Road Report

March 28th: Day 3

Today we’ll be taking a deep dive into one complicated transaction that started 10 days ago, took 2 detours, experienced a small dip (in the same sense that the Laurentian Abyss is a small dip in the ocean floor) and ultimately concluded here at the show on Friday.

But let’s begin at the beginning, when your author received a phone call the day after our last EB on March 19^th from a customer expressing potential interest in a coin listed therein via some kind of trade or partial trade.

Now, in the immediate aftermath of the Early Bird we prefer not to get into potential trades (especially those with many moving parts) because we do not have the time to start figuring trade-in values and engage in long discussions when the phone and email are going crazy with other customers. But if a coin survives our EB list, and transitions to our regular inventory the following Friday, we’re open to consider most anything.

And that is what happened here, as we discussed our coin, and our price, and the mechanics of a potential deal in which the would-be buyer could trade in a lower grade example of the same thing, and/or possibly some kind of obscure, but valuable gold medal of a type we don’t usually deal in.

So we talked through some possibilities, but agreed we would not put the coin on hold until it was more clear we had a viable deal here that could work for both parties.

In the meantime, your author talked to some dealer friends and tried to figure out what the obscure medal was worth, what we could safely offer in trade value, and what the heck we might do with it if we got it.

Followed by another phone call with the collector which furthered the discussion about this far (thumb and forefinger held 17mm apart), but during which we agreed that he would bring all potential trade fodder to Baltimore and we could try to hammer out something concrete.

Fast forward to Thursday morning here at the show when the collector came to the table and informed us he was still very interested in doing some kind of deal, but had forgotten to bring ALL of the potential trade coins with him. A moment which I considered a real low point in this deal (or any deal, frankly), and one which might make a person question if the other party was actually serious, even if they tell you they are serious and really, really want to make a deal work.

So I made it clear that I was not willing to put the coin on hold here at the show unless I could be convinced that a deal could be made.

Followed by a discussion the next AM in which the collector pivoted in a positive way in which he would sell one of his potential trade items to another dealer, secure about half the funds necessary to buy our coin on Monday and then pay the remaining balance over time.

To which I responded that if he committed to the coin and could make a 50% payment next week, I would agree to take the coin out of the case here at the show and hold it for him. And then I made a comment that could best be categorized as “wishful thinking”, namely that because I know the other dealer he would be selling his item(s) to, and have worked with him extensively in the past, perhaps that dealer could just send me the check directly and save a step or two here.

A comment which tuned out to be some kind of genius move, since that other dealer came to the table Friday, wrote me a check for the entire amount, took the coin, and thus consummated the transaction in a far more straightforward manner than I could have possibly imagined.

So what is the moral of this story? I don’t know, but I can say this:

• We try very hard to make deals work
• Unfortunately some don’t
• We’re really glad this one did
• It’s good to have a network of dealer friends

Finito

March 27th: Day 2

Interesting Things that Happened at the Show on Thursday

We sold a bunch of stuff at the table to long time customers, but also to new guys we have never met before which is always extremely encouraging.

Prior to this show I laid out an early draft version of our next EB using the most recent NEWPs in house and came up with a grand total of 9 coins. So obviously our mission coming here (in addition to everything else) was to find a lot of cool new coins to top this off at our requisite 51. So far so good on that front, as we’ve found a lot of neat coins in every category from many different dealer and collector sources, and we are not even close to done yet.

4 times on Thursday I received a call from another dealer on the bourse floor to come look at a coin a collector was offering at their table, and in each instance it was a coin I had already seen before. Hey, your author gets around.

We delivered a bunch of expensive coins here that had been ordered over the last couple of weeks / months, including 2 that came with what I believe was our very last camo w/orange hat.

I ran into another dealer late in the afternoon, asked him where his table was, and he told me he had been asked to leave the show by Whitman and was already packed up and heading out. I’ve never heard of that before, but it really did not sound good.

The convention center snack bar was a shell of its usual self, offering only vegan breakfast sandwiches, and only turkey sandwiches for lunch. No Soup? Are you kidding me? That was extremely disappointing.

A couple of months ago a dealer friend told me about a collection containing a huge number of CRO-style esoteric issues that we might be able to buy at a reasonable price. But when I met with him here, he told me he saw them and it was actually a collection containing multiple (and I mean multiple-multiple) examples of the exact same thing. Hey, we like cool coins as much as anyone, but we really don’t need a 14 year supply of any of them.

Every time we tried to drop off show grading at PCGS there was a long queue which was apparently well worth standing in since they announced with no warning in the early afternoon that show grading was being cut off effective immediately. It would have been nice to get some advance warning on that, but I guess they saw the volume which had already accumulated by then and realized there was simply no way they could handle even one more coin.

There is nothing better in numismatics than when I return to the table from some project or other and arrive just as MaryAnn is writing a sales invoice.

We had dinner with my college roommate and his wife in Federal Hill during which I learned that he had actually kept the crappy coffee table which had been in our apartment and had been using it for the last 40 years. Had I known that that was going to happen, I would have jumped on it less back then, and tried harder not to chip the glass top with errant dart throws.

EOM

March 26th: Day 1

Waking up crisply at 3 AM, at the airport by 4:45, and on a plane to Baltimore by 6:30, Team CRO was super efficiently at our hotel in the Inner Harbor before 8.

Where, as is often the case here (but at no other hotel we stay at during the year,) our room was already ready for occupancy. Allowing us to ditch our luggage, have a coffee and then head to the convention center where there was already plenty of action in the wholesale rooms and at Stack’s-Bowers lot viewing by people who must have woken up at 2.

So we joined right in, first by poring through boxes and ultimately buying 16 cool coins from a number of different dealers set up there, including our requisite old holdered US type, some neat toners and one wicked world coin.

Then shifting to lot viewing where we powered through the entire auction post haste, though in fairness we had already viewed some of the key ones when they were on display at recent shows.

After which we zipped over to Cosi across the street for lunch, and then returned to camp out at a table outside lot viewing which invariably turns into some kind of impromptu mini-bourse where various dealers and collectors come by, shmooze and show us coins. And many of them were extremely cool, causing us to vacuum up another 14 coins during the afternoon.

Continuing right up until 4:45 or so, when we headed downstairs and joined the queue assembled for the start of dealer set up at 5.

Where we of course got the table ready at breakneck speed, sold a few coins to several different dealers and then ran around the room looking for more cool coins. Of which we found some good ones that we bought immediately, some possible ones that we went back to study at the table, some that were kinda close but probably not for us, and a few that seemed like things we’d want to buy but utterly and totally failed when examined under a loupe. Bummer about that last group.

And all of a sudden it was 7 PM and time to head out for a group dinner at Cinghiale, a totally excellent Italian restaurant on Fell’s Point we visit pretty much every time we come here.

Returning to the hotel real late and then collapsing after what had by then been an extreeeeemely productive, entirely enjoyable, but kinda exhausting 19 hour day.

But rest assured that we will be ready to do it all again on Thursday, and then blog about all of it in this space on Friday morning.

Until then, then –

Prologue:

A relaxing 3.5 weeks since our last event in Atlanta, Team CRO is fully rejuvenated, completely repacked, loaded to the gills with cool coins and totally ready for this week’s event in extreeeeemely familiar Baltimore, MD.

And why wouldn’t it be? This is by my count the 55th(!) show we will be attending here, a streak which began prior even to the advent of the Road Report on this site. Wow, that’s a lot of trips to the Inner Harbor.

But we are as excited as ever to attend, as we look forward to some intensive lot viewing, non-stop buying opportunities, XL selling, and of course some top notch schmoozing with the plethora of collectors and dealers who typically turn up for this event.

And then blogging all about all of it right here in this space just like we do at every single show.

Starting tomorrow.