October 13-15, 2022: The New Hampshire Coin & Currency Expo

Prologue

At our last show in LB I never had a chance to write an RR Prologue, instead diving directly into Day 1. Which, based on the number of comments and emails we received, was noticed (and not in a good way) by many of our readers. So we’re not going to let that happen again as evidenced by this shiny new prologue you are reading right now.

In which we’ll say that we’re hard at working preparing for this show. And why wouldn’t we be? Last time (back in April of this year) went great, with waaaaay more sales and purchases than one might rightfully expect at a regional show like this.

Q: So of course you’re doing everything exactly the same this time, right?
A: Almost everything. We are ditching the table spot we had last time because 1) I was not crazy about that location facing the wall, and 2) The lady dealer next to us said that the last three guys who were in that spot all died. Neither of which are particularly good for business.

So this time we’re back to our original table spot here near our good friends from David Kahn Rare Coins where we’ll be displaying 2 cases containing colonial, US, world and esoteric issues (including many coins which are listed on the website, most everything from our recent EB that was not already vacuumed up, and some new coins never, ever seen by anyone before, ever).

Please note though that we do not have room for every coin here, so if you are planning to attend the show and want to see anything in our website inventory, best to let us know in advance so we can make sure to have it with us.

OK? OK!

In the meantime, we’ll be working hard on Thursday to do as much numismatic buying and selling as possible while also accumulating interesting anecdotes which we can then include in our next installment of the RR to be posted here first thing Friday AM.

October 13th: Day 1

Arriving at the Double Tree Hotel in Manchester, NH at just after 3 PM, Team CRO raced to the bourse room where we were immediately surprised to find a queue of dealers waiting to get their credentials and enter the room. So we joined right in and mere minutes later were setting up our unnumbered table on the left side of the room with NASA-like efficiency.

And then your author, loupe in hand, immediately began the process of scouring the room for cool stuff finding 4 qualifying coins, two of which were sitting in display cases, the other 2 had been set aside by dealers who thought they might be for us. They were right. The other half a dozen coins offered to us around the room were, unfortunately, not exactly CRO style, so we passed but we sure did appreciate the offers, hope they continue and eventually produce something we love at which time we’ll instantly write a check with a huuuuuge number of zeros on it.

Eventually returning to the table just in time to meet up with a customer to deliver a coin that had been ordered off the EB, and then doing the exact same thing about 10 minutes later with a second coin / customer.

Then selling a coin to another dealer, after which we delivered a coin that we had acquired on behalf of another customer from another dealer earlier this week. As an aside, that is something we do fairly often, and would be happy to do for you too. Just ask.

So, in total, that was an awful lot of productive stuff to be doing at a show while eliminating the risk and time of mailing things.

We then spent time discussing strategies on jointly owned coins with two(2) different dealers here, agreed on plans, giving the coins in question to one of them while handling the others ourselves.

Then looking at two other coins we might want to buy tomorrow, before calling it a night and heading out into an extremely dark, disgustingly dreary, extremely rainy evening that felt very, very fall-like.

Even so, we were feeling very pleased after a productive day here, and looking forward to more of the same on Friday.

Check in here tomorrow to see if that actually happens.

October 14th: Day 2

It’s Friday at the show highlights time!

Walked into the bourse room – not late mind you – and discovered that just about every other dealer was already here and actively engaged in numismatic commerce. I have to say that does not happen often to your early-rising author.
Saw about a dozen of our good local customers who came to the show to variously buy, sell, pick up coins, drop off coins or otherwise do business.
Bought 5 genuinely cool, totally CRO coins on the floor here, including some wicked old holders and a top flight Jacques Wiener Architectural medal I never would have expected to find at this show.
Overheard another dealer giving completely inaccurate information about a colonial coin to a guy at his table. Of course I never inject myself into those conversations, instead I just discreetly cringe.
Had many other people offer me coins, unfortunately none of which were things we could buy.
Met a bunch of new people here, including several serious numismatists who were heretofore unfamiliar with us, gave out about 11 hundred business cards, directed them to our website and hope we’ll hear from them again.
Ate one of those surprisingly good NH burgers for lunch.
Saw three people wearing CRO hats.
Discovered there was another coin dealer set up here from Weston, MA, which I found extremely surprising since this is not a real big place and I kinda figured I already knew everyone. But hey, the more the merrier.
Talked with a few other dealer friends about the CAC grading announcement and how it might impact (or not) various coin categories. I would describe that as thought provoking.
Accumulated a surprisingly good pile of invoices, checks and coins in the back case.

So we’ll look forward to get back to it on Saturday with the entire team ready to do whatever business we can with whomever wants to do it.

And then blog all about all of it first thing on Sunday AM.

October 15th: The Exciting Conclusion

After 20+ years on the coin circuit I continue to be surprised by just how unpredictable these shows can be.

Such as on Saturday here in NH, when – after already walking the bourse floor multiple times in the previous 2 days – I somehow found a whole bunch of new things to buy from multiple different sources.

Including 8 neat US coins, 4 world coins, 1 colonial coin and one cool medal all snagged on the bourse floor from other dealers.

So one might ask “Hey, was all that stuff there the entire show and you just missed it earlier?“. The answer to which is apparently no for most of them, as one of the guys wasn’t even set up earlier, another put coins out that had been in the back case and several of the other coins had apparently been acquired by dealers from the public at this very show.

Whatever the case, I was thrilled to find them, as they made what had to that point been a pretty good but not great show that much better.

And, when added to the couple of decent sales we made on Saturday, added up to another EBW event well worth attending.

So let’s do it again at another EBW event in Devens, MA show next Sunday from where our next RR will be penned in just one week from today.

Until then, then.