More than 500 U.S. and world bank notes will be offered in the Official Auction of the American Numismatic Association World’s Fair of Money® conducted by Bowers and Merena Auctions at the Los Angeles Convention Center and online, August 2 – 8, 2009.

One of the many highlights is an 1870 $100 Gold National Bank Note, San Francisco Charter #1741, The First National Gold Bank (Fr. 1162), graded PMG Fine 12 Net (restorations).

“This classic rarity is one of only eight notes of this type in private hands, and one of three of this Friedberg number. Those others are in strong hands and not likely to become available in the foreseeable future. In fact, only three examples have been offered for public sale in the last decade and the latest example, nearly identical to this one, sold for $258,700 in 2007,” said Steve Deeds, President of Bowers and Merena (www.BowersandMerena.com).

“With collectors holding tightly to the others, we’re not sure when there will be another opportunity to acquire such a rare and elusive note.”

Three other 1870 National Gold Bank Charter #1741 notes are also being offered, $5 (Fr. 1136) PMG VF 30, $10 (Fr. 1142) PCGS Apparent VF 30, and $20 (Fr. 1172) PMG Very Good 10 Net. (more…)

By Laura Sperber – Legend Numismatics

Well its not really the summer just yet, but by the way this show was you’d think it was the middle of July!

As always, we have nothing but great things to say about Mary Counts and David Chrenshaw (of Whitman Publishing) and staff for unquestionably putting together a great show. They have everything well organized for both dealers and the collecting public. They have made the Baltimore Show a “must attend” event for everyone.

WAS THE BALTIMORE SHOW HOT?

Sadly, this show was not to be one of their best. We do NOT hold Whitman at fault. It was more market factors and timing (Long Beach was less than 2 weeks ago). Not very many national level dealers attended (many West Coast dealers stayed home). We did not hear of many dealers having even good shows. Our show overall ended up better than we thought-but we were very disappointed in our retail sales. Better gold coins in MS63 and higher made up over 75% of our sales.

Not many dealers had expected this to be a good show. Typically when that happens, the show usually turns out ok. This time, it did not. The strongest activity occurred BEFORE the show with dealer to dealer WHOLESALE. Once the show opened for set up-things immediately died down. It seemed many of the dealers in the room simply did not want to buy and were more intent of selling and raising cash. However, they seemed to be “stuck in mud” because they refused to face reality and sell their coins at the new market levels. Thus activity stalled out. We had never heard so many dealers moaning that they had sold NOTHING as of Saturday morning. (more…)

By Doug Winter – RareGoldCoins.com

I have generally sworn off writing show reports as, to be honest, they are as boring for me to write as they are for you to read. At this point, I figured I’d do reports on the Big Two shows (FUN and ANA) and leave the other reports to my fellow Bloggin’ Numismatists.

The recent Long Beach show, however, was interesting enough that I thought it required a little bit of ink.

As you may or may not know, Long Beach is a show that I’ve come to dislike in recent years. It’s become very slow from a business standpoint, I’m not crazy about the way its run and, quite frankly, if I hear them playing the Oldies soundtrack one more time I think I will rip out my inner ear canals.

But this Long Beach seemed a little bit different. Dare I say it actually had a bit of a buzz (?!?) and I think the crowd at the show, at least on Thursday when it opened to the public, was as large as any Long Beach that I can recall going back to the 1990’s.

Why was this Long Beach different from the last edition(s)? My guesses would be three fold. The first had to do with the fact that gold has risen around $50 in the past few weeks. There are a lot of bullion/generic buyers in Southern California and a strong gold market always seems to bring out these buyers. The second is better publicity. I don’t know this for a fact but I would assume that the show promoters tried something new to get buyers through the doors and it worked. Attendance was reported to be up by at least 30%. The third is renewed interest among collectors who have been on the sidelines for the last few years. (more…)