THE 2017 ANA SHOW

THIS REPORT IS BEING WRITTEN BASED UPON THE EXPERIENCES AND OBSERVATIONS OF LEGEND NUMISMATICS. LEGEND DEALS IN TOP QUALITY AND RARITIES SO NATURALLY OUR REPORT IS BASED ON THAT MARKET-OTHERS WILL HAVE DIFFERENT EXPERIENCES.

GHOST SHOW

Sadly, we strongly believe the days of the great ANA Shows are gone (sorry, we won’t sugar coat things). It is our strong opinion this was a marginal at best show for most. We will state here, that with the exception of our better customers doing a few deals, this show was so horrible for us . The ANA is a dying show and it seems like everyone around it is in denial.  It is highly unlikely Legend Numismatics will take big tables and host great displays anymore at ANA Shows (the FUN show is where the action is). It cost us $20,000.00 to do this show (NOT including the $10,000.00 to be a sponsor). We know we are NOT alone in our bad feelings.  One major dealer who did not take a table was walking around laughing at everyone who did. More then one day of the show we witnessed isles so empty in the premium section you could not just bowl, but drive a truck down them. Just to make sure it was not us having coodies, we scoped out a few competitors near us and watched entire staffs standing with their hands in their pockets doing nothing for hours. Collector traffic was pathetic-except for a few boy scouts, can’t wait to see how the ANA spins that.

The highlight of the show for a few people was the Utah zillionare blew through buying up collections (that gorgeous set of PR Gold Dollars  (which was immediately crossed to PCGS ) and in one swoop he cleaned a friend of ours out of his entire case of coins (a certain Type). The few hardy collectors who attended complained to us there simply was nothing to buy.  Of course as each year passes and this problem becomes more prevalent, ALL shows will decline. In fact, this year an  added whammy was the auctions were weak. No blockbuster collections and there was only ONE coin over $1 million to sell. Hard to get collectors to come out when this is what they have to look forward too.

In the end, our sales were so weak, that even last years awful numbers were better. We what we used to make in profit at show like this, is now nearly our gross sales! We did maybe 4-5 sales from the table. Even our secret stealth seller struggled. He did his best business with the smaller dealers in the room who usually do not do the big shows. There was no wholesale flow unless you had a fresh deal. Last, as expected PNG day was a total waste. Time to make that extra day go away.

Do note, that even with a miserable ANA show, we fully expect to still sell $5 million dollars worth of SUPERB GEM coins this month. Our market is as strong as ever. Its just hard to find the really great coins (which is frustrating to us). We consider the 2017 ANA show a SMALL bump in the road, nothing more.

THE AUCTIONS

Clearly the auctions proved the market IS ALIVE and is well-especially from the internet.

We thought we could breeze in and snatch a few rips-NOT! Not only did that not happen, we got blown away by many prices.

In Heritage we were gunning for many of the remarkable PR Barber Dimes (many which we had sold Sun-Tzu years ago). We felt like chumps we could not even get our hands up in some cases. We did manage to buy one of our top favorite coins ever (which we also sold Sun Tzu)-the 5C 1910 PCGS PR68 CAC OGH. We paid $20,562.50 all in!!!If we had to pay $25,000.00 hammer it probably would have been our max. This coin was unlike ANY other Proof Liberty 5C we had EVER seen-and we have seen MANY of the finest. Its like the $1 1882S NGC MS66 CAC Flanngan toned Morgan (which we deeply regret selling). The nickel stayed in our minds for 20 years. And like the 1882s, others agreed with our thinking as confirmed by the price realized. In our opinion, given no great collection or deal of monster rarities, the Heritage Sale was strong overall. Almost forgot: a 50C 1951 PCGS PR67+ DCameo sold for an insane $82,250.00. The auction was mostly internet activity.

Stacks was an even bigger surprise sale. It had a lot of nice product from the High Rise Collection which really was recently assembled (sadly the owner passed away). We thought for sure we could buy some of the nicer coins really cheap-NOT! The 1C 1906 PCGS PR67 Cameo CAC (a monster coin) brought a monster $30,550.00. Three Cent Silvers especially sold strong (the 1855 PCGS PR66 CAC brought a staggering $58,750.00 all in). Of course Stacks had the superstar coin-the $1 1794 PCGS MS64 CAC bring $2,820,000.00 all in!

Anything that was FRESH or was of TRUE quality sold really strong in either auction. The demand is there and is active. Collectors simply stayed home and bid or had their dealers walk the floor looking for Want list coins (in most cases coming up empty).

As we mentioned in last weeks Market Report, this show is NOT an indicator of the market. 20 years ago big shows were-especially ANA. Today its the big black hole of the internet that simply takes the great coins away that is where the action is. We do see the market alive and healthy-even in the summer doldrums. However we are VERY concerned how the severe lack of supply  could hurt the future of all shows.

Also, with gold inching up-time to buy! We saw so little nice PCGS CAC gold available. Build those Type sets!

LEGEND NUMISMATICS BUYS THE 1794 DOLLAR

We are proud to have purchased the last 3 MS 1794 $1 that have come to market (and we were the direct under bidder on the  Blue Moon AU 58 CAC). We LOVE these coins. This one, was our favorite pedigree ever-Lord Saint Oswald. We are freaks over that name as it represents some of the FINEST in 1794 coinage that exists.

The 1794 $1 PCGS MS64 CAC sold for $2,820,000.00 all in. To be honest, we had it pegged at $1.8-$2.1 hammer. We are proud our customer made the decision not to lose it.

Its funny how this sale started. Our plan was to wait and not be the first in so we could get to $2.1 million hammer if need be-or stretch to $2.2 million if someone beat us to the cut. We waited and decided to cut the bid at $1.75 on the opening shot. For a split second we thought we had it-NOT! The rest of the crowd was waiting just like us. As soon as we made the cut-the real bidding started. Very tense and nerve racking for us and our customer who was phone bidding.

We want the world to know the collector who purchased the coin is NOT  Simpson or our partner Bruce Morelan who both have higher graded coins. In fact, Bruce offered the former owner (a wonderful man who sadly is now deceased) a whopping $3 million dollars through us before he bought the piece he currently owns. The buyer is a totally NEW collector. In fact he only seriously started collecting in January. He was chatting about this coin for months. He is building a great Type Set-but on his own terms. His goal: simply to buy smart and beautiful coins. He will NOT be involved in paying what ever it takes run up races. He has no ego and does not care for the Registry hype. NOTE: he also bought the 10C 1796 PCGS MS63 CAC out of Stacks. He is not stuck on finest known or big ticket coins, he demands coins HE likes-it does not matter if the coin is worth $2,000.00 or $2,000,000.00 (how refreshing). We’re sure as his collection grows he will allow us to display some of his marvelous pieces. We’re thrilled and honored he is allowing us the blank pallet to help him build something totally remarkable.

A heartfelt congratulations to our collector friend for now being the time keeper of one of the top numismatic treasures that exists.

NEWPS

While the floor was drier then an desert in the summer, we did get lucky (real lucky) and find a handful of outstanding GEM coins. We are sorry to say we bought ZERO DMPL’s. We did NOT like the few we saw. One thing we did do-we tried to swoop in early and buy up some gold. Found just a few coins, Bought very little for Want Lists-save for a “big girl” coin or two.

Highlights of this listing include:

$1 1900 PCGS PR67 DCAMEO CAC

G $1 1875 PCGS AU58 CAC

$2.5 1838 PCGS AU58 CAC

$5 1834 CLASSIC PCGS MS64 CAC

We must have walked the bourse floor 10 times hoping something would pop up. Most of the coins offered here were NOT out in display cases as we wanted to offer them to our internet friends.  Legend will never shy away from buying a great coin when we see one-even if the price is strong!

Do not forget to check our regular inventory-we still have several coins that deserve great homes!

ALL NEWPS ARE NOW POSTED!  ALLOW 24 HOURS FOR IMAGES

LEGEND AUCTIONS

www.legendauctions.com

THE BUYERS FEE ON OUR AUGUST INTERNET ONLY SESSION IS 10%-NOT 12.5%

THE BUYERS FEE ON OUR REGENCY SALES WILL REMAIN AT 17.5%

BID NOW! Our August Premier Sessions sale closes this Thursday starting at 10 PM Est. We had many people stop by to lot view and comment how nice the sale was. The most talked about “wowzer” coin was the monster toned $1 1885O PCGS MS66 CAC. It probably would have made Northern Lights if we had seen it years earlier.

A big thank you to everyone who came by to say hi and see our display of the 93S $1 PCGS MS67 CAC and the Crow River Gold set to be sold at the Phili PCGS Invitational. We can tell you now, there WILL be a lot of serious bidding on the Crow River Set. Be prepared!

We are in our final phases of accepting consignments for our September Premier Sessions Sale and our October Regency Sale. We mean it when we say space is extremely limited. The first two days the ANA Show was open, we accepted $1 million worth of fresh consignments. Once consignment was from a very long time Legend customer who is now retiring and really has some awesome coins.

Contact Julie Abrams: julie@legendauctions, or Greg Cohen: greg@legendauctions for ANY questions or help you might need.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS PLEASE EMAIL US: legend@legendcoin.com. WE DO NTO CHECK OUT PHONE MESSAGES UNTIL MONDAY 9 AM.