by Greg Reynolds for CoinLink

On Thursday, Jan. 7, 2010, Heritage’s long awaited Platinum Night event at the FUN Convention in Orlando will include a marvelous array of choice and rare U.S. coins. It is part of a larger auction extravaganza that is held in conjunction with one of the two most important coin conventions of the year, that of the Florida United Numismatists (FUN) organization.

The famous collector Jay Brahin has consigned a select group of Saint Gaudens Double Eagles ($20 gold coins) to be sold on Platinum Night. The most valuable piece from the Brahin collection is a 1927-S Saint that is graded MS-66 by the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS).

Brahin’s consignment is of just seven coins, yet these are particularly significant. These seven constitute his entire current collection of Double Eagles and were very carefully selected by him. Jay reveals that he had “no intention of selling is coins, but I [Jay] am selling for personal reasons that are completely unrelated to coins or coin markets. I would have liked to have held these coins for a decade or more. Coins are art to me, and I am proud to have obtained these coins. I love the thrill of the hunt. Finding the coin is more gratifying than selling it.”

Brahin started “collecting coins as a kid.” He “filled coin albums with cents, nickels, dimes and quarters. During vacations, I [Jay] would work $20 in change several times over in one day, by going back and forth to the bank. Over the period of a summer day, I would go to a bank eight or nine times. It was fun. I loved it. I fell off the collecting wagon, but I never lost my love of coins.”

As a teenager, Brahin had other interests. Later in life, in 2002, Jay returned to coin collecting. He “always wanted to own a Saint when [he] was a kid.” So, he “turned to Saints.” Jay saw “Dr. Duckor’s Saint set on the PCGS registry, which was then blocked from view, but his e-mail address was briefly posted. I wrote to him and said I was an admirer of his Barber Half set; I inquired about his Saints. Later, we talked about the philosophy of collecting.” (more…)

By Laura Sperber – Legend Numismatics

First, we’d like to congratulate and thank Jon Lerner (Scarsdale Coins) putting on one of the BEST shows there is! Jon fought a nasty cold and made sure everything was “just right” for everyone. We also would like to offer a huge thank you to John Albanese and his team over at CAC for donating their time and effort to offer free submissions for the collectors who attended. The Q+A session that John held was heavily attended with many good questions being answered. Legends principle, Laura Sperber is a partner with Jon Lerner (in the show) and is  shareholder in CAC.  It is our goal to make Coinfest into a premier specialty show that is a ‘must attend” for collectors. We are not looking to fill a convention center. We want dealers and collectors to be able to transact in a smaller, beautiful, safe, secure, and intimate setting. Also, we have a huge preference of offering tables at our show to dealers who will attend and want to deal with the public. The big wholesalers who do nothing but “crackouts”, they can stay at the bigger shows.

Things started off very strong when all day Thursday dealers arrived and seemed eager to do business. Wholesale activity in the rooms was moderate to strong (it really depended on what you had). We came in early to see only one dealer. Biz was good, and back home we went.

Friday was true test. The dealers were allowed in at 10. Wholesale in the room again was decent to strong. The real test came at 2:00 when the public was allowed in. Collector traffic in the room was low to moderate. However, the make up of who was there certainly rivaled any major auction with a special collection! A common comment from several dealers was that the show brought in much better educated collectors then a Baltimore or a Long Beach. Of course many collectors were just mulling around until the big event-when CAC starts accepting coins at 10AM on Saturday. We saw several collectors we knew who had flown in just to attend the show. All of these collectors did shop, and many even bought coins. Many new collectors to dealer contacts were made at the show. Our sales to collectors on Friday were very good. In fact on Friday alone, we sold more McClaren coins than we did in Philadelphia (yes, we sold only 4 in Philly-but Coinfest blew that number away in the first hour)! Of course we sold a few coins from our regular inventory as well.
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