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…)

By Laura Sperber – Legend Numismatics

Long Beach is a funny kind of show. The past few years we have been complaining how the show is dying-and that was during one of the strongest and longest bull markets we have ever experienced. Today, with a clearly weaker market, the show is starting to thrive again. Even management made an announcement on Thursday that attendance was up by 30% over last year. Go figure…

Heavy Thursday pubic attendance definitely was the big surprise. It was the biggest crowd we remember seeing in 3-4 years. We saw many old friends. People we haven’t seen in years stopped by our table to chat or do some biz. Interestingly, most commented about the rise in the price of gold, the treacherous stock market, and the generally bad economy made them reconsider buying coins again. Also, they almost all felt that prices were reasonable again.

LEGEND HAD A GREAT SHOW

For us, the show action started Wed morning on a dealer to dealer level. The first two dealers we sat down and showed coins to bought well into six figures. By the end of set up we had sold a record 3 coins over $10,000.00 and 5 coins over $25,000.00! Wholesaling remained very strong for us through the closing of the show Thursday. We did a little bit on Friday and left early Saturday (yes, we are guilty-but we had been out in LA a full week already due to auctions). All the sales were a complete surprise as we had expected very light activity.

Selling for us may have been made easier by the fact we had many fresh, high grade, and rare gold coins from the extensive LV Collection of Gold Rarities we are exclusively handling. Dealers clearly wanted gold. All the coins over $10,000.00 we sold were gold rarities. Interestingly, none of the coins we wholesaled were “crackouts’ yet we were able to sell them for strong premiums.

Retail wise, our sales were good. There too, most sales were for better gold coins.

THE 2009 CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH

Of all the shows we attend, no other seems to have as many ‘gold bugs” as the Long Beach Show. This show they clearly came out in force. These collectors, investors, or whatever you like to call them are amazingly loyal to the gold market no matter where it is at. On Thursday of the show spot gold jumped to $960.00. The floor was just littered with “gold bugs” looking to buy. If you had any decent selection of gold (generics, rare pieces, whatever) you could have sold them! From our point of view, we did not see price as an negative or obstacle with the buyers. (more…)

By Doug Winter – RareGoldCoins.com

It’s been a longstanding tradition of mine to write a What’s Hot/What’s Not blog a few times a year. The last time I did this was, I believe, around the beginning of 2009. A lot has changed since then and, as we head into the summer, I’d like to share my thoughts about the coin market in general and United States gold coins to be more specific.

In the past, it was always very easy to discuss those areas of the market that were “hot.” But with the current economic situation, it probably makes more sense to discuss what’s “not in meltdown mode” instead of what’s doing well.

I’ve been pretty surprised at, all things considered, how well the market has held up. When you consider that most people’s 401k plans are down 50-60% since September 2008 and that many people’s homes have lost 50% or so in value….the losses that we’ve seen in many parts of the coin market aren’t looking quite that bad.

Let’s take a look at a few specific areas and see how they are holding up and what my forecast is for them in the immediate future. The first is early gold. I would have to say that the early gold market has held up far better than most other areas in the coin market. Prices are down around 10-20% for the most part but demand for early gold remains strong and many early gold coins remain quite liquid. The biggest change I’ve noticed in this area of the market is related to quality. If an early gold coin is very nice (nice enough, in this case, to have received a CAC sticker) it is a reasonably easy sale even in this market. I think this is especially true with coins in the $5,000-20,000 range. The more expensive early gold issues are harder to sell right now, even if they are very nice and/or very exotic.

One area of the early gold market that seems to be experiencing a noticeable price correction is the Capped Bust Right Heraldic Eagle ten dollar gold type. I think this is very understandable when you consider that these coins got very pricey in the past few years and that many of the ones in third-party holders are just awful. (more…)