St. Louis (MNS) Coin Show and Auction, July 22, 2006

[DirtyGoldMan]

Today, I finally made it to the MNS show and auction! If you recall, yesterday's show close early due to power outages, and the auction was postponed until this afternoon.

 

First, the show report. In one word: dead. It was the slowest coin show I ever attended. My Saturday mid-afternoon, half of the tables were unattended. The St. Louis power outages, which as affected hundreds of thousands of businesses and residents probably kept some dealers and collectors away. The out-of-town dealers were chaffing at the bit to leave. If you saw a coin at a table and figured you would get back to it later, there was a decent chance that you would not get back to it.

 

I did find an extremely nice, original AU Charlotte half eagle at a very attractive price and scarfed it up. I also have my eye on a rare Dahlonega gold dollar that I might return to buy when I bring the kids tomorrow.

 

I spent a lot of time with a friend who is an advanced beginner collector, working on a Dansco 7070 type set, with gold. We bought six or eight pieces for his type set including a very attractive 1903-O eagle (where did he get the idea to buy a NO gold coin...I wonder) and a fabulous bust quarter from James Garcia/EarlyUS.com (former Jade partner). He was hell-bent on buying a seated dollar for the type set, but everything we saw (in any grade/price up to about $1500) was [embarrassing lack of self control].

 

The highlight of any St. Louis coin show is to see the cool stuff at James' table. I even made a mercy purchase from James (two actually) for my standing quarter album (below). I also ran into Jaywalker at the show; he managed to do some damage yesterday before the power went out.

 

Now for the auction report. I was prepared to bid on six to eight gold coins, which I had previously viewed in the store. I won the following two:

 

 

 

I have little (read: no) live auction bidding experience, and after winning the second coin, I sort of spaced out, was crunching numbers, and contemplating my navel, while totally missing the last lot that I intended to bid. It was a beautifully original 1860-C XF-40, and it slipped away for way too little (my max was about 25% higher than the hammer price . The lesson for me next time is to try to stay focused. Overall, auction prices for the gold lots I followed were pretty strong. I only won two of six lots that I actively bid.

 

SLQ:

 

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[IGWT]

Thanks for the report! Was the auction well attended even though the bourse was slow? Congrats on your win; I was driven into the ground on my first trip to the auction floor.

 

If I knew you were going, you could have looked at a coin for me, although it would have been a cheap base metal thing.