By Laura Sperber of Legend Numismatics

For the record, we expect Baltimore to be a VERY strong show. Why?

There have not been any major shows since Long Beach-which has been a forever 45 days ago. Gold has been on a tear lately. And there have been no major additions to the ever shrinking supply of nice coins.

We fully expect to see the usual suspects running wild looking to buy gold coins before the show begins. Sadly, they will still be cracking out and messing with the coins, but at least they are much more reserved in what they buy. We used to see guys buy coins for “crackout” if they felt they had even a 20% chance. Plus, some upgrades are not worth doing thanks to the new market order (inferior coins selling for so much less).

Still, many dealers who do deal in gold have sold a lot of gold all of the sudden (amazing, only a month ago the big firms wouldn’t even look at generics) and rare gold coins are now selling as strong as ever. Without a major show, it has been impossible to replace them. We’re not so sure the supply of anything at Baltimore will be sizeable.

The price of gold generally does NOT effect the rare coin market. However since there is just so little of anything out there, cash rich dealers will seize the opportunity and buy cool coins to put away because they seem cheap. The rise in gold is definately giving rare coins a bounce up right now.

A SUGGESTION OF WHAT TO BUY

Every day we get asked what should I be buying? As much as we hate making public recommendations, we are going to do so only because we can’t believe how some areas are simply lacking real demand and are selling way too cheap.
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By Laura Sperber – Legend Numismatics

The coin market seems to be doing just fine-and maybe even gaining a little strength.

Last week we were knocked down pretty much by illness in the office. It was a bigger deal for us to lift our heads than any coins. So we did not do much in sales, nor did we attend any shows. Can’t even say we did much on the phone either. However, we did have numerous sales off our web site (click and buy) and we did send our coins with a stealth selling team to the Silver Dollar Show in Saint Louis. Unfortunately we’re still a bit under the weather and this week we will be at half strength at best.

Off the web we sold coins ranging from a McClaren coin for $295.00 to a $9,000.00 coin. An FYI about the McClaren deal: in the three months we have been working on it, we have SOLD coins to SEVERAL HUNDRED different collectors. The actual number astonished us. Our guess is we will sell about 11,000 coins direct to collectors. Two weeks ago, we did sell 25,100 BU Morgans to a dealer in a substantial transaction. We are saving only the BEST coins for offering to our customers!

A lot of people ask why we need stealthy sales people at shows. Dealers are a wacky bunch. If you look at some the wrong way they get spooked. There is one bigger dealer who once said to us, “if you can’t sell it how can I”. Well he has since bought many coins from us via our sellers. Plus, the team can canvas the floor with more time and energy then we could since our main object is to buy. It surprises many people when they find out Legend actually one of the bigger WHOLESALERS around. We feel WHOLESALE is a critical function for our business-but retail is ALWAYS our #1 operation. Legend has also stopped consigning its coins to auctions as we have seen little in terms of good results. Old fashioned face to face selling is much cleaner and better. Do note, that we do NOT give out consignors coins to our team without disclosing so.

Each one of our sellers sold a single coin for at least $10,000.00. ALL reported VERY good shows-which is important information to us and our customers. We don’t know much else until Tuesday when we get the checks and paperwork! They said some generic gold was being bought (a week before the big gold houses weren’t even buying because their inventories were so bloated). We did not hear of any big Type selling-it sounds like that are is still a little weak. Morgans had some life and we know Walkers are still selling strong!
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By Laura Sperber – Legend Numismatics

“The perfect auctions” we are talking about are the Dan Holmes and Ted Nazfger Large Cent auctions that just took place in Beverly Hills. Ira and Larry Goldberg (and staffs) did a spectacular job of organizing and auctioning these once in a life time sales.

The results from these two sales let no one down-they were phenomenal and totally mind blowing! Prices realized and collector participation more than proved the coin market is starved for quality and has very strong and deep legs.

Last time we wrote about the middle date Nafzger Sale, we named it “the perfect storm”. We knew the coin that auction had sold ridiculously cheap and time would prove it out. The reasons why that sale had weaker results: the sale was held the same day (during) the Super bowl, the Goldberg’s Internet site crashed, the economy was seriously more uncertain than it is today, and a few new collectors to the series had just started. Its totally amazing how all these factors did a total reversal to yield some of the most amazing results ever and produce two greatly historical auctions.

THE DAN HOLMES SALE

The crowd was standing room only and was comprised mostly of serious collectors. There wasn’t just a buzz before the sale began, you could feel and jolt of electricity when you walked in the room. From our point of view we did not see the typical “crack out and coin docs” we run into at every show. Thank goodness they do not know how to work on anything than other than a white dollar or a gold coin. In fact, very few “main line” dealers like us attended.

It was a battle every lot to buy anything. The room was littered with deep pocketed individuals who came to buy. In the end, we witnessed at least FOUR collectors who spent OVER $1,000,000.00 each and several under bidders who had tried to do the same. Legend spent a lowly $300,000.00 for ourselves, and teamed up with a another dealer to buy another $600,000.00 worth of treasures. There were many “unknown” faces who came out of hiding for this sale and they were as aggressive as someone you’d see who attends every show and auction. (more…)