Market Report by Laura Sperber – Legend Numismatics

This is a very difficult market report to write. We know what we did, what kind of business others did, we participated in all the auctions, yet we can not pinpoint exactly what is happening or where the market is headed. We also do NOT want people to think we are presenting hype.

From what we see, this may very well have been the BEST ANA Show ever in terms of business transacted overall, the strongest prices realized at the auctions, incredible displays, and from what we can see, strong attendance. All that created what we felt was a tremendous “buzz’ and nothing but positive attitudes. None of the dealers we spoke to had a bad show. All the tables seemed very busy most of the time the show was open. We know from start to finish we did an awful lot of business.

We arrived late to show. This year, we skipped all PRE ANA activities and only was at PNG day for an hour or two. Of course we were itching to make some sales. The first dealer we saw not only spent six figures with us, but bought a six figure coin without any chisel other than some terms. Not totally unusual, but its the kind of thing that when you have that happen at the very start, the rest of your show is usually kaput. Fortunately, we sold a lot to the next dealer we saw that day as well. From that point on, we never stopped selling.

The one thing we absolutely could not do-buy. Our purchases at this show are the lowest EVER for an ANA and possibly the smallest EVER for ANY major show. As of 5 PM Thursday afternoon, we had spent LESS than $100,000.00 on the bourse floor. Our buying at the auctions was substantial-but still below the levels we wanted to be at.

It has finally happened, the market is out of coins-sort of! If you wanted a junky widget-they were still around. You could not go out on the floor and buy a GEM Bust Half, a GEM early gold piece, an MS65 28S Peace Dollar, a GEM 1877 MS Indian, or that long sought after non 1926/1932 $10 Indian we still need in GEM. All the good stuff now either gets put in the back of dealers cases or gets thrown in the auction. We put out a $20 1870CC PCGS XF40 CAC piece late morning Thursday. An hour or so later, not only did we have it sold to a collector (it worth in excess of $300,000.00), we had THREE other people who were willing to commit to buy it (with two of them actually hovering behind the collector) as he was buying it. We sold several six figure coins Thursday (including a $1 1863 PCGS MS66 and monster 1891 PR set in which all the coins we PR68’s). (more…)

Morphy/Legend is proud to have been selected to sell the following collections:

• The 3 Aces Collection
• The NYS Collection
• The Norwood Collection
• The CA $2.5 Gold Collection

Each of these sets was assembled by long time collectors. Their goals were to blend the finest quality with terrific eye appeal. Of course rarities abound.

“With each sale now, we are seeing more interest both in terms of consignments and bidders. We knew it would take a while for us to break in and be a truely respected auction house, however that movement is going much faster than we anticipated” said Laura Sperber CO-partner.

Many exciting coins are included in this sale. Highlights are:

• H.01 1795 NGC MS62BN NYS
• H.10 1833 NGC MS67* NYS
• 10C 1859 NGC PR67 ULTRA CAMEO NORWOOD
• 10C 1895O NGC MS64 3 ACES
• 25C 1818/5 NGC MS65
• 50C 1822/1 NGC MS65 NYS
• 50C 1836 50/00 NGC MS66PL NYS
• 50C 1952 PCGS PR67 CAMEO
• $1 1795 FLOWINGHAIR NGC XF40
• $1 1878 7TF REV 78 PCGS MS65 DMPL
• $2.5 1839C NGC MS60
• $2.5 1908-1929 PCGS 63/63 SET CA INDIAN COLLECTION
• $5 1909 PCGS MS66
• $20 1857S PCGS MS65

(more…)

By Laura Sperber of Legend Numismatics

Legend is not used to failure, but publicly we will admit we have in two cases. No, its not in our forever fight to rid the business of coin docs (the services are gaining the upper hand in that fight). We blew it on two simple requests from new customers.

One said he’d like a beautiful GEM MS $10 Indian (non 26 or 32), the other requested we help in building a PR65 Barber Half set. These requests were both recent, and we have only found 2 coins for the Barber set and can’t find that elusive $10 Indian.

Even with all the access we have to coins and with all of our high power connections we can’t locate these coins in NICE condition. We’ve seen a small handful of junky $10 Indians and we weren’t presented with many opportunities on the Barbers. It seems most of the really nice pieces are in solid collector hands. Our standards are strict, but not so insanely strict as to miss the ‘right” pieces. It’s not like we can find numerous pieces being offered of even junk-nothing is out there. Do NOT be fooled by higher populations-remember there are regrades, crackouts, and possibly far more people collecting than what is graded.

We want collectors to take note of our failures not because it gives the chatroom weenies something else to ridicule us about (which they like to do by mere mention of our names), but because we believe it sends a powerful message as to what is NOT out there and the potential of where the coin market could be heading. These should not be hard coins to find-yet today they are. Routinely in our Market Reports we tell you how dry the shows have become. Here we prove this by our failure to secure the $10 Indian and buy several Barbers for the set we are building.

What does this really mean? PRICES WILL HAVE TO GO UP! These coins, just like all the others we are searching for won’t appear unless prices get stronger. This is why when you see a major auction and it has FRESH high grade pieces-they are ALL selling for multiples of what you think they are worth. In cases of true high grade rarities, published prices are bunk and should NOT even be printed (that’s a whole other subject we will get into at a later time). (more…)