Coin Dealer Spotlight: DLRC

DLRC of Virginia Beach, Virginia, was founded in 1979 by David Lawrence Feigenbaum in a spare bedroom and grew into one of the largest coin businesses in the Mid-Atlantic. As the company expanded in the 1980s and 1990s, Feigenbaum’s son, John, learned the ropes of the business. When David Lawrence Feigenbaum sadly passed away from ALS in 2002, John carried on his father’s legacy by building the business around a model of internet-based coin sales and online auctions.

Early in his time at the helm of DLRC, John Feigenbaum expanded the team to include John Brush, who grew up in the hobby and joined the company in 2006 as a buyer. “It was an opportunity for me to move closer to home to be with family as my parents aged and it worked out beautifully,” recalled Brush, who now serves as president of DLRC. As he grew in his role, so did the company, which found its niche offering only certified coins in its regular inventory offerings and online auction series that now close on Sunday and Thursday evenings.

When John Feigenbaum moved completely out of operations and influence at DLRC to refocus his career on numismatic publishing, John Brush assumed the company’s leadership role. “In 2017 I met collector Dell Loy Hansen. We started the process of purchasing the company outright, and we closed on January 1, 2018,” Brush explained. “Partnering with Dell Loy gave me an even broader opportunity to learn more about the business world.”

Brush said that during the first year of his partnership with Hansen and the team they built, DLRC more than doubled its sales. “We were not only able to help assemble what we call the World’s Greatest Privately Held Collection of U.S. Coins, but we were also able to help Dell Loy sell off duplicates that he had acquired along the way,” many of which were sold in the company’s online auctions.

The growth at DLRC has also enabled its team to handle many numismatic rarities, including the 1804 Draped Bust Dollar, 1894-S Barber Dime, and 1885 Trade Dollar, among others. “We have a primary focus on U.S. coins (over 95% of our offerings), but we also branch out in currency and some of the more interesting world coins,” Brush explained, adding that they aim to cater to every level of collector and list many coins for less than $50. DLRC usually offers 500 coins in its Sunday auctions and 100 in its Thursday auctions. They also attend all major national coin shows and most of the larger regional shows.

“We have had the opportunity to work with many collectors that have found us because of our growth. We’ve also been able to leverage the company’s 45 years of working with collectors to bring out some collections to the market that we have had put away for decades.” Brush added that it’s the people who work with him and that have purchased from his team that he felt symbolized the most important highlight of his company. “We are now at about 20 people, some of whom I have known for nearly 20 years, and that’s the truly special part of DLRC. It’s customers and the family of team members that we have.”

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