blog

The June Baltimore coin show was last week, and we had a table with our usual inventory of major mint errors. Unlike most shows, we only stayed 2 days, Thursday and Friday. The reason we planned only the 2 days was because, in our experience, the June Baltimore is a fairly slow summer show, with lower attendance and not a lot of activity--in fact, we've infrequently even attended the show over the last few decades. However, this year, because sales have been so brisk and inventory low (a situation we heard from many dealers at the show), we attended. We're glad we did! It was much busier than we expected, and we stayed busy Thursday buying and selling, with a slower but still fairly busy Friday leading up to our exiting the show to catch a late flight home. 

On Thursday, sales and purchases felt like a typical "good coin show", and we purchased roughly 30-40 certified errors, and probably 150-200 raw errors. In addition, we sold a number of errors at the show, often to customers who were "not expecting to see us there!" It is certainly a busy and hot coin market for the right coins. Common coins are always slower to sale, waiting in dealer's inventory for the collector who is: 1.Currently in need of the coin and 2.Has the money to buy it. Rare or eye-catching major errors are very easy to sale right now, and hard to keep in stock. Our formula for keeping coins like that in stock is to pay top dollar, and keep fresh inventory coming in in this way! 

One thing we'd like to clarify with our customers and readers of this blog is our relationship with PCGS. Some people have been asking lately is "do you see and attribute all the coins at PCGS?" Although Jon Sullivan is the official PCGS mint error attributer since Fred Weinberg retired from the position 2-3 years ago, he does not see all the coins. Some coins (maybe 25%?), and sometimes perhaps more, are done in house by PCGS' staff. We simply mention this because we're asked "why did this coin get this attribution or why not that attribution", and the answer often is that it wasn't a coin we attributed and so we really can't comment, and you would need to reach out to PCGS for answers. If you have any questions, however, feel free to reach out to Jon or contact PCGS. Our goal is to always give 100% accurate and as precise attributions as possible for all the work we do for PCGS.