Shop Around
When making purchases it will pay you to become acquainted
with a number of different sellers. Some sell high-quality coins, while others
tend to sell to a price, and mainly handle low-end items.
I recommend that you purchase hand-picked items and
endeavor to secure premium quality pieces. It is obvious that the seller of
low-quality "bargains" can offer coins cheaper than can a dealer who
spends a great deal of time carefully looking at many coins before making even a
single purchase.
One of America's most successful numismatic publishers told
me that he was commissioned by his uncle to purchase some silver dollars, and
looked through many hundreds of slabbed pieces but was able to find just six
which he felt were sharply struck and with good aesthetic appeal. Of these six,
just two were real beauties, and the other four were marginal.
At a convention I examined over 600 certified copper,
silver, and gold coins, and purchased just three which I felt offered the proper
combination of sharp strike, pleasing surfaces, and reasonable price. The
seller, an East Coast professional, was an active trader on the electronic
circuits and catered primarily to investors. He made no effort to acquire
exceptional pieces. Whenever he did buy coins which had special appeal, they
were quickly cherrypicked by dealers like me!
Writing in the field of stamps, Herman Herst, Jr., one of
America's best known professional philatelists, made the statement that no great
collection was ever formed by anyone who was a slave to published values. Stamps
of special quality often sell for special prices, and scarce and rare stamps
typically bring over market, he stated. So it is with coins. No great collection
was ever formed by someone who tried to buy the most coins for the cheapest
prices.
A Connoisseur
A collecting success story is that of Jimmy Hayes, a
connoisseur from the word go, who elected to buy coins only of hand-picked
quality. Seeking to raise funds for what turned out to be a successful bid to be
a delegate from Louisiana in the U.S. House of Representatives, Hayes consigned
his coins to Stack's, where they did extremely well at auction. Certain of the
pieces were purchased by Dennis Irving Long, another connoisseur. After Mr.
Long, a respected financier and businessman from Louisville, Kentucky, passed
away, his magnificent collection was consigned to us for auction, where further
price records were established. One coin, a certified MS-65 1839 Liberty Seated
half dollar without drapery at the elbow brought $99,000, or more than double
the bid price at the time of $42,000, and was purchased by Kenneth Goldman, a
dealer with a discerning eye who undoubtedly considered it to be a bargain even
at that level. And, indeed it proved to be a good value, for by a few months
later the bid price had jumped to $100,000. Today's auction record is often
tomorrow's bargain. I have seen it happen many times.
