Road Report

Prologue:

While the rest of the numismatic world is recovering from the recent FUN show and probably lounging by a pool somewhere, Team CRO is hard at work finalizing our preparations for this week’s New York International Numismatic Convention. Yay!

Which entails unpacking, repacking and, importantly, totally reformulating our inventory so as to conform to the strict NYINC rules. To wit:

Offerings at the New York International Numismatic Convention emphasize and are restricted to foreign and ancient numismatic items, United States material after 1815 may not be displayed. Antiquities: objects, statuary, vases, lamps and items of similar nature may be neither displayed nor offered for sale at the NYINC.

So we will have a case of colonials, a case of world coins, and a case of early US material on display here, though we will also have some of our regular US inventory hidden away in the back and available upon request. So request away.

Of course we’ll also be enthusiastic buyers at this show of pretty much any CRO style item from any country or era, so if you have something cool to sell, please offer it to us at our deluxe table #808.

And if you are interested in auction representation here (or in the FUN show sales we have already viewed) just let us know and we’ll be happy to assist.

In the meantime, we’ll be roaming the halls of the Barclay’s Intercontinental host hotel (or at that Danish bakery next door) starting Tuesday afternoon, ready, willing and able to schmooze like crazy.

EOM

January 15th: Day 1

After a surprisingly peaceful night’s sleep here in the heart of midtown Manhattan, Team CRO was up early answering email, updating auction bids, visiting the barely adequate hotel gym, having our usual breakfast at the Danish bakery with the excellent food but terrible queueing system and then heading to lot viewing here at the hotel.

And there was a lot of lot viewing available at 5 different auctions houses all conveniently situated here in adjacent (or nearly so), well-signed rooms on the mezzanine level.

So of course I hit all of the ones that had any coins that seemed like they fit the CRO program, which in some cases entailed going through an entire thick catalog, while in others I asked to see just a handful of coins. An exercise I found extreeeeemely productive as I identified a lot of coins I wanted to buy, well more than in previous years here.

Including some that would be hitting the auction block just a few hours later with a 7 PM EST start which would be problematic for several reasons:

1. The Heritage FUN session containing many CRO-style US coins would also be starting at 7 PM (of course).
2. MaryAnn had purchased tickets to a Broadway show for Wednesday night which (and you may have seen this coming) also started at precisely 7 PM EST.
3. No matter how nice the coins are, Broadway shows generally frown upon people bidding on their phones during live performances. Also, there is almost never phone reception in those old theaters anyway – take it from someone who knows.

So I entered my HA bids as proxies knowing that I’d probably miss out on a few, and then scrambled like heck to find someone who could sit in the room for me at the world sale here in NYC, ultimately failed and then somehow managed to buy the coin I most wanted by running outside during intermission, seeing my lot was just coming up, bidding during the 90 second window I had before the 2^nd act and then getting back to my seat before they dimmed the lights.

Frankly it was a stunning result, and illustrated once again the vagaries of the auction system where I might have missed that coin altogether had the line to use the men’s room been just a few guys longer.

Actually, that was the second such ‘auction vagaries’ lesson on Wednesday, since a good customer reported being unable to execute a bid in an earlier HA session while he was a on a flight en route to the NYINC despite having a robust in-flight Wifi connection and following the auction live. Allowing a cool coin to sell for a fraction of what it might have if that guy had simply taken the train. My heart goes out to the oblivious consignor of that particular item, since he has no idea that some guy at 30,000 feet was furiously pounding on his keyboard attempting to hit the BID button to no avail.

But my own experience on this day was far better, since I checked my own HA results after the play ended and was stunned to see that I had won the US coin I had most wanted there as well for about 60% of my max bid. Wow.

A result we toasted at an excellent Vietnamese restaurant on 9^th avenue, then walked back to the hotel on an extremely crisp evening before finally turning in after an extra exhilarating and very, very long numismatic day.

And tomorrow promises even more excitement, as we’ll be setting up here in the early AM, and then working a full day on the bourse floor buying, selling, trading of course schmoozing. Then blogging all about everything that happens right here in about 24 hours from now.

EOM

January 16th: Day 2

It would be another time compression for us on Thursday morning at the NYINC, as dealer set up would start at 8 AM. Which means we’d need to go extract our goods from the security room (factoring in the anticipated queue and extremely slow elevators) at 7:40, so we’d need to get breakfast at 7, which would mean hitting the gym by 6, and starting this blog by 5, so a 4:30 alarm seemed about right.

Instead, your exhausted author slept in ‘til 7, cranked out the blog in short order, jumped in the shower and was at the security room at 7:40 where we encountered a much longer than anticipated line of dealers waiting in the hall to be allowed in one at a time.

Eventually it was our turn, so we grabbed our stuff, made it down to the bourse floor level, waited for the clock to strike 8 and then rocketed to our subtly numbered table 808 and began setting up like crazy.

And then began doing business right away, showing mostly US coins and medals to a variety of dealers and collectors from the furthest reaches of the globe, and also New Jersey.

Where we sold a few, agreed to hold a couple more while people pondered and generally did good, but not crazy good business.

Which allowed your author to make several circuits of the room where I snapped up a bunch of CRO style coins of all types in generally comfortable price points which had one thing in common: Utter originality (which honestly is a tough thing to find at this show since a lot of the coins here are dismayingly bright white or shiny gold).

At this event there are also always a few marquee coins in the room and that was the case this time, and while they were very cool, they weren’t types that we generally offer and so I was really not that tempted. Which was good, since that saved us about $130,000.

Giving us plenty of ammo for the dozen things we added on this day, and for the upcoming auctions this weekend.

Speaking of auctions, I also picked up the now famous ‘Broadway’ coin after multiple attempts to do so when the guy ahead of me in the lot retrieval queue spent about an hour chatting up the staff there. Honestly, it should not take that long.

Finally returning to the table in time to sell a few more coins, buy a nice CAR 8 Reales and see some late arriving collectors.

After which we packed up and headed out to an excellent dinner at Soba Totto on 43^rd with a collector friend we only see once a year at this event.

Then got back in time to catch the end of the HA FUN Platinum session and see that we would bought a wicked gold coin there that will look amazing on the list. Ending another long day on a high note, and giving us a good feeling about what tomorrow will bring.

And whatever that is will be described right here in the next installment of the RR.

January 17th: Day 3

Interesting Things We Have Seen and Heard at the NYINC

A lot of people elegantly attired in blazers, some of which are velvet.

Upon seeing our booth sign with Coin Rarities Online, Weston, MA written on it, a man remarked “You’re from Massachusetts? – that’s dangerous.” And then left. No idea what that was about.

A coin in the case of another dealer which I have seen now for 7 years, which to me demonstrates excellent persistence, and the use of an inventory turn model with which I  am unfamiliar.

A dealer and his assistant who spent 10 minutes trying to fix his shirt collar, but not succeeding.

A collector asked us if we had any coins, tokens or medals related to hearing. Ironically, I initially misheard him and thought he said “herring”, but in either case the answer was unfortunately still no.

The vest pocket dealer who came to the table and showed us a lot of cool coins, including some that we previously owned years ago. So of course we snapped up a few.

The re-appearance of ‘The Dropper’, the young dealer who has come to our table at many shows, asked to see coins and dropped every one of them at least once. So, no, we did not show him any here.

A totally cool, high grade and quite expensive double taler of a type I had never seen before at the table of a dealer friend.

The currency dealer near us who sells a device that looks like an electric nose hair trimmer, but which is actually a light used to verify the presence of security features in modern world currency:

A dealer who came over to show me a photo of a guy sorting coins on the floor in a bathroom stall. From which we can conclude that you should always clean the slab when you acquire a new coin since you never know where it has been.

The man who asked if he could use our table to spread out and put coins purchased elsewhere into the box in his backpack. It took me a while to digest that, but not long after to say no.

The direct approach used by some NYC customers who say things like “This coin has been on your site too long and I am sick of looking at it, so you should sell it to me for X.” So we did.

A young collector asked if we had any Wreath Cents. So I directed him across the room to someone I thought might, only to discover he actually was looking for Wheat Cents. Big difference. Also, I am seriously starting to question my herring. I mean hearing.

The guys at the table across from us who told me they are selling coins at the rate of about 100 per hour here. Yes, those are at lower price points, but you have to admit that is cranking them out at an impressive clip.

Also impressive: Our dinner at Bayon, a Cambodian restaurant on 64th street, continuing our streak of finding new and interesting places to visit while we’re in town.

January 18th: Day 4

One might imagine that Saturday at the NYINC would be a sleepy affair with light crowds, families pushing strollers and the occasional boy scout troop, but little in the way of serious numismatic commerce. And if one did imagine that, one would have been completely and totally wrong. El Wrongo. W-R-O-O-O-O-O-N-G.

But let’s start at the beginning, which as usual was a quick trip to the Danish bakery next door with a collector and industry friend, a casual stroll back to the bourse floor for the 9 AM start, the unfurling of the CRO cases, a quick click of the lights and, as though a starter’s gun had gone off, non-stop action at the table starting mere moments later.

I can’t explain it, but we had a nearly non-stop stream of people at the table, and pretty much everyone bought something (or several somethings) from us, from colorful and relatively affordable world coins to 5-figure US coins to a bunch of those Liberty Nickels from the new set to every single kind of thing in-between.

Including some new things just acquired at the FUN show that we displayed here and which seemed destined for our next EB. Like these for example:

To world coins we have owned for a while that have been parked in the back of our vault waiting for the exact right moment:

To a frenzy of activity when we showed some collectors our NEWPs just back from photography. Like this old toned, all original pair:

Seriously, I thought a fight was going to break out over those coins, and that was between two guys who are related.

It was stunning to me, and added up to a wild event which, when combined with the FUN show last week, already represents the best two shows back to back we’ve ever had.

But Saturday at the show had to end at about 5:30, as we zipped out to an opening at our daughter-in-law’s art gallery, then made our way to Brooklyn to attend a party hosted by one of the local world coin dealers during which pretty much the entire industry rubbed elbows and listened to some smooth live jazz.

After which we headed out for a late dinner at a cool Greek place on 20th street which I believe was the loudest restaurant I’ve ever been in, and also one of the latest, with people still coming in to be seated at 11 PM. The city that never sleeps indeed.

And the fun is not even over yet, as this show continues on Sunday. The weather, however, is not looking very cooperative at this moment, and we may have to change our travel plans to avoid getting stuck here for an extra day or two.

Whatever happens, we’ll be back to summarize it in our last RR from this show to be posted first thing on Monday AM. So you might want to keep an eye out for that.

January 19th: Day 5

We did not call the airline and try to modify our flight home so we could beat the snow storm on the east coast on Sunday. Fact is it wasn’t necessary, since they went ahead and cancelled our original evening flight on their own, moving us up to one that left at about 2. Which meant we’d have only a couple of hours on the bourse floor on Sunday before we’d have to pack up and leave.

So we tried to make the best of it, racing around to clean up some loose ends, having a last look around the room, once again seriously considering two cool coins on the floor that were priced far out of our comfort zone, consigning a few coins, signing our bourse contract for next year and finally viewing the coins in a sealed bid auction ending at noon being conducted by the same guy who lost our winning lot last year for several months. Alas we saved ourselves another potential adventure with that since I did not see anything CRO in this year’s sale.

So for the day, our results looked like this:

Total purchases: 1 coin
Total sales: 0 coins

Which wasn’t that surprising, since our time was limited, many other dealers were in the same boat with travel plans and vacated earlier than usual and just a few collectors were on the floor. So we kind of ended with a whimper here after almost non-stop mega-activity through Saturday.

And now we’ll get caught up with shipping after being gone for a week, finish bidding in the remaining world auctions, sort out all of our NEWPs and start formulating the next EB. Right after we get some serious rest, since two super busy and very long shows like this back to back has been extremely tiring. But it is a good kind of tired.

Finito