Road Report

October 21st: Day 2

Once again in super-efficient travel mode, your author was up unbelievably early on Wednesday, affording ample time for coffee drinking, website updating, blog writing, gym visiting and finally breakfast eating.

That last one provided gratis by PCGS in a room near the bourse floor where all of us were happy to congregate.

Until 9AM when it was time to enter the show, where we zipped over to our table and once again filled out a giant stack of grading forms for both on site and take home submissions, as we are still whittling down the vast number of raw coins we bought in August.

Somewhere in there we also met up with a local customer we had not seen in y-e-a-r-s, and pored through his XL album of coins for sale. Plus three more highfalutin early dollars he had stashed in his pocket.

And in a competitive environment with other aggressive dealers all around us, we managed to buy the 4 coins we wanted from the album plus the 3 dollars in a tidy mid 5-figure deal consummated right then and there.

As an aside, deals like this are the very reason Team CRO gets up at 3 AM and travels to Philadelphia (for example), since you never know what might walk in the door, and you are not going to be able to buy such coins unless you are right there at the right time and ready to make the right offers. Right? Right.

After which we sold a few more coins on the floor, bought a few things around the room, had a gratis PCGS lunch, worked on some potential partner deals, submitted more coins and generally had a totally productive day.

Including another visit from “Got my million?” man who I was surprised to see back on the bourse floor again, but then not really surprised we had the exact same conversation as we did on Tuesday.

With some last, late grading submissions turned in around 5 PM, after which we packed up and headed out for dinner with some dealer friends at a fantastic place called Alice. Seriously, if you find yourself in Philadelphia, check it out.
Editor’s note: This is one of those super hip places kinda like Roe in Portland in 2015 that does not write their name on the outside of the building, so best make sure you’re actually in the correct restaurant before ordering. 

Then got back to the hotel not too late, and crashed hard at about 10:30.

So once again we will be ready for whatever comes our way on Thursday. Whatever it is, we’ll blog all about it right here in just about 24 hours from now.

EOM

October 20th: Day 1

Good morning Road Report reader and welcome to our latest installment, this being written from the comfort of my hotel in historic Philadelphia, PA.

And while we have attended many shows here in the last couple of decades (9 times by my count), all of those were downtown. For this event we are at something called the Live! (their exclamation point, not mine) Hotel and Casino over by the stadiums.

First impression: It’s pretty darn nice, all new, totally comfortable and perfect for a self-contained PCGS show conveniently slotted into a medium-sized 2^nd floor ballroom.

Where we arrived in the mid-morning, set up our wares and then immediately went about submitting as many coins as possible. And that was well timed, since shortly thereafter a giant line formed comprised of other dealers and the general public who arrived in surprising numbers.

Including some guys who later wandered over to our table and asked a variety of questions ranging from the extremely advanced to the absolute novice. The former including two guys who had metal detected 1793 and 1795 Liberty Cap Cents, the latter including a guy who kept asking me “Got my million?”. I have no idea what that meant, and when I asked him to clarify he just kept repeating it over and over. He also wanted to know where my mother was from, then showed me a very worn Buffalo Nickel. Not surprisingly, we did not end up doing any business with that gentleman.

I did with some other people though, including collectors, vest pocket guys and other attendees, buying a few coins, and selling some coins that had never been on the website. Like these, for example:

Eventually winding down around 5-something, when we dropped our bags in the room and headed to the Library Bar here at the hotel with some dealer friends. Then on to Ralph’s, a Philadelphia institution self-described as “The Oldest Italian Restaurant in America”. I do not know if that is true, but I will say that their Braciole was delicious.

After which we returned to the hotel and then collapsed after what had been by then a solid 19 hour, 16,000 step day. But do not worry, we’ll be rested and ready on Wednesday AM to buy, sell, trade, grade and of course schmooze starting at 9 AM.

Until then, then –