The Legend Market Report by Laura Sperber – Legend Numismatics

BALTIMORE IS THE BEST COMMERICAL COIN SHOW THAT EXISTS!

There are NO challengers (on a major coin show level). Even in its hey day, Long Beach never came close to how well run this show is. Mary Counts, Dave Crenshaw, and crew do an unbelievable job. And most important, they are ALWAYS looking to make the better!

If this show is not hard for you to get to-then go to it! Most major dealers are there (its not unusual to see Dave Bowers roaming the isles). Whitman has a tremendous area offering all their products. There is a huge supply dealer. The food is expensive but tastey. B+M runs a great auction. And of course Legend is set up at atable #555 (had to say that)!

PRE SHOW-THE STACKS SALE

Usually these pre show auctions are not the strongest. Much to our surprise, the Stacks sale did very well. It always helps when there is a terrific group of “fresh” coins that come out for the first time in years. They had an exceptional run of GEM twentith century coins.

The obvious note: there was clear separation of pricing between the dreck, dealer retreads, and the fresh coins. The “crackout” players went nuts especially over the copper and the Buffalo Nickels.

We did not see many coins that fell through the “cracks” at the sale. It was a refreshing way to start the week.

PRE SHOW-LOBBY LEACHING

This is a very critical time of any major show. Every one is scrambling to be #1 to get the fresh deals or to make sales for large premiums. Since there is now an added hotel (the new Hiton) most dealers were spread out. At any given time on Wednesday you would see dealers scurrying back and forth multiple times. (more…)

By Doug Winter – www.RareGoldCoins.com

A few years ago, I wrote an article entitled “The Warehouse Theory of Coin Investing.” The gist of this article was that there are certain coins that remain in such demand with collectors that a sound investment theory might be to stockpile attractive examples of these and work with a specialized dealer who could then, over the course of time, resell them to other collectors. A coin that I used as the Poster Child for this was the 1854-D $3.00.

If you had listened to this advice, you probably outperformed the market. There are clearly a small but definable group of coins that have been in strong demand over the last few years and their price levels have risen accordingly. Even in the now-weaker market of early 2009, I think many of these remain in demand and their overall level of value has stayed higher than other, “non-essential” coins.

What are some of the coins that I would suggest collectors put away multiples of in 2009?

I remain a big fan of any coin that has multiple levels of demand. What I mean by this, is a coin that is sought-after by collectors who might not normally be interested in this series. An example is the 1861-D gold dollar. Because of this issue’s association with the Confederacy, there is demand for it from collectors who are likely to never buy another Dahlonega coin of any date or denomination. But this coin is also sought by gold dollar specialists, last-year-of-issue collectors, Dahlonega specialists and collectors who like cool, historic coins, regardless of when or where they were produced. (more…)

Review by Doug Winter – www.RareGoldCoins.com

I’m guessing it’s been close to twenty years since there was a major coin show in a city in which I lived. That’s why I was really excited about this year’s Mid-Winter ANA being held in my home town of Portland, Oregon. Even if the show was crummy, I’d be able to sleep in my own bed. Plus, I could show off my Portland Expert status to friends and acquaintances and rattle off a list of obscure restaurants (Peruvian? Check. Malaysian? Do you want Northern or Southern?) without having to pull out a Zagat’s.

Portland doesn’t have a reputation as a Great Coin Town and to be honest I had very little in the way of expectations for this show, other than it being well run. That’s why I was so pleasantly surprised that it turned out to be quite good.

I have to give some kudos to the ANA. There were articles in the paper about the show, ads on TV; even my neighbors knew there was a coin show in town. This excellent publicity meant that the attendance would probably be good and it was. More on this in a second.

The first day of the show was devoted to wholesale trading and, for me, the action was a little less than my last few shows. The main reason for this was that I didn’t have much generic gold and generic gold remains incredibly hot.

This is a good time to go off on a mini-tangent. With the almost total focus of the gold market on generics right now, this seems like a good time for people who care about legitimately scarce and rare coins to be buying. I had a few dealers comment to me at the show that they are so focused on generics that they are slowing down their “real coin” business. That means less competition for me when I buy and I can focus on coins like New Orleans half eagles and Dahlonega quarter eagles when many of my usual competitors are busy making MS63 Liberty Head double eagles. (more…)