Coin Show report - Chattanooga, TN

[1970 silver art]

Today I went to the Tennessee State Numismatic Society Fall Coin Show. This is the first day of the coin show and it continues tomorrow and the last day is on Sunday. This is probably the largest coin show in Tennessee. It was crowded which was expected since this show usually has close to 200 dealer tables. I got there shortly after it opened (about 10:05 AM) but I had to park in the back since the parking lot was getting full. Once I got in, they asked me for id, which was a first since I did not have to do that at past TSNS coin shows. I checked Kitco.com to see where spot prices where when I got inside the building. Spot silver was $26.51 and spot gold was $1391.00 at that time.

My goals at this show were to find some '70's silver art bars that were on my "wish list" and to look for some hobo nickels to add to my hobo nickel collection. Since it was a fairly big coin show, it took several trips walking around the dealer tables to see what I can find. As I was searching for '70's silver art bars and hobo nickels, I did run across some prices on general gold and silver bullion. Here are some prices that I have seen while I was there at the show:

SAE's = $28 to $29.50. I am sure that there were some dealer tables that sold some for $30 or more there but I did not pay close attention to that.


Engelhard Prospectors = $27.00. I did not see many of these so far at the show.


1/10 oz GAE = $160 to $165. I saw plenty of 1/10 GAEs there. There might have been some that were selling for less than $160 but so far I did not see any.


1-oz '70's silver art bars = Lowest I saw was at spot. Prices ranged from spot to $35. Some rarer one where higher than that.


1-oz .999 generic silver bars = spot to $28.00


100-oz silver bars = $2800 (JM bar only). They also had a few Engelhard 100-oz bars there but not very many.


10-oz silver bars = $275.00


1-oz GAE's = $1430 to $1460


Of course they also had 90% silver, numismatic gold and silver, Kookaburras, Lunars series (gold and silver), and other various gold and silver coins. I did find some hobo nickels and I bought one today but I plan to go back tomorrow to take another look at his hobo nickel selections. They had some '70's silver art bars but I was being picky of what '70's SAB's that I wanted to buy. I lot of the talk from what I was hearing was silver's amazing run. I heard that silver was close to making it to $27. I did talk to a few dealers at the show and that I was fun to me. Overall, it was decent for me and I plan to go back tomorrow to see what else I can find that I missed today. I got there at 10:05 AM and I left at just after 2:00 PM.

This silver bar was probably one of my best deals at the show that I was able to get:

http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/xx54/COScollect/EngelhardCanadaFront.jpg

I do not see many of these types of Engelhard bars before and usually when I have seen this type of Engelhard bar at past coin shows, it usually has a large premium over spot. The reverse side is blank. This one was sealed in plastic and I bought it for $27.00.

[RJB]

I gotta make it to the Chattanooga show sometime.

Thanks for the reporting.

[mike88]

nice bar, great price. thanks for the report. I would need a bib for drool in a place like that.

[ximmy]

Fun-fun... thanks for the report... ;) Don't tell anyone but I bought a 100 oz'r last night... :)

[1970 silver art]

I did go back to the show today to find more silver art bars and hobo nickels. I was able to pick up a few hobo nickels for $8 each and that was a good thing. I did find a silver art bar that I liked at the show. While I was at the show, I also met a couple of silver art bar collectors. We talked for a while about our art bar collections and we ended up exchanging emails. These silver art bar collectors IMO are more knowledgeable than I am on '70's silver art bars and they have more experience collecting silver art bars than I do. It is good to meet other people at the show that also collect art bars. Meeting these two collectors was the most interesting part of my day today at the coin show. I did not stay as long as I did yesterday. I stayed about 2 hours today and left. It was more crowded today than it was yesterday and I had to actually find a parking space on the other side of the building.

Overall for me, this was a good show during the two days that I was there. The only down note was that I did not find as many '70's silver art bars as I would like but that is just the way it is. There were actually several '70's art bars there at certain dealer tables but most of them, were 1.) I already had or 2.) They were holiday theme '70's art bars that I had no interest in collecting. There were a lot more hobo nickels at this show than I am used to seeing and I was not disappointed in the selection.

The last day of the show is Sunday and I have not made a final decision on if I am going to go on that last day. I will make a final decision tonight.

EDIT: I decided that I am not going to go on the third and final day of this coin show tomorrow (Sunday). I am just going to take it easy tomorrow. :)

[Trinity]

Were there a lot of older folks at the show 1970sa, or where there a lot of new younger people looking to buy? And were there a lot of people looking to sell?

[RJB]

^^ Good question. Have you noticed a change in attitude or overall vibe from the past times you went there?

[1970 silver art]

Were there a lot of older folks at the show 1970sa, or where there a lot of new younger people looking to buy? And were there a lot of people looking to sell?


I did see a lot of older collectors at the show. It appeared to me that there were more older collectors there than there were younger collectors. Most of the younger collectors that I saw at the show were looking more at the numismatic coins such as wheat cents, nickels, certain world coins and other numismatic coins.

There were people looking to sell based on what I have seen but I did not see many of them. While I was waiting to look at hobo nickels there was a guy that was wanting to sell some of his numismatic coins to get into gold bullion (1-oz GAE's). There was another person that wanted to sell some gold that he had to get some FRNs. Most of the people that I saw that were selling were selling specific items such as certain numismatic coins to get other numismatic coins to complete a set or to get another coin that they were looking for.

I did not see very many people that were selling gold and silver bullion to get FRNs. I am sure that there were people at the coin show that were selling gold and silver bullion to get FRN's but I did not see a lot of them. There were several dealers that had signs that said that they were buying gold and silver from people but they were also selling gold and silver to the people at the show and it was hard to tell if more selling than buying was being done there because I did not visit those tables that much since it was fairly crowded at some parts of the coin show. From what I could tell in terms of transactions, I saw more buying than selling but not all of the buying was .999 gold and .999 silver bullion. Numismatic items such as Pre-1933 gold and Morgan dollars were also being bought up by people. Non precious metal items were also being bought.

[1970 silver art]

^^ Good question. Have you noticed a change in attitude or overall vibe from the past times you went there?


There were two things that I noticed when I was at the show. One was that it seemed to be more crowded this time around than it was last year and the year before. The second thing that I noticed that was that a photo id was now required to be shown in order to get into the show. This TSNS coin show was the first Tennessee coin show where I was required to show a photo id. At past TSNS Fall and Spring coin shows, I did not have to show a photo id.

A lot of the talk at the show yesterday and today was about the amazing run that silver is currently having. I do not think that the vibe has changed that much since most of the dealers that I know already think that the dollar is going to be toast and think that the dollar will continue to go down anyway.