Fort Worth show now history

It is always great to get home after an American Numismatic Association convention, especially when flights are on time as mine were yesterday.

The Fort Worth event was a well-run show with seamless logistics. The local volunteers and national volunteers can take a bow for that.

What of the market? It was mediocre.

Floor activity was reasonably good on Wednesday set-up and Thursday, but by Friday things died off. Saturday saw a rebound in numbers of people on the floor as more than 200 Boy and Girl Scouts swelled the registration numbers to over 1,800 for the day.

Dealers are somewhat cautious, buying material that they know they have clients for.

True collector coins are doing OK, but the high-end stuff has become just stuff. Having the second or third or fourth best known of some coins just isn’t the inducement it once was to make a purchase.

Buying coins to put in a future auction to get the top money seems not to be as rewarding as it was at the market activity peak in 2008.

Paper money dealers feel the market has bottomed out. The absolute top was the Central States Heritage auction in the spring of 2008. Dealers who are pricing at today’s levels are doing business.

Boy Scout commemoratives were being sold at the Mint booth for full retail. A supply was set aside to make sure there were plenty on Saturday when Scouts and their families arrived. As of Saturday morning 200,000 of a possible 350,000 coins had been sold.

Next ANA stop is Boston in August.