Here is my coin show report.
First, I have to say I never realized how mentally and physically exhausting this would be. Having said that, it was the most "fun" I've had in a while. I was able to take a few days away from the office before the show to get everything "organized" and such. I also spent a bit of time online learning more about certain items I was selling such as mintages, ebay prices, etc.
The first day of the show after dealer set up and before the public was allowed in, the other dealers went from table to table looking for things. There were also dealers from out of state who didn't have tables but walked about with their little suitcase on wheel things buying up stuff. My dealer friend told me these guys (without the table and not local) work for large dealers and their jobs are basically going from show to show all across the country looking for specific items. Most of these guys were looking for very specific things: foreign silver sets, one guy wanted coins featuring "ships" and "boats", etc.
I didn't sell much to the other dealers because they didn't want to pay enough. I sold the "ship" guy some and he paid well. I had an 8 foot table to myself and rented 3 lockable glass showcases for the entire show.
I noticed what everyone else knows, that "most" of the non-local coin dealers were not very friendly, even to other dealers. The local public buyers were great to deal with. Most wanted to negotiate the price each time but I expected that and adjusted the prices accordingly. One tactic I fell for once was where they buy several items and negotiate down on each price, then when totaled try to get another chunk off the final price. I let that happen once but it was OK because I still made a profit-the next person that tried that I said NO!, you already got a break on each piece. I made a profit on every item I sold. Some of my older crap I bought when silver was higher that I wanted out of I might have only made a dollar or so due to the change in silver price, but I didn't lose any money.
Pretty much all of what I sold was semi numis or oddball stuff. I sold some US dollar commems, foreign silver proofs and such, etc. I also sold onzas/libertads, prospectors, silver Maples in the plastic sheets, etc. My onzas/libertads sold out as did the prospectors. I got roughly $21 to $22 for common year old style libertads and a bit more for the "modern" ones. I had some better year libertads that didn't sell like the 1999. The prosepectors sold for $22 but I came down to $21 if they bought more than one.
I tried to sell various "art" bars but only sold a few because the people didn't recognize that they go for much more on ebay. These are cooler ones from the 70s and 80s that actually are well known and not just random generic silver bar type things.
The US commems did well in that I sold for a buck or two over dealer "bid" and showed the "customer" the grey sheet price. A few of the buyers specifically looking for commems had a grey sheet with them in hand. Most of my really cooler stuff didn't sell because I would not come down low enough. I decided to not drop more than 15% off final sale ebay prices for my Koalas in presentation cards, older Kookaburra proofs, Libertad proofs, and other items that sell great on ebay that I will sell there later on.
I sold a fair amount of Saltwater Crocs, Spiders, Niue goats, Turtles, etc. But not too many of these compared to the libertads and prospectors. On the second day of the show I stopped at a local store that gives me good deals and picked up some generic silver bars that I got cheap and took those and sold them. Some buyers had asked on the first day about cheaper bullion and I didn't have any to sell. The stuff I picked up that morning to sell went fast but I only made a buck or so per ounce on those but it was fun. I discovered that as soon as one person stopped by to look at stuff more would show up. I engaged the folks who seemed interested and more like silver bugs and they seemed to like it that a "dealer" was being nice to them and explaining things (like where the coins came from and mintages, ebay prices, history of the series, etc).
One type of buyer I didn't anticipate but was able to do well with were folks asking: so you have any coins with a dog, cat, horse, train, plane, sporting event, naked lady-I'm not kidding, etc, etc on it. They had no idea what they wanted only that it had a certain theme. I was able to get rid of alot of stuff this way. My 50% silver canadian dollars (and a few sterling) that I bought a while back and wanted to dump were popular because they have awesome art work and I sold them for 2 bucks over melt with the box and COA, etc. This type of buyer couldn't have cared less that such coins are sterling (or 50%) as opposed to .999. My local stores wanted to pay me 80% of melt on these a few months ago when I tried to sell them locally.
The other dealers said this show had very low traffic historically speaking but I don't have anything to judge by. It wasn't as busy as I thought it would be but I had a large amount of folks at my table, even more than the other booths around me. Most booths had fancy and expensive slabbed coins and old us gold, etc, and all I had was silver. One out of state dealer made a snarky comment to me when she came by and found out I was not a real coin dealer (I didn't hide that fact)- she said "oh, you guys always sell things for too cheap", or something like that. I guess I was selling stuff cheaper than she was and she was not happy about it.
For the amount of work involved I didn't make the amount of $$$ I can make at my day job, but it was 1000 times more fun to do the show and I was able to promote my non coin business a bit with a couple of folks so that might lead to some new business there possibly. I was also able to dump some of my stash that I didn't really want anymore and not lose any money, as I would have if I sold it to the local dealers.
From the minute you are there you have to be alert to make sure you don't get stuff taken by thieves, so there was really no "relaxing" from early morning until the show ended each day. Then it was back home to figure out what to bring the next day and how to doctor up the display to make it better, etc.
Sometimes when the action was "hot" I was dealing with 2 or 3 buyers at a time and money was flying back and forth- it was quite chaotic but awesome.
Jim
