Road Report

November 13th: Day 4

We actually got up even earlier on Friday which was a good thing, since we needed every last minute of that extra time to accommodate the incredibly slow service in the hotel restaurant. How bad was it? At several times your author had to act as some sort of omelet traffic cop flagging down scarce servers to help other diners who were desperately but unsuccessfully trying to get someone to take their order. I guess I am just a very helpful person.

Eventually we did eat though, and then made our way to the show for the 9 AM opening. And it was kind of a zoo (in a good way) right from the start.

We bought more cool coins, sold a lot in all categories (including the most epic of the CBQs mentioned previously), and worked with many different collectors about collecting strategies, want lists, upcoming auction lots, coins they wished to sell or trade, etc.

In an around which we worked on our own auction consignment discussed yesterday, finally finalized it, and then almost immediately had to numismatically suck back two of those coins after someone specifically asked for them.

And then did tons of paperwork on partner deals, figured more auction lots and then consigned a different group of coins to a different auction house for a different collector.

It was at that exact moment that someone informed me about the FAA national ground stop of all flights, which I know directly affected lot of our dealer friends who were scheduled to depart on Friday night. With many of those people deciding to just come back to the show Saturday and causing one to remark that maybe this unplanned boost in attendance will spark the greatest Saturday ever at the Whitman Expo.

We were always going to be here on Saturday anyway, so if this means more business, then that sounds good to us.

Whatever happens, we’ll blog all about all of it on Sunday AM hopefully from the comfort of home (if we actually get there), or possibly from some airport hotel if we don’t.

Check in tomorrow to find out!

November 12th: Day 3

After a thoroughly enjoyable omelet in the hotel restaurant, we were back at the table bright and early on Thursday for what we hoped would be another good day here in Baltimore. And I gotta tell you it was, with pretty much non-stop action at the table from the 10 o’clock opening until late in the afternoon and including the following highlights:

• Bought a bunch of cool, toned capped bust quarters from several different sources.
• Sold some extremely cool world coins to two collector brothers who each had a very high taste level.
• Spoke to Rob Rodriguez at length about his new book on Continental Dollars which contains some extremely interesting new research. I suggest you pick up a copy and see for yourself.
• Was told by another dealer that you cannot sell a So-Called $1 in a PCGS slab because the collectors in that series prefer NGC just as I sold a So-Called $1 in a PCGS slab.
• Ate a chicken Adobo Bowl from the snack stand which was a new offering we had not seen before there. I’m glad it looked decent because the rest of the menu items consisted of there were no other menu items.
• Sold a colonial to a collector literally moments after a different collector looked at the same coin for several minutes, liked it, seemed like he was going to pull the trigger but then said he needed time to think about it. Numismatists refer to this as the “You Snooze You Lose” Phenomenon.
• Seriously considered some expensive coins being offered by several different guys walking boxes around, but was kinda put-off by ever changing stories about who the actual owners were, what they paid (which was not something I had asked) and what they needed for them. At the end of the day I just need to see the coin and know the price and I try to ignore the other stuff, but that can be difficult when the other stuff is being piled on me with a large shovel.
• I was pleased to see plenty of CRO hats on heads around the bourse floor.
• Split an expensive territorial with another dealer who bought the item on his own and made the decision unilaterally. Another dealer has to have demonstrated an excellent eye and sound reasoning for me to go along with a deal like this, but this guy has earned my trust.
• Met several different collectors at the table that I had previously known only online. So that was good to put faces with names.
• Bought a medium-sized pile of old-holdered commems from several different collectors in several different deals.
• Snagged our first Good for a Scent token in a while here at the show, a type we are always happy to stock.

And then headed to dinner at a new place in Little Italy which served an excellent chicken parmesan in what I would describe as a normal human portion, unlike the decadent slab delivered to our dining table at the 2022 ANA show.

And then returning to the hotel so we could rest up and be ready to do it all again on Friday.

EOM

November 11th: Day 2

Back into my usual coin show rhythm, your author was up at 3:18 AM on Wednesday, affording more than enough time to review my SB watch list, answer email, write the blog, hit the barely adequate hotel gym, and have a leisurely breakfast before we headed over to the show for the 9 AM start of PNG Day.

Where we encountered a longish queue of people waiting to get their credentials, but it moved quickly and we were in the room about 10 minutes later.

Allowing us to get set up at our Table #550 like lightning (as always) and then begin doing business like crazy (ditto).

First by selling a bunch of coins at the table to the guys who run around the room seeking first shot. Then walking around the room looking for cool coins, of which I found a few here and there. I actually found more than that, and seriously considered several of them, but found some compelling reasons not to buy them:

• On one the price quoted was just too high to justify.
• A second coin was cool and the price was within a reasonable range, but the type was thinly traded and seemed like it might take a looooong time to find a buyer.
• A third was interesting and the price was right, but it looked like a coin that would be extremely difficult to photograph well, thus making it very hard to market.

While the specific reasons might vary from coin to coin and show to show, these sorts of considerations are pretty common on the bourse floor, and we have to make quick judgements based on our experience doing this. And while I’m sure we get it wrong sometimes, it won’t be because we made a rash decision.

We then spent a few hours negotiating and sorting an auction consignment and, I think, came to an agreement. We’ll find out for sure tomorrow.

And then got word that a cool coin on which we partnered with another dealer had sold here at the show.

So we were feeling pretty good by the time we packed up and headed out for our regular Wednesday night Baltimore dinner at Cinghiale with some dealer friends during which we discussed a wide variety of numismatic topics and ate what is without any question the best lasagna on this planet.

Finally getting back to the hotel after a solid 19 hour day.

Tomorrow we’ll be back at it early for the start of the full blown show featuring the appearance of the actual public, which we expect will be both abundant and enthusiastic. And if they are, or even if they aren’t, we’ll blog all about everything that happens right here on Friday AM.

November 10th: Day 1

Our show would officially began with an early (but not the earliest) flight down to Baltimore on Tuesday, which I would describe as efficient, and uneventful, expect for the part where the elderly woman behind me kept shoving my seat forward. Just as I was trying to figure out why, I was distracted by her suddenly grabbing my head in the same way you might grab a cantaloupe in the market. I later realized that she was actually attempting to retrieve her bag from the overhead bin, but I later saw that bag and frankly it looked nothing like me.

Anyway, none the worse for wear but still confused, we headed to baggage claim, were delighted to see that ours were the first and fourth bags on the belt, grabbed them, bumped into another Massachusetts dealer who happened to be staying at the same hotel and all headed out in an XL shared taxi.

Arriving in the inner harbor at about 11:30 and learning that our room was not ready, so we ditched our bags, zipped over to Cosi for lunch and then eventually made our way to Stack’s-Bowers lot viewing at about 12:15 PM.

And then proceeded to pore through hundreds and hundreds of medals, tokens, colonials and ultimately US coins in a process that would last about 4 and a half hours. Actually it would and should have taken a lot longer, but I was already extreeeeemely familiar with many of the coins being offered here. Even so, I had not seen a lot of them in years, and so a refresher was still necessary. So believe me I refreshed, taking copious notes, and identifying lots of things to bid on in all categories, but also crossing out things that I thought might have been for us but weren’t.

Eventually finishing up at about 5, walking back to our hotel, schlepping our stuff to our now ready room and collapsing on the bed is what I wish I could be writing here. Instead, I spent another couple of hours entering all of those lots on my SB watch list.

So by the time that was done, we were totally ready for dinner at The Helmand on Charles St, where we by now know exactly what to order and it’s always delicious.

After which we zipped back to the hotel and then actually did collapse in a heap, so we will of course be rested and ready for PNG Day which begins crisply at 9 AM on Wednesday.

Check in tomorrow to find out what we saw there, the coins we bought, the ones we sold, the trades we consummated and vivid descriptions of any other numismatic commerce in which we engaged –

Prologue:

Rocketing toward the end of 2026, we are excited to be attending our last major show of the year in a familiar location, namely the Baltimore Inner Harbor.

Where we expect a raucous numismatic environment, starting with wholesale activities on Tuesday, PNG Day on Wednesday and then the full blown show Thursday-Saturday.

And Team CRO will be there for every second of it, ready to buy, sell, trade and of course schmooze with collectors and dealers alike. Also, and this perhaps goes without saying, we will be unleashing many new CRO Hat colors here.

So if you are in the area, please stop by and see us at table #550. But if you cannot make it, you can still follow along with all the action here in our Road Reports posted daily from the show.

Starting early tomorrow.