Coin show report - Dalton, GA

[1970 silver art]

Today, I traveled to Dalton, Georgia to go to the 52nd Annual Blue Ridge Numismatic Association coin show. Today was the 1st day of the coin show and it continues tomorrow and the last day is on Sunday. I got to the coin show about 8 minutes before the show started (started at 10:00 AM). I waited in my vehicle until 10 AM. As I was waiting in my vehicle for the show to start, I noticed that there was a steady stream of cars coming in to the venue and the parking lot was starting to fill up with cars and this was before the show started. When I arrived at the venue (about 9:52 AM), spot gold was at $1855.10/oz and spot silver was at $42.08/oz.

It seemed to me that there were more people that attended this first day of the show than this time last year. There appeared to be more people buying gold and especially silver. There were also some people selling gold and silver but I was not paying too much attention to the people who were selling. Overall IMO, there was plenty of silver bullion to be had and they had all different types of silver from 100-oz Engelhard bars to the 1-oz .999 generic silver rounds.

Of couse my first goal was to find some silver art bars to add to my collection. I found some silver art bars that I liked very much but I had to look closely because some of them were easy to miss. As I was looking for silver art bars, I came across some prices on various other types of gold and silver bullion. Here are some prices that I have observed:

SAE's = $46 to $50

2011 SAE = $48

1/10 GAE's $200 to $205

1-oz .999 generic silver = $43

Silver art bars = $44 was the lowest price that I saw but certain rare and semi-rare ones started at $50 and went up from there.

10-oz silver bars = $430 to $440


Of course, they had 1-oz gold eagles, 1-oz gold Kruggerands, etc but I did not pay attention to the prices on those. They also had 90% silver, 100-oz silver bars as well as some numismatic coins (slabbed and raw). It felt more crowded this time than last year and I saw some other silver art bar collectors at this show and we got together and talked. I had a very good day today at the show and I picked up a few silver art bars that I liked and I am happy with my purchases.


I plan to go back to the coin show tommorrow to see if I can find any more silver art bars.

[madfranks]

Nice report. It's always interesting to see how the coins shows are doing across the country. The next big one in Denver is October, and I can't wait.

[StreetsOfGold]

Good thing you went now since silver will be heading past 50 soon (wink)

[1970 silver art]

Nice report. It's always interesting to see how the coins shows are doing across the country. The next big one in Denver is October, and I can't wait.

The next big coin show for me is in early November in Chattanooga. There is a possibility that I might go some small coin shows between now and early November but I am not sure yet. It depends on how many FRNs I have available to spend at that time. The fall coin show in Chattanooga is about the same size as the Dalton one that I went to today.

[1970 silver art]

I went back to the show today. It appeared that it was more crowded today than it was yesterday. I did buy another silver art bar today and I paid $45.00 for it. I spent most of the day looking around. I did see another silver Lunar coin today at the show. It was a 1/2 oz 2001 Year of the Snake silver coin and it was priced at $40.00. There was another dealer that also had some Lunar coins and I looked at his Lunar coin pricing and I saw that he had a 1-oz silver 2000 Lunar Dragon priced at................$169.00. :o

The last day of the show is on Sunday but I do not plan to go back tommorrow.

Overall, it was a great weekend for me at the coin show and I am very satisfied with my silver art bar purchases and I was also very happy to meet and talk to some other silver art bar collectiors.

[TomD]

No coin shows down here but from your description, it looks like current prices are pulling in plenty of supply. Remember late 2008 and early 2009 when ridiculously low spot prices meant that there was none to buy anywhere? If it wasn't for extreme political instability I would say that supply/demand is at least in balance at current pricing. In fact I'd say that political instability has kicked a significant premium onto PM prices over and above what supply/demand would dictate.

[1970 silver art]

No coin shows down here but from your description, it looks like current prices are pulling in plenty of supply. Remember late 2008 and early 2009 when ridiculously low spot prices meant that there was none to buy anywhere? If it wasn't for extreme political instability I would say that supply/demand is at least in balance at current pricing. In fact I'd say that political instability has kicked a significant premium onto PM prices over and above what supply/demand would dictate.

Yep. I remember late 2008 in particular. If there was silver to be had back then in the later part of 2008, it was selling for $5-$6 over spot at the main coin dealer that I was going to just over the state line into Georgia. The Fall coin show in Chattanooga in November 2008 did not have many 1-oz silver art bars. That particular Nov. 2008 coin show did not have much other types of silver at that particular coin show. Spot silver at that time in Nov. 2008 was just under $10/oz and the little bit of 1-oz .999 generic silver they had at that particular show was selling for about $4-$5 over spot.

When silver fell from $48 to $35 in early May of this year, that was the time that I had trouble finding silver art bars at the various local dealers that I was going to. Whatever silver art bars they had, I was buying them at a higher premium. A lot of people are coming in and buying up whatever silver that the local coin dealers have in stock.

Counting this Dalton Summer coin show, I have been to a total of 15 coin shows this year so far. While I did score some silver art bar and other silver finds at some of the various local coin shops this year, The majority of my silver art bar purchases that I made this year have been at coin shows, at a flea market and on ebay because the local coin shop area has not been very good since May and I do not think that will change that much for the better anytime soon.

[TomD]

Yep. I remember late 2008 in particular. If there was silver to be had back then in the later part of 2008, it was selling for $5-$6 over spot at the main coin dealer that I was going to just over the state line into Georgia. The Fall coin show in Chattanooga in November 2008 did not have many 1-oz silver art bars. That particular Nov. 2008 coin show did not have much other types of silver at that particular coin show. Spot silver at that time in Nov. 2008 was just under $10/oz and the little bit of 1-oz .999 generic silver they had at that particular show was selling for about $4-$5 over spot.

When silver fell from $48 to $35 in early May of this year, that was the time that I had trouble finding silver art bars at the various local dealers that I was going to. Whatever silver art bars they had, I was buying them at a higher premium. A lot of people are coming in and buying up whatever silver that the local coin dealers have in stock.

Counting this Dalton Summer coin show, I have been to a total of 15 coin shows this year so far. While I did score some silver art bar and other silver finds at some of the various local coin shops this year, The majority of my silver art bar purchases that I made this year have been at coin shows, at a flea market and on ebay because the local coin shop area has not been very good since May and I do not think that will change that much for the better anytime soon.

When are you going to post some pictures of what by now must be an impressive collection?

[1970 silver art]

When are you going to post some pictures of what by now must be an impressive collection?


I did post some pictures of some of the silver art bars in my collection. You can see them on a thread that I posted here on GSUS. The title of the thread is "Silver Art Bar Porn". Here is the link to my Silver Art Bar thread:

http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?23048-Silver-Art-Bar-Porn

Since GSUS changed to the new Vbulletin forum software, the picture links did not work, however, I was able to repost some of the silver art bar pictures of the silver art bars that I still have in my collection.

Several of the silver art bars that I posted on the first 2-3 pages of that thread I no longer have because these were common-minted silver art bars that I no longer wanted and I ended up selling those to a local dealer in March and I also sold a lot of them to a local dealer in April when spot was $47/oz. I had a big profit from those sells. I used that profit from the sell of those common-minted silver art bars to buy several rare silver art bars that were minted by Greathouse Productions, Green Country Mint, and The Mint that were on my silver art bar wish list. I bought a majority of these types of silver art bars on ebay and paid a "collector's premium" for these because these are nearly impossible to find because of the low mintage numbers on a lot of these.

The current silver art bar pictures that I reposted started on page 4. I still have The "Coca-Cola-Shelbyville, KY" silver art bar that I talked about on post #4 but I was not able to repost the picture of it because I could not edit that post.

The current silver art bar pictures that I have posted on the "Silver Art Bar Porn" thread are pictures of the silver art bars that I currently have in my silver art bar collection and I plan to keep these because these are the rare silver art bars that I spent 2 years looking for. That thread does not represent my entire silver art bar collection. It just represents a small part of what I currently have. Some of the most recent silver art bar pics that I posted on that "Silver Art Bar Porn" thread are some of my favorite silver art bars. Most of those silver art bars were minted in the 1970's.

The only time that I usually update my "Silver Art Bar Porn" thread when I come across a silver art bar that I find interesting. I might also post some other silver art bar related comments on that thread.

When you get a chance, feel free to check out my thread. It is located in the silver subforum and the link to my thread is the following:

http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?23048-Silver-Art-Bar-Porn


EDIT: The last silver art bar picture that I posted on that thread is a picture of one of the silver art bars that I purchased at the Dalton Summer coin show that I went to on Friday and Saturday. Speaking of that, the last day of the Dalton coin show is today but I decided to not go on the last day. I need to give my wallet a break. :)