A Market Report by Laura Sperber of Legend Numismatics
Long Beach was exactly how we figured it to be-hit or miss. Fortunately for us, it was more of a hit, but not a great hit. The fact that gold crashed a during the show did have an impact on business for many dealers.
THE GOLDBERG SALE
This sale was small and had only one attention grabbing small collection-a dazzling group of Proof Barber Halves in PR66-PR68. Many of the coins has gorgeous colors. it was the kind of killer set Legend loves to buy intact. Too bad they did not offer it as one lot! We did end up buying nearly a dozen pieces. Most of the bigger gold coins in the sale were retreads. There was little excitement otherwise. Prices were mixed as the coins sold for exactly what they were worth (meaning if a coin was 90% all there-it sold cheap).
THE LONG BEACH SHOW
Our expectations were for it to be hit or miss. We could tell early on just by the auctions there would not be many fresh coins available. Because of that sense we did not bring any of our NEWPS from the office. We tried hard, but we did not even spend $100,000.00 at the show (we did spend several hundred thousand between the two auctions). Collectors were not even offering us any coins. It was unbelievably bone dry. Typically, at a strong Long Beach Show we will spend $1 million dollars.
Of course we had our stealth selling team operating (4 dealers). We gave each of the 4 coins that we felt fit their operations the best. Their results were startling. Our number one guy had his BEST Long Beach EVER! His activity was non stop from the time he started before the show began. He handles Type and collector oriented coins. Our #2 seller who handles similar coins, did well too. However, the other two who handle primarily gold-SOLD NOTHING! They were both unhappy campers. One told us at dealer set up, the gold guys did not even want to look. Obviously, things never got better. The WHOLESALE we did ourselves, was very strong.




















