well as some other early coins.

 

While I was at one dealer's table, another dealer brought over a small stack (8 - 10 coins) of NGC slabs for him to look at. The prospective purchaser was nice enough to let me look at them - 6 or 8 classic commens in high grade and two southern gold pieces. I was really gratified to see that, although the coins were in brand-new slabs, they didn't appear to have been molested at all. The commems looked to have their original skin, including some very light toing in spots - such as an MS-67 Norfolk that looked to have very faint tab toing! The southern gold, a D-mint half eagle in AU-58 and a gold dollar in MS-64 appeared to have their original skins as well. It's very nice to see that not every coin that goes to NGC goes through NCS first!

 

There was the usual mix of inventory, lots of Morgans (although, one dealer had at least 5 1893-S, all in VG or Fine, as I recall). I also saw a lot of Bust dollars, many of them in PCGS or NGC slabs, too! (The prices of these must have climbed high enough that the coins are spending some time in dealer inventories!) Seated dollars seemed to be in short supply, though.

 

As for me, I didn't see that much that attracted my interest, but I did buy an 1827 Bust half in an NGC-45 slab - it has a fair amount of luster peeking through the coin's dark toning.