Long Beach Sales, Shopping for Deals, Soaring Gold Amerian Eagles

Posted on 15. Sep, 2009 by KJ in Auctions, Perth Mint, US Mint

Welcome back to Something About Coins! The results are coming in from the Long Beach Coin Expo that was held over the weekend. My dad was there, so I asked him today what the attendance was like, and all he said was that he's seen better. Well, that's my dad. As honest as good ole' Abe himself. On to a more conclusive report ...

Heritage Auctions realized $18.4 million at Long Beach. That's pretty good in my book. Greg Rohan, President of Heritage, says in today's press release, "...the state of the numismatic market is quite sound; perhaps on its way to a full recovery, and beyond." Their press release has beautiful images of an 1891 $20 PR67 Ultra Cameo NGC and a Brazilian Joao V gold 12800 Reis Dobra 1731-R "Italic Shield", KM148, AU 53 NGC in near mint state.

Doug Winter, of RareGoldCoins.com, wrote an article about an experience he had at the Long Beach Coin Expo regarding rare coin prices. He warns in his article that new collectors with "deal shopping" mentality won't receive great coins for the grade if they're too concerned about price. He says that the real deals come with knowledge of the coins, and he illustrates with two coins given the same grade can carry completely different values.

In other news, CoinNews.net reports the 2009 gold bullion American Eagles are selling great while the silver sales have dramatically slowed down this month. In August, the U.S. Mint sold over two million silver American Eagles, but so far in September they've sold only 600,000 silver eagles. The gold eagles, on the other hand, are trending upward. It looks like the mint will sell more gold eagles this month than last month, since they're already at 62,500, and last month sold a total of 82,000.

By the way, I noticed those beautiful 2010 Koala Bullion Silver Coins that I wrote about on September 1st are in the Perth Mint catalog emailed today.

Have a good night, and see you tomorrow!