An interesting coin we just sold is the 1945 No "AW" Walking Liberty Half. As far as diagnostics are concerned, this is more correctly known as a die state, rather than a true variety, as polishing of the die to remove clash marks or erosion lines obliterated the designer's monogram.

The one we just sold is the first non-proof No AW Walker we've offered and the only 1945 issue we've even heard of.

We celebrated Mardi Gras today at the office, complete with King Cake (from Paul's Pastry, of course!), beads, masks, and doubloons. 

Here's our King Cake (decorating by Helen).

Chris and Marne getting into the spirit.

Thanks for the masks and King Cake, Marne! Hopefully someone else will get the baby this year so you don't have to buy again!

Brian grading some Mardi Gras Doubloons before deciding which ones to submit.

Christy in "costume" also.

Mardi Gras update. Marne got the baby...AGAIN. Three years in a row!

Congratulations to J.W. of Tampa for winning our Super Bowl Contest! He, along with three other people, guessed the exact final score of the game. His was the first correct entry received, so he will be receiving a $500 Gift Certificate to Northeastcoin.com. We will be contacting the winners of our ten $50 gift certificates later today.

Thank you to all who participated!

FINAL SCORE:

Patriots  34

Falcons 28

We are still going through the several hundred entries we received. The winners will be announced on February 7th.

Our popular Super Bowl contest is back! Super Bowl LI (and the final chapter of Deflategate...we hope) is just five days away. For those who want to participate, all you need to do is reply to this email with your guess as to the final score of the game. If anyone guesses the exact final score, they will receive a $500 gift certificate to Northeastcoin.com! The next ten participants who are closest to the final score will each receive a $50 gift certificate. Please see below for additional details.

Good luck, everyone! 

Contest rules: Entries must be received by kick-off on Sunday. Only one entry per household. If there are multiple entries that correctly predict the final score, the person who submitted their entry first will be the $500 winner. Entries are accepted by email to info@northeastcoin.com and must be formatted like the following example:

Patriots  38 (or whatever your guess is)

Falcons  30 (or whatever your guess is)

The following was written by Chris.

I’ll break this down into two parts. First up will be my comments on the actual show. I’ll then follow that up with some non-coin related experiences I had.

Part I

We flew down to Ft. Lauderdale on Monday, the 2nd. As with most major shows, we participated with a small group of other dealers (mostly wholesalers) in some pre-show trading. We typically rent a conference room in either a hotel or the convention center. This kicked off Tuesday morning and we met again the first half of Wednesday. Business was brisk on Tuesday with Tom and I doing pretty much nothing but buying from 9-6. Wednesday morning slowed down a bit primarily because we had done about as much business as possible with the small group of dealers we saw.

We then did the cattle herd thing (ever see over 1,000 coin dealers try to cram into a single entrance at once?) into the FUN show when setup started at 2pm and the action picked up again. If you haven’t been to a coin show during setup, it’s pretty much a mad scramble for us to our table to set up lighting, then Margie hits the floor with our coins and wheels them around to show dealers we didn’t see during pre-show trading. Likewise, Tom and I will either hit the floor looking to buy coins or other dealers will bring their inventory to our table.

Business was brisk on Wednesday on the buying side. Selling was a challenge as many dealers asked Margie to come back the next day, which is par for the course on setup day. The show opened Thursday morning at 8:30 and we were pretty much non-stop busy until it closed at 7 that evening. The FUN show has the longest days of all the coin shows. Personally, I find the days to be too long and indeed more dealers close up their tables and leave early at the FUN show than at most other shows.

Friday slowed down a bit for me as I had to focus some of my efforts on responding to emails, taking care of website business, and working on boring but necessary administrative work involving invoicing coins in our inventory system. I then flew home that evening (more on that later) and Tom, Margie, and Dotty stayed through Saturday. Sales were actually quite good for the last day of the show, including a sale involving one of the three Stellas we had in stock.

Overall I found the show to be a success. We had our highest sales total in revenue of any FUN show we’ve attended (granted, the Stella sale played some part in this) and we sold the most number of coins of any FUN show. I was pleased with the buying that I was able to do. Most other dealers seemed willing to buy, which was very encouraging. A few dealer friends that deal strictly wholesale gave me the same feedback.

I really didn’t see much of a change in price levels for the type of material that I typically pursue. No upward trend but also fortunately no downward trend either. While I did not participate extensively in the auction, I was pretty much blown out on the items I did bid on. While that’s disappointing, at the same time I find it a good sign that at least the items I pursued brought good money.

Not a bad start to 2017!

Part II

For the first time ever, we stayed at an Airbnb. Hotel rates were outrageous in Fort Lauderdale. We waited too long to book so we couldn’t get the show rate at the Hyatt. And the Hilton show rate was over $200/night! We needed four rooms, so we were looking at close to $4,000 total just in hotel expenses. So, I checked out Airbnb and saw quite a few options in the area. Some were a bit sketchy or not suitable for us and some were high-end waterfront places that would have cost more than a hotel. We settled on a four bedroom, four bathroom townhouse located about a mile and a half from the show at just $217/night.

The place had its issues, including a faulty fire alarm that went off at 6:15 one morning, as well as an ant problem (which the manager of the property told us to take care of??!!). It was also a bit of a hike to the show, although most of us Ubered to and from for just $5. Airbnb will never be our number one choice for any show, but we will consider it for future shows if we are unable to get reasonably priced hotel rooms. We spent $1,400 all in to stay there. Sure beats $4,000!

Getting home…what a mess. I was scheduled to fly home from FLL on Friday evening. As probably everyone is aware of, there was a shooting at the airport that day. Five people tragically lost their lives while another six were wounded. The airport shut down fairly quickly after the shooting, trapping hundreds of would-be passengers for several hours. Around 3 o’clock I called JetBlue to see if they had any departures available from other airports and sure enough they did. They put me on a flight that night out of Palm Beach Airport. Fort Lauderdale was in chaos by that time and the Uber driver was NOT happy that he had to drive me all the way to West Palm. It took forever to get out of the city, but we finally made it.

I was very grateful to have made it home that night, particularly after hearing from colleagues of mine who were not as fortunate. And to top it off, JetBlue sent me a $50 credit for the “inconvenience.”  Another reason why I flight JetBlue exclusively!