February 14, 2021: Stream of Coin-sciousness

Well here we are a month and a half into 2021 and it’s looking a lot like 2020:  We still haven’t really traveled anywhere, all of our regular shows are still cancelled and we desperately miss all of that bourse floor scouring we used to do at all those shows.  But, also like 2020, the online business is robust, people are enthusiastically collecting and we are still finding plenty of cool coins to buy privately, via appraisals and through all sorts of online sites and auctions.  In other words, despite all of the limitations to our business, things in numismatics seem to be about as active as ever.

Also going pretty well:  Major colonial auctions, as the epic collection formed by Donald Partrick (or rather the parts not previously sold in 2015) is being auctioned by Heritage in the first half of this year.  Including many coins we have seen in fuzzy old black and white photos in reference books and catalogs through the years, but never in the coin.  Until now.  Like this neat Gloucester Token which had previously traded at the Garrett sale in 1980, and then re-appeared in Platinum Night in January (images courtesy of HA):

As a dealer in coins I find that interesting; as a colonial coin geek I find it absolutely thrilling.  Alas, we were not the buyer as it hammered down for $150,000 to someone else.

Speaking of these Partrick coins, we’ll be viewing everything and participating in all of these sessions, both for our own account and on behalf of collectors.  So if you need representation, let us know ASAP and we’ll be happy to help.

Teaching an old dog new tricks department:  As many of our long time customers and website visitors may know, CRO has always outsourced our photography to professionals starting way back in 2004.  Where we’d pack up every coin, ship it to someone (actually 4 or 5 different someones through the years) to be imaged and then have them ship it back to us.  But in December of last year we decided to see if we could bring this in house and do it ourselves.  And then poured hours and hours and hours into practicing to try to produce results that would meet our own high standards.  With the results visible to all in our recent EBs and now on the inventory page. Which I would characterize as ‘hey, we’re getting there’, with the expectation that we’ll get better as we go and improve our technique.  On that note, if anyone has any feedback on this specifically (or frankly anything else) let us know.

So what’s next?  Well, we’ve taken the bold step of updating our Show & Auction Schedule in anticipation of actually getting back out on the road again.  Where we’ll hope to see many of you again on some bourse floor or other in the not too distant future.  We hope.

EOM