Weekly Market Report: Major Auctions on the Docket as Long Beach Expo Nears

By Bruce Amspacher - May 8, 2001

Are you ready to bid? There are some outstanding auctions on the schedule as the Long Beach Coin & Collectibles Exposition nears once again. The Long Beach show is scheduled for May 31-June 3, 2001, and it is expected to set the tone of the market for the coming months.

Before Long Beach takes place there's the Bowers & Merena Galleries sale of Part III of the Lucien M. LaRiviere Cabinet. This exceptional auction will be held in New York City on May 21, and online bidding is available through May 19. There are collector coins and early Americana items galore in this 1175-lot sale. In addition to the exciting lots of silver dollars that were discussed here last week, there are also some exceptional Betts medals, Indian Peace medals, US Patterns, Territorial gold coins and much more. To bid online or peruse the lots, click here.

Superior Galleries Pre-Long Beach Sale filled with rarities.

Superior Galleries will hold a three-day sale (May 27-29) just before the Long Beach show. The name of the auction? What else but the Pre-Long Beach Sale? This collector-oriented offering includes such highlights as a large selection of $5 gold pieces from 1815-33 (the 1819 is PCGS AU55, the 1833 Small Date is PCGS MS64). Other items of note are a set of Carson City Liberty Seated dollars, an 1870-CC quarter in EF-40, an 1872-CC half dollar in MS63 and an AU 1875 $10 Liberty.

"There's also a nice selection of PCGS-certified early type coins and a great group of high quality Morgan dollars,' said Steve Deeds, Director of Numismatics for Superior Galleries.

Small gold and silver dollars continue to show strength.

"The hottest area of the market continues to be small gold," says Mark Yaffe of the National Gold Exchange, Inc., in Tampa, Florida. The term "small gold' refers to gold coins of the smaller denominations, such as $2½ Indians.

"The balance of the generic gold coins are solid at current levels, but what else could they be? The $20 gold pieces are so cheap that it's almost unthinkable that they could become cheaper."

What else is selling? "Silver dollars. The nice white coins in the $500 to $15,000 range. There's also some renewed interest in Proof gold. Even though the market is pretty good there's still a minor liquidity crisis at times as a lot of dealers seem to be short of funds," Yaffe concluded.

Bowers & Merena to offer Kellogg $50 and Dubosq $10 gold coins.

Things are humming at Bowers & Merena Galleries. In addition to the LaRiviere sale later this month there's the Kingswood Coin Auctions "Durham" sale on June 7 and another B&M auction on the docket in late June in Chicago.

"All departments are extremely busy," reports Gordon Wrubel, Director of Numismatic Operations for Bowers & Merena. In addition to the three auctions reported above, there's also active sales reported through the other divisions.

"We have just acquired two exciting coins that will be offered through an upcoming price list," Wrubel said. "One is a Kellogg $50 gold piece in PCGS Proof 62. The other is the extremely rare Dubosq $10 in PCGS VG-08."

What areas of the market are the most active right now? "As I'm sure you've heard, the small generic gold is in great demand. Another area that is heating up is Walking Liberty half dollars, especially the early issues."

The Kingswood "Durham" sale will go online on May 17.

Bruce Amspacher has been a professional writer since the 1950s and a professional numismatist since the 1960s. He won the OIPA sportswriting award in 1958 and again in 1959, then spent eight years in college studying American Literature. This background somehow led him to become a professional numismatist in 1968. Since then he has published hundreds of articles on rare coins in dozens of publications as well as publishing his own newsletter, the “Bruce Amspacher Investment Report,” for more than a decade. His areas of expertise include Liberty Seated dollars, Morgan and Peace dollars, United States gold coins, sports trivia, Western history, modern literature and the poetry of Emily Dickinson. In 1986 he was a co-founder of the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS).