October 24-26, 2024: The New Hampshire Coin & Currency Expo

October 24th: Dealer Set-Up

With the show scheduled to open to dealers at 3 PM on Thursday, Team CRO arrived in NH at about 2:45, just in time to meet up with a long time customer friend who had graciously offered to help us with set up. How come? Because, almost unbelievably, your author is in a sling for the second year in a row after surgery on the other shoulder, thus reducing my personal schlepping capability by 50%.

But with that extra help it was smoooooth sailing, allowing us to join the giant queue of other dealers in the lobby impatiently waiting for the bourse room door to open. Where we saw many friends and colleagues, and were immediately engaged in two (2) conversations:

The first one about shoulders by another dealer who himself had a similar injury.

The second by a customer who was waiting there specifically to see us, announcing that he brought half a dozen coins to show us.

So of course I found that second conversation waaaaay more interesting, and agreed to meet up with the guy at our table just as soon as we got set up.

So you would think that would have been our first deal of the day, right? Um, no, since we bought a coin from a different collector literally seconds after the show opened. Then bought all 6 coins from this other guy, which I have to believe was among the fastest 7-coin buying sprees in the long history of numismatics.

And all of this would turn out to be a common theme for the rest of the day here, as your author alternated between discussing shoulders with a surprising number of injured coin dealers, and vacuuming up cool coins all over the room. Including old holders, new holders, gold CACs, green CACs, no CACs, etc.

I find that extremely surprising, since we weren’t really looking to buy that much. We just kept finding cool coins that were priced right.

Also surprising here:  The number of national dealers in the room, indicating that this NH show is now, officially, big time.

With our last deal of the day the purchase of a nice early dollar before heading out to dinner with some collector friends at some cool winery nearby, the first time we have ever ventured out of town for dinner up here, but based on how good this was, definitely not the last.

Tomorrow we expect it to be busy here, with the full complement of dealers set up and ready to go, and, we hope, the same kind of collector turnout we usually get here.

Whatever happens, we’ll blog all about it right here in this space in just about 24 hours from now.

October 25th: Day 1

It was precisely 8:44 AM when we strolled on to the bourse floor on Friday, uncovered our cases, clicked on the lights and declared ourselves officially open for business.

And then were immediately serenaded by a dealer screaming at another dealer right near us in a way that you kinda think must be a joke, but turns out not to be. Not sure what that was about, but it must have been something serious since I don’t think I have ever heard the yeller raise his voice before in 20+ years of knowing him.

Anyway, now fully awake, we were ready to spend the next, oh, 9 hours buying, selling, trading, working on deals, talking to customers and generally being extremely productive as indicated by the following highlights of our day:

Snagged a super choice VF Seated Dollar parked in an unexpected dealer’s case.

Sold our cool Gold CAC Bechtler Dollar after it lasted a little bit longer on the site than I thought it would.

Bought an incredible GSA Morgan with the wildest color I have ever personally seen on one of these.

Talked to a customer at length about helping him consign his world coin collection to auction, since we can get him a consignment rate that is literally 15% higher than the one he got on his own on a previous consignment. That’s a pretty big difference.

Bought a lovely toned Mexican Charles III 1 real, the first nice one we’ve had a chance to buy in about a year.

Delivered 2 coins ordered off the most recent Early Bird to 2 different customers.

Bought 2 gem toned commems from a seller who told me they were both too expensive. I disagreed.

Sold a Trade Dollar we had taken in trade recently toward another coin, thus allowing us to close the books on that earlier deal. Always good to tidy that stuff up.

And then, all of a sudden, it was time for us to leave, since we would need to drive 50 miles to Keene, NH to visit relatives via some winding two lines roads on which we were warned by many locals to keep a sharp eye out for stray moose since you really, really do not want to hit one. And believe me, when someone tells you that, you do it.

From where we returned real late, thankfully mooseless, so we could turn in and be ready for Saturday in NH during which we expect to see some of our regular local customers as part of what we hope will be a robust crowd of attendees all there to do business.

And then blog all about everything that happens right here on Sunday AM.

Until then, then –

October 26th: Day 2

We were back at it on Saturday, arriving at the show fashionably late at 9:10 to find someone sitting at our (still covered) table waiting for us. That is something that has happened to us at shows a few dozen times through the years, and of course we always welcome it. Which is not to be confused with the time we got to a show 15 years ago and found two other dealers sitting behind our table having a meeting. That was of course not cool. At all.

Anyway, we proceeded to buy one coin and sell two to this particular wait-er, starting what would be another busy and active day on the bourse floor.

During which we finally finalized a looooong layaway deal with another customer who bought a cool coin using the proceeds of a different cool coin he memo’d to us which was also sold by layaway. Related to that (sort of), we also took another one on consignment here.

And then sold a Lincoln 1c to another dealer, a world coin to a collector attendee and a bunch of Indian cents to another while simultaneously showing coins to a slew of show visitors ranging from new collectors to very serious ones, the entire gamut of whom seemed to be extreeeeemely interested in the Slug we brought with us.

Then completed a deal for the one mega-coin we saw here in NH, a super rare, high end and incredibly eye appealing piece which will take center stage at our next show unless we sell it sooner, which is entirely possible.

After which we collated a giant stack of paperwork, sorted all the coins and then boxed up 40 newps to be sent off to photography, since it’s just too hard and too time consuming for me to do it with one hand for now.

And that was it for the 2024 Fall NH show, another excellent event here with no shortage of attendees, action and good coins.

Now we’ll have a little time to unwind, rewind and get ready for the next event on our schedule, the Whitman Baltimore Expo from where are next RR will be written in about 2 and a half weeks from now.

So you might want to keep an eye out for that –