By Laura Sperber – Legend Numismatics

Whew, what a show! It by far blew away our expectations. The show itself did the trick, as many collectors appeared, not just the locals, to shop and BUY the coins they needed. Even though GOLD is strong, generics or that area did not drive this show. This is one of the few major shows we have attended in the past year where BOTH retail and WHOLESALE were strong for us.

The attendance of both dealers and collectors was far greater than what we had anticipated. Even PNG day was active. Part of why also may have been the fact there were no major shows in the past 3 weeks (which does seem like an eternity). Most important, everyone’s attitude was upbeat and no one complained about the timing of the show (it wasn’t on top of a show, no religious holiday, tax time was over, etc).

As with all the shows this year, this show was especially dry of great coins. Sure, there was lots dreck around, BUT (big BUT) it seems more collectors were willing to step up and pay strong for real quality. People are appreciating great coins again and they clearly are rising to the values they deserve to be at.

We saw many collectors complain about their hunger for coins. You can’t go out and buy GEM Bust material, great Type, or even something like a GEM better date and higher grade Peace Dollar. There was one dealer we know who was trying to buy for the 5 GEM Morgan sets and who knows how many GEM Saint Saints he is building. We also saw someone who represented a substantial investor trying to spend a few million (yes million) but were totally stymied by lack of coins. Then there were the smaller collectors who always buy a coin or two at a major show telling us they couldn’t find anything. Mark our words prices WILL rise soon.

The CAC market is super strong. We have already seen clear-cut extreme demand and in just about very case, prices are at serious premiums. Every dealer we spoke to who handles CAC told us they sold most of what they had in the beginning of the show. The skeptics and boo birds who tried their best to hurt CAC now are clearly seeing it is a true force in the market and is unquestionably growing each day. (more…)

By Laura Sperber of Legend Numismatics

This was a very interesting Long Beach excursion. We did ok and we even were able to buy a few wonderful pieces.

Like with most shows today, the main events are the auctions. For us, Long Beach started off with some heavy auction sales. For the past few months we had been eyeing the Superior Sale. They had a group of incredible early PR Bust and Seated Dimes that haven’t been on the market for ages. We were determined to buy some-and did. In fact, we were extremely happy with the prices we paid and the coins we bought (yes, we did buy the spectacular 1845 NGC PR67 10C). Over at the Goldberg Auction, buying was much harder. Gold especially brought huge money. We did not buy nearly as much there as we had hoped. Overall, the activity at the pre show auctions was very strong.

During the show, the Heritage Auction just blew everything else away. The amazing Husak Collection of Large Cents realized just over $10,000,000.00 to a standing room only crowd of over 150 people! Many high grade coins in the regular sessions brought amazing record prices (like the 1860 NGC MS67 50C or the 1863S PCGS MS65 10C). Our buying out of those sales was very minimal. Please see our HOT TOPICS article for more information about how we approached the Husak Sale. (more…)

By Laura Sperber – Legend Numismatics

We’re back! What a long and completely exhausting week. Hate to sound negative, but this was not our best FUN Show-or even close. For us, we rate the show as weak. Retail was slow. Wholesale for what we had was very strong (still well off record numbers). Buying was so difficult that we started to look in areas we normally do NOT handle. We had expected a block buster show especially since gold rallied to $900.00 an ounce. We just couldn’t muster up any fresh deals on the floor or find pockets of coins to buy to make things happen.

From our view point, much of the activity occurred at the auctions. For the first time probably in 30 years, we pronounce the FUN show as being disappointing to us.

WHEN AUCTIONS RULED

ALL of the major activity clearly took place at the auctions. The PRE FUN sales were as crazy and challenging as they could be. The quality was mixed while the offerings were weak. It was difficult to calculate whether or not to be aggressive on prices paid or wait and see. (more…)