Friday-Sunday June 27-29

This is generally the largest show in Arizona, sponsored by Bick International, and held twice a year.

Friday

I arrived at the show just after opening to technical difficulties. About half the show (60+ tables) had no electric, and this was causing some grumbling from those without lights and laptops. After an hour, it was back to normal. Let the show begin.

Friday being a workday, was typically slow with collector traffic, but the dealer to dealer biz appeared healthy. I saw lots of checks being written and spotted our local wholesaler, Arizona Coin and Jewelry, a huge CW and NN advertiser, making his rounds as he normally does early every show.

Many of the retiree's here in the Valley of the Sun were in attendance, but I saw a lot of looking and not much spending. One older gentleman had a handfull of $1000 FRN's but was unable to sell across the table. I do not know if his ask was too high or if the notes were in a non-collectable condition. Many had bags of 90% and some old Whitman folders/ albums, it was painful watching them get lowballed and I was proud of a few that had some nicer stuff to sell and knew it, getting better prices.

Saturday was a great day. What was so nice about it was the amount of collector sitting at tables, want list's out, and going thru the binders and double row's looking to fill holes in those sets. The collector base was better than I have seen here in a while, economy and gas prices be damned, the collectors were out and buying. It was watching fun watching one fellow bargain for a nice PCGS semi key high demand coin. He asked the dealer "whats bid...thats what I'm payin"...chuckle, after a bit of back and forth, the gentleman paid about retail and walked away smiling. The dealer winked at me, lol.

I found it difficult to spend money in alot of cases, but when I found a dealer with fresh material and fair prices, I spent it as fast as I could. I was able to buy several key Lincolns, a pair of 1914-D's, a pair of 09-S's and a nice AU 1909-SVDB, all from out of state folks, one being Excelsior Coin Gallery from CA, the largest "national dealer" at the show.

Those with the typically overgraded, cleaned and overpriced inventory sat and watched the action, and our local monthly show dealers were rather slow due to the lack of anything new. Collectors and dealers are not buying this stuff, and with money "tight" , it was being spent, but was being spent "picky" , a real healthy sign. Fairly priced and choice for the grade stuff did not last much past 1/2 way thru Saturday.

Leaving Saturday afternoon, picking up 3 bags of pre-40 wheats on my way out, I now look forward to Long Beach in Sept, my favorite show of all the big ones I have attended. Something about LB just buzzes me for weeks ahead of time. I get to plan like a kid knowing he's going to Disneyland. Sunday I stayed home and searched a wheatbag, working on my pre-40 roll set and imaging some of my buys.

Over all, I made some industry "headway" and gained some "show credibility" with the locals, who have considered me fresh meat, and are semi-reluctantly being forced to accept the new guy on the block. I talked alot about the website/vs/Ebay thing with a few dealers I know, and have been asked to possibly start setting up at LB with another, sharing the table fee. Sounds like a plan.

Over and Out
Jack Penrod
WINS#721