recon to a coin shop
 

So I went to this local coin shop, finally. They had lots of ungraded coinage in flips laid out neatly in display boxes, each coin in a mylar flip. Several hundred, from coppers to all different kinds of silver coins. Most prevalent displayed were morgans.

They also had some slabbed coins. Not a lot. Maybe forty, sixty tops.

They had a decent selection of gold types. I hadnt seen the incused indian head coins in person till today, and that enthused me quite a bit.

They had boxes of junk silver. $15 for crappy morgans, peace; then, $1 box with various oddities, mostly clad, $2 box with mostly silver dimes, $3 box of better stuff, and so forth on up, maybe six of these grab bag type boxes in all. I couldnt see what was in the third row of display boxes cuz this guy had a bunch of crap strewn out all across em and was talkin to some lady. Selling a collection I take it. Maybe this row of cases had estate type jewelry in it, I would guess.

They had boxes and boxes of junk along the edge of the wall behind the display cases. I mean, filled with SAE mint boxes, mint sets, flat package mint sets, you name it, seemed pretty disorganized and like they had a ton of stock just sitting there. I was surprised at this cause they been in business for a long time, long as I can remember, two decades for sure.

The place was probably $500 a month rent, I'd guess, in a small shopping center, next to a middle to lower middle income neighborhood, but a peaceful and decent such neighborhood. Not a super high traffic area either; and their signage sucked. I've driven by there a hundred times and never realized exactly where they were till I hunted them down today. Two middle age white guys working. I eyeballed it all pretty quick and told em I'd come back and buy soon.

I just kind of wonder where they are making money to cover their expenses because they had this place laid out pretty disorganized. If I had this shop I would get all that crap out of the boxes and on display PDQ.

Anybody at GIM ever operate such a shop? What kind of opportunities are there for me as a potential repeat customer of such a shop?

Re: recon to a coin shop
 

http://www.gainesvillecoins.com/

Take a look here. I've bought a lot of slabs from them. Check out your INDIANS here.

Re: recon to a coin shop
 

You should ask them, but I would think they deal in mostly bullion. The percentages in the buying and selling of which is where they'd make their money. At least, that's how my guy does. The numismatic part is just a little cake for the love of the hobby. I could be wrong though.

Re: recon to a coin shop
 

You CAN MAKE a ton of FRNs running a shop. LOCATION, location, location, is PRIMARY. :applause_

1st location good city with no competition that's too close;:9536:

2nd location is a good neighborhood in that city;:9536:

3rd location is a good street in that city with overhead you can easily handle.:9536:

Do your research; pencil it out.

REMEMBER brick & morter shops fight the INTERNET ones! see above post

Re: recon to a coin shop
 

A lot of small dealers make their money by having a shop (storage base) with expenses they can write off while still selling to customers, and primarily by setting up and coin and gun shows, and selling on the internet.

Re: recon to a coin shop
 

they got an internet website but it's basically just informational. not really set up for online shopping.

is there a lot of coin selling at guns shows these days? I have not done gun shows for about a decade. but I used to go them really heavy all over No Illinois and NW Indiana.

Re: recon to a coin shop
 

Yep. Gives them a place to hang their hat, and go to during the week - don't have customers coming to their house.

I talked with a guy that runs one of the few stamp shops left.

Asked him how on earth he could afford the overhead.

Basically, his sales are at shows, over the phone, internet and in stamp publications - does very little over the counter to folks "browsing"

Dunno where/what city/area the referenced shop in the initial post of this thread is. But it's hard to find any commercial property for less than $12 a foot. which would be !,000 a month for 1,000 square feet. My guess is that he is paying more than $500 a month, or is a hole in the wall, or he's just lucky.

with heating, cooling, insurance,taxes, maintenence, various other overhead items - if you allocated fixed overhead (and most semi-variablea) on a sqaure footage basis - my guess is that if you kept it all below $12 a square foot - most other business owners would wanna know how the he!! you're doing it.

Re: recon to a coin shop
 

I'm not a dealer, but it seems to me it's the opposite. The margins on slabbed, numismatic coins are MUCH higher than the few bucks or maybe few percent they can make on bullion. Lots of dealers at shows are actually annoyed when I ask about bullion - they feel it's too much hassle to lug around for someone like me who only wants to pay spot price for it, or maybe a few bucks over!

Meanwhile, they can buy a $100 2006 SAE mint sent and sell it for $600 a few months later - that's profit. Or they can take a new Buffalo out of the roll and get it slabbed as MS-69 or 70 and have someone pay $1500 for it - that's profit, by turning bullion into numismatic (in some people's eyes, not mine)!

Or maybe they buy coins from kids or old ladies or people who don't know how much their coins are worth for nothing and then end up with these key date rarities. Or they just pay only half what the sheets say and then sell them for those prices. Much more profit than a $8 spread on buying and selling Krugerrands and risking spot price fluctuations.

Re: recon to a coin shop
 

Yep, my understanding is most of the profit is in the numismatic, and the bullion is almost handled as a courtesy service.

One follow-up: I'm always amazed how many coin shops (and other collectibles-type shops) are in such utter disarray! If you ask for something specific, they aren't even sure what they have, and they have to go digging through their piles to find out! I've seen mint Maples in sealed plastic tossed in with boxes of unrecognizable silver rounds.

Re: recon to a coin shop
 

most coin dealers i used to know would only buy about 75 to 80 book price,the bad ones scam at less than 50% when buying.
however if you develope a good relationship with one you can get some very good deals.
in 2002 i elieve as one coin dealer i have known for almost 8 years was closing his shop and going purely online he gave me a great deal on au to bu peace dollars,i bought 3 rolls of em for melt value.

sidenote i know when being there just talking coins looking over his stuff (he trusted me) that hed get a call and then go into the back and whip out some very nice gold coins then some guy would come by and deliver them,i never asked about that since it wasnt my buisness just found it odd.

Re: recon to a coin shop
 

I notice one west coast dealer selling PCGS MS-70 Buffalos for $900. Seems folks are starting to understand this "bullion grade rarity" nonsense, and the prices keep falling.

Most small local brick and mortar coin dealers have a tough go of it these days. Numismatics in general are really a far cry from what they were back in the 1955-1989 era. Unfortunately, especially for the collector/seller, there has always been a problem of "grade creep" to help the bottom line profit margins. Dealers may downgrade when buying, overgrade when selling and add the difference to the rent payment. As they say, "it's all subjective".

When the man with the money meets the man with the experience, the man with the experience usually ends up with the money, and the man with the money usually ends up with some experience. Nothing new under the sun.

a digression about real estate
 

it can be done in any place where there are a lot of vacancies. you just find out who the landlord is and say, listen, I see you are vacant, I have a low key commericial location planned, like this, and I will give you $500 per month for a year. I know that isnt much or maybe not even your carrying costs, but I can see that this location is hurting and that's what I got to offer.

I give you an example of a good friend of mine. He has a professional office in a small building, that's broken up into condo units, that used to have docs, lawyers, dentist, broker, etc. Now it just has one shrink who's a half timer, one lawyer, and one broker. Down to 1/3 occupied. In his location his landlord got foreclosed on a tax sale, and nobody bought it. Five years of arrearage is now on this property. And now the bank's foreclosed his landlord's loan too, and owns it. The tenant pays what he's been paying the last five years, which is about equal to the taxes, and he carries the utilities. Why doesnt the bank evict him now and get a better tenant and sell it?

1-- evicting him is useless unless they have a better tenant who will rent, and they dont.

2-- selling it is impossible since the tax arrearage ALONE is in excess of the realistic market value.

So why would he lift a finger to move, and why would the bank move him? The bank is pocketing the rent, screwing the city, the city can't do jack, because they will just have another tax sale that nobody will buy into....

there are lots of situations like this, it's just a matter of knowing local situations.

I know this guy's location, it's about 500 sf of retail space, and maybe some storage and closet or backroom space. There are vacancies in the small shopping center. I think they prolly dont pay more than 500 a month.

Still for two employees plus rent plus insurance costs-- property loss, inventory, workers comp-- you got to figure costs are at least $5000 a month. I dont really see the profit in a brick and mortar store unless there is goign to be foot traffic and maybe a decent sign that will grab eyeballs.

Re: recon to a coin shop
 

Above is so true. I'd start out with the internet (read EBAY) and the shows. Overhead would then be small. :9536: :9536: :9536:

Then look for the deals above - if you wanted to after success.:applause_ :applause_ :applause_

Re: recon to a coin shop
 

The guy had some $20 saints for sale at decent prices. If I have enough time to break more kneecaps than usual next week, maybe dislocate a few fingers, then I may be able to scratch up enough to buy one. I hope the dip in gold holds till then.

I will feel better about buying gold from somebody face to face. I would buy from a big online vendor too but prolly not ebay gold.

Re: recon to a coin shop
 

How much did he want for the saints Anty Ep ?