THE PRE ANA SHOW

There was a private (invited dealers only) Pre ANA Show held in Beverly Hills. It consisted of about 30 major dealers or their representatives. The show was VERY strong. From set up until the guards asked people to leave Sunday, activity seemed to be non stop. Since it was a smaller venue with less people than a typical ‘pre’ show, everyone in the room had a spirit of doing business with each other (something we used to see when the services held the “trade and grades”). There definitely was a strong and positive “buzz” in the room that had everyone psyched for the upcoming ANA show.

Thus, it was easy to realize premium prices at the pre show. One well known major buyer attended solely to purchase. We know for a fact, this buyer spent $2,000,000.00 there and then left for vacation skipping the ANA Show completely. ALL of the coins he purchased were sold back home. Another major buyer who was at the show also was extremely aggressive and probably spent close to the same amount. The important thing to note-is that the majority of these coins are gone from the market-they were not to be seen floating around ANA or in different holders later.

THE PRE AUCTIONS

Stacks and Heritage each held sales during the pre show. It did not matter who was holding an auction so long as they had fresh, original, and really rare coins for sale. With a severe lack of supply, any coin that fit these categories brought exceptionally strong money.

Stacks had no major collection. So they had mixed results. Still on selected coins (even retreads) that were rare and decent, many people found themselves being out bid! Our major purchase at the sale was the copper J-84 for $356,500.00. The majority of coins we bid on, we surprisingly lost!

Heritage had a few pockets of fresh coins along with the Louis Bassano Commem Collection. We did sell Lou a few coins and were thrilled his coins sold for crazy money.

As always, we were totally frustrated at the Heritage Sale. They continuously realize remarkable prices. One coin we wanted badly was the $2.5 1864 NGC AU53. Any student of $2.5’s knows these are rarer than 54S’s (we weren’t close on our bid on the 54S either). We left a what we thought was a stupid high book bid of $29,900.00 (Platinum Night also happened to be the night we decided to fly to Giants Stadium and see a great AC/DC concert). Sure enough, someone outbid us at $32,200.00 and got the coin. There was no price guide even close to reality for the date-still not many coins bring $30,000.00 in AU! Besides being jealous of the new owner of that coin, we were blown away on 75% of the bids we had left that night. At least we got to see one heck of a concert (the AC/DC guys are in their upper 50’s, early 60’s and may not tour again).

At either sale, we did not see or hear of many coins “falling through the cracks” or selling ridiculously cheap-even if they were retreads. Its just there was little to be really excited about.

THE ANA SHOW

To start, please read our Hot Topics article about the location and other issues with the show.

Coming off a highly successful pre show and month of July (retail wise), going to the ANA Show to do business was like hitting a brick wall face first. We knew it would be rough when we were upstairs the day before and looked out on the bourse realizing it was an illusion. Dealers had bigger corner tables, but there really were fewer dealers than normal set up. As we mentioned in the HOT TOPICS, we do NOT blame the CA economy or the overall economy for the weakness of this ANA Show. It was the ANA themselves that loused it up by putting it in the most miserable inconvenient venue possible.

PNG Day always seems to kill off any possibility of an ANA Show starting strong. By restricting dealing to exclusively ONLY PNG members, it cuts down attendance and keeps other dealers away. Legend Numismatics thinks PNG day is an insult to us (we quit the PNG years ago now) and to every other dealer who does sell nice coins and works hard. Why the ANA lets this group piggy back on its only successful show is beyond us. If the PNG wants to show off how great they are, get their own damn show (and throw out the coin docs who are suspected to be members). They’ll learn real quick their nose up attitude yields few real results in the coin market (FACT: no PNG ONLY Shows on their own have ever been major successes). So PNG day everyone left basically saying yeah, it was typical, ANA will be better.

When the ANA Show finally opened its doors, only a small group of collectors had gathered to enter. Initially, there was a small buzz, but that died quickly after the first hour or two. For us, activity came in spurts. At the shows opening in the first 15 minutes we sold just over $100,000.00. We thought WOW, this is going to be far better than we expected. Of course reality set in and it became exactly what we expected-a grind. It is always interesting that activity for us seems to pick up between 3-5 PM. We probably did about 15 or retail sales during the show-a small number for us.

Legend overall did VERY strong business at the ANA Show. We knew via the demand we had seen at home exactly what the market craved-better GEM CAC’d gold. We came in loaded. Selling the stuff was easy, replacing it was impossible (even if you bid strong in an auction). One other interesting note: besides attendance being light, no collector came by to us and offered anything cool for sale. Overall, the bourse floor was major league bone dry of nice coins. You had to carefully pick through a lot of retreads that finally were starting to come down in price.

We were very fortunate that simply by asking or in one case another dealer knowing we are building a certain set, we bought two ultra cool coins privately: a $1 1798 PCGS MS65, and the famous Eliasberg $1 1891CC PCGS MS68PL (and old friend-which we bought right out of the 1997 Eliasberg Sale for $121,000). The 91CC is also considered by many to possibly be a proof. These were the only bigger ticket coins we bought at the show. The cost of both combined was well over $500,000.00.

Late Thursday we were starting to hear many complaints of dealers having weak ANA Shows. Many dealers had dreck, retreads, or coins priced to the moon for no reason. If you got out on the floor and hustled, you could have made some money. Take our word on this, the dealers who bought at PRE, were NOT anywhere near out of money! They simply found no cool coins to deal in. At least gold held up strong during the show and a serious amount of generic gold activity took place.

Now that the PRE and ANA Shows are history, the tell tale sign of market strength will be tested in the next 2-3 weeks. These are typically the slowest months of the year. We do anticipate most current buying will take place on the Internet. All we know is what we have done all summer-and that is a tremendous amount of retail. Attendance at the ANA show was unquestionably pathetic-something we do NOT blame on the market (again, see out Hot Topics).

WHAT WAS HOT

CAC BETTER GOLD, OR CAC’D GENERIC GOLD IN DENOMINATIONS OF $5 OR MORE! We do NOT consider Commems hot as we did not see multiple dealers searching for any. PR 64 Type was strong. Rare GEM Morgans and DMPL’s were strong-we saw several deep pocketed buyers for them. Because there were so few neat coins around it was hard to determine what was really hot.

WHAT IS NOT HOT?

Bufflao Nickels and Merc Dimes seem dismal. Patterns seemed a bit quiet as well. MS and PR Seated coins were quiet too. And of course all overgraded dreck could not find buyers at any price.

Market Report by Legend Numismatics

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3. Legend Numismatics Baltimore Coin Show Market Report
4. THE BALTIMORE SUMMER SHOW – Legend Market Report
5. Legend Market Report – Sept. 08 Long Beach Show
6. THE FUN SHOW 2008 – Legend Numismatic Market Report
7. Legend Numismatics Market Report: The Fun Show
8. Legend Numismatics Baltimore Spring Show 2008 Market Report
9. THE SPRING CSNS SHOW – Legend Numismatics Market report
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