Coin Show Report - Parsippany, NJ

[DaveG]

I went to the first-Sunday-of-the-month, 80-dealer show in Parsippany, NJ today. This show is very popular and has been crowded and busy for years. A couple of months ago, they opened a side room to accomodate a half-dozen additional dealers.

 

Today, the show was busy as usual - during most of the morning it was very hard to get down the aisles, much less get to a dealer's table. There seemed to be a lot of buzz in the room and it seemed like a lot of business was getting done. This show always has a lot of wholesale dealers walking the floor, buying from and selling to the dealers with tables. I've started seeing more retail dealers walking the floor recently; today, for the first time, I saw Dr. Arnold Saslow (from South Orange) walking the floor. (He seems to be getting around more - he's had a table at White Plains for the past year or so. I wonder if he'll start taking a table at Parsippany?)

 

I had a great conversation with Jon Lerner of Scarsdale Coins (who posts across the street). He told me some funny stories about the Palm Beach show (most of which he's posted across the street). He had a lot of newps from Palm Beach. I looked at a Pan-Pac gold dollar in PCGS-62, but he wanted very strong money for it. He indicated that these are going for strong money now. (A quick review of the Grey Sheet showed that they've had a very nice upward move over the past several months.) I also felt very fortunate to SNATCH a nice sample slab from him. It's a PCGS 4.1 on Cameron's Sample Slab website.

 

The slab is interesting because it's a sample of PCGS 2.5 (in Conder 101's slab listing), which is the Rattler slab with a border around it and a raised PCGS logo and a hologram on the back. I don't think I've ever seen this slab type before, so I was glad to get it. (Oddly enough, I saw a "production" slab of the same style at another dealer's table unfortunately, it had a PR-64 1941 nickel in it, so the dealer wanted $100 for it, which is more than I was willing to pay for the slab.) On the other hand, Conder says it's a rare slab, so maybe I should have bought it.

 

I also had a great conversation with njcoincrank, who showed me some Mint medals and RW Julian's book about Mint medals. A lot of really attractive pieces, most of which are pretty rare - I may have to get that book and look into getting some medals!

 

Tom Hyland showed me some "bad news" from a collection he had appraised a couple of weeks before: three counterfeit $3 gold pieces, a counterfeit Saint, a counterfeit 1877 IHC and a counterfeit 1916-D dime! He said that the collection was formed many years before and that every nice coin in the collection was either fake or altered! (OUCH!) The counterfeit $3s were struck counterfeits (obviously) and they just didn't look "right". On the whole, they looked nice, but weakly struck on the high points. Also, the denticles on the coin's left side were weaker than on the right. Interestingly, the reeded edge looked good. (I had always thought that the reeding was frequently poor on a counterfeit coin.) Tom thought that the 1877 IHC and the 1916-D dime had been altered from genuine coins. The IHC looked pretty good to my untutored eye, but I could easily tell that the 1916-D dime was "wrong" - the mintmark was of the wrong style and the surfaces of the coin looked "off" to me.

 

Finally, as I was about to leave, I remembered that I had forgotten to look in the side room. Among the half-dozed dealers was Nick Chabot, one of the more recent board members across the street. He's younger than I would have thought, but he has a nice inventory of things you don't often see, including no-motto southern gold - all slabbed! I'll have to remember to stop by and see him more often.

 

All-in-all, today's show was a very good one - busy, crowded, a lot of business getting done. On the whole, there wasn't much that caught my eye, but I'm also keeping my powder dry for Baltimore. (So I may end up buying some of the coins I saw today from the same dealers, only just in Baltimore instead of Parsippany. Go figure!)

[MunkyMan95]

Sounds like you had a good time!

[IGWT]

Nice report, Dave. Thanks.

[DaveG]

I forgot to mention that Jon also said that there are some strong indications that ANACS is going to re-design its new label, so slab collectors might want to acquire an example of what might become a rare issue!

 

 

I wonder, is a new slab considered "modern c*ap"?

[IGWT]

I forgot to mention that Jon also said that there are some strong indications that ANACS is going to re-design its new label . . .

 

I wonder how they ever got the idea that collectors think it ought to be changed

[michael]

great report

[kranky]

Always enjoy DaveG's show reports!