By Laura Sperber – Legend Numismatics

THE FIRST SHOW IS NOW HISTORY!

Yet again we congratulate all of the hard work and fantastic jobs the entire Whitman staff does to make their shows clearly some of the BEST presented in the business. David Chrenshaw, Mary Counts, and Lori Hammrick are people who you can always count on to get the job done. It will take a lot of work, but this new show does indeed have strong potential.

WAS THE SHOW A SUCCESS?

Again, before we give our answer, remember; ANYTHING WE SAY IS FROM OUR VIEWPOINT.

Legend is probably one of the few dealers who did not like going to downtown Philadelphia. Sure, there is that incredible Reading Food Market across the street, but access to the convention center is not easy, we were concerned about crime in the area (sure enough we witnessed 3 people handcuffed and taken out of the show), and there are too many shows around it (either physically or date wise) to make collectors come out.

We DID end up having an exceptional show-however our ONLY activity happened at dealer set up and then mid day Saturday. In between we were VERY disappointed in the public attendance and overall activity. Thursday probably had the heaviest attendance-but that was still “light” in regards to a major show. Even dealer attendance was marginal. Many generic dealers (especially the larger ones) pretty much had STOPPED buying GOLD generics prior to the shows start-which hurt the show for sure (we’ll explain later). We were stumped that out of the 1000+ McClaren coins we brought, we only sold 4 to the public. You certainly can’t say price or the quality were factors (most McClaren coins are PCGS/NGC+CAC’d and priced BELOW $1,000.00).

Our biggest sale to a collector was for a coin in excess of $100,000.00. We generally only do sales like that at FUN or ANA. But that sale came on Saturday via email-the collector had seen the coin Friday at the show. At the same time that sale was being confirmed, we sold a PCGS MS65 High Relief WHOLESALE. We did no other business Saturday. When we added up, our table and agent sales, we did some serious business. However we will not claim this was a great show or a rousing success-it needs a lot of fine tuning. The middle days were very boring and lifeless for us. In all fairness, it was the first show. (more…)

Teletrade, the largest fully-automated telephone and Internet auction company for certified coins, paper money and sportscards, has been named the official auctioneer of the twice-a-year Santa Clara Coin, Stamp & Collectibles Expo beginning with the next show, November 19 – 22, 2009, in the Santa Clara, California Convention Center. The deadline for consignments for the Santa Clara auction is November 2.

[Photo Caption: Ron Gillio, Santa Clara Expo General Chairman, and Irma Kane, Customer Service Manager of Teletrade which is now the official auctioneer of the Santa Clara Coin, Stamp & Collectibles Expo ]

“The timing of the regularly-scheduled Teletrade auctions in conjunction with the Santa Clara Expo will be excellent for buyers and sellers across the country as well as those who come to the show in person,” said Ronald J. Gillio, Expo General Chairman.

“Each Santa Clara Expo is held Thursday to Sunday. Teletrade will close its scheduled Sunday auctions those two weeks each year on the last day of a Santa Clara show. In addition to the usual online lot viewing, bidders will be able to inspect Santa Clara auction coins in person at the show prior to the close of bidding.”

Teletrade conducts three coins auctions every week on Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays.

“All items offered in Teletrade auctions are certified by Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS), Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC), ANACS or Independent Coin Grading (ICG). We have over 175,000 registered bidders, and we are the largest and most active marketplace in numismatics,” said Ian J. Russell, President of Teletrade.
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By John Dale Beety This article originally appeared in the Heritage Blog.

Recently, I was shopping in a bookstore when I came across a most unusual display. Then again, considering this was a national chain, perhaps it’s not so unusual. Close to the shelves of manga (Japanese comics, generally sold in the U.S. as translations bound in trade-paperback format) were a variety of other products possibly of interest to the manga purchaser. I came face to face with temptation, in the form of light breadsticks dipped in chocolate.

I was not stronger than the Pocky. I bought a box to take home with me. It didn’t last the night.

Like many others in my generation, I have a taste for imported Japanese popular culture. Video games and manga are two of my particular vices. I’ve previously referenced my fondness for the video game series Final Fantasy in the blog, but I also pick up the odd manga title, such as Detective Conan, a mystery series featuring a teenaged investigator trapped in a first-grader’s body. (It’s marketed in the United States as Case Closed to avoid entanglements with a certain loincloth-wearing barbarian, but Detective Conan sounds cooler.)

Between my interest in things Japanese and my obsession with coins, perhaps it was inevitable that at some point, I would become intrigued by Japanese coinage. Unfortunately, my level of sophistication is not high; I know just enough to realize how little I actually know! That doesn’t stop me from appreciating Japanese coins in my own peculiar way, though.

I was paging through the upcoming Monthly Internet World Coin Auction and came across the auction’s small but intriguing Japanese section. There are several coins from the Ministry of Finance gold auctions; the best American comparison would be the GSA sales of silver dollars, in that a long-term government holding of its coins was offered to the public, though numerous details (method of sale, etc.) were necessarily different.

One of the visual hallmarks of the Ministry of Finance gold coins was a large-format plastic holder, with a deep red insert framing the coin and a tag with serial number and other information also enclosed. Certain dates and denominations were much more heavily represented than others; the Meiji 4 (1871 in the Western calendar) one yen gold was one of the more common dates, and there are three of them in the auction. Among 10 yen gold pieces, Meiji 42 (1909) was also a year with a large stock sold; there’s one in the auction.

A number of Ministry of Finance pieces can also be found in the Japan section of Heritage’s September 2009 Long Beach World Coin Auction. Why not take a look and see if there’s a Japanese import that interests you?