By Laura Sperber

We can debate everyone’s different market reports. This report is written solely on how the principals of Legend Numismatics witnessed the show to be. We primarily deal in higher grade rarities and gold, so those are the areas we are reporting on. From our point of view, the Baltimore Show was definitely an “on” show.

About a week ago (when dealers like to call each other because of nervous energy about how a show will be) we predicted Baltimore would be great. THE BALTIMORE SHOW WAS GREAT FOR US! And we are not just talking about the usual awesome job Mary Counts and David Chrenshaw and staff do. The overall activity was strong.

Keep in mind that there had not been a true major show (even we don’t count COINFEST as major) in 45 days. That’s a lifetime numismatic drought! Gold has been steadily rising. Collectors are paying attention to coins again. It was a mini perfect storm.

The Stacks sale started off activity prior to the show. It clearly was much stronger than had been anticipated. Can’t say there was a major collection in it, but anything that was fresh and nice sold for strong money.

Dealer to dealer activity in the hotel rooms before set up was crazy. It was like seeing cockroaches scatter when the lights turned on only its coin dealers running around to buy gold or get first shot.

We like to say: “if you had gold, you sold”. ALL gold, was selling briskly. The demand reminded us of 1980. MS66 Saints started the show at a WHOLESALE sight-UNSEEN BID of $2,900.00 and when we left Saturday, buyers were paying $3,200.00 and seeking quantities. CAC MS66 Saints are now $3,600.00 WHOLESALE sight-UNSEEN BID! Replacing CAC gold was nearly impossible.

The B+M auction was VERY strong. We bought the 1870S $1 for $126,500.00 [Shown Above] on behalf of a family (we’ll be posting a story about them shortly on our Hot Topics) to cap off a AU/Unc MS seated Dollar Collection. Congrats to them!
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