DESERT MOON NEWSLETTER, ISSUE 10, July 25, 2025

Buying Inventory, Oh What Fun It Is

Desertmoonnm.com

desertmoonnm@yahoo.com

Hi Folks,

Here we are in late July and the coin market just keeps rolling up up up against gravity……..  I have been trying my best to replenish inventory with PQ Bust Quarters, as well as any other cool coins.  Last year in May, I began Desert Moon Numismatics with about 40 Draped and Capped Bust quarters, all but 3 were CACed.  I only have 5 left, all of which are fantastic.  But because it is an area I spent 15 years collecting, I would like to focus on quality inventory of these quarters.  However, the challenge is, as with any US bust coinage, I need to acquire them at reasonable cost that can then be offered on our website and at our table, for a fair price.  This is a challenge as I explain in the following paragraphs. 

There are multiple ways to acquire inventory and I will talk about 3 here.  The 1^rst is through auctions.  About 95% of the coins I am interested in (PQ and mostly CAC), the bids go way above what I can reasonably pay for, to resell.  For example, last week I had a nice mid-grade large-size Capped Bust Quarter, with great surfaces and was CACed, lined up in an auction.  My final bid was aggressive, but still left room to sell at fair value.  It was at several bid increments below my final bid in the last hour.  I never put in my bids or sit there with a trigger finger at the end of an auction.  This is a dangerous way for auction exuberance to creep in and pay too much.  Can’t do that when running a business, one has to know when to fold and go home.  I put my final bids in well before they close, and then leave alone.  So in either case, I was looking forward to adding a great Capped Bust Quarter to inventory and highlighting it here in this newsletter as I was confident in my final bid.  Nope, even though I had multiple bid increments going into auction close, in the last 5 minutes it went multiple bid increments above mine!  Now sure, I could have sat there pushing the button and getting the coin, but again, that is a loss when there is no margin left.  So no new Bust Quarter to offer in this Newsletter, alas.

A 2^nd way to obtain inventory is when folks come to our table at shows and offer us coins.  In most cases, if I find a coin(s) that is(are) right for us, I can, many times, acquire them at reasonable cost.  In those situations, going one on one with the seller to arrive at a price is often successful.  The seller understands that the buyer is buying for resell, and thus knows there has to be some room to make a deal.  The same is true when we go to other dealers tables either to buy or sell.  So this is a key reason why shows are crucial in the success of many numismatic dealerships.  Not only to sell but to replenish and buy.  These don’t always work if seller and buyer can’t agree on price. But when buying/selling face to face there is usually a good discussion and even when it doesn’t work out, connections are being made for potential future transactions.

A 3rd way is to be offered coins via online, through email, texts, etc.  I have had some success this way, but one has to be careful and make sure the agreement is solid before purchase.  One of the challenges there is, one is buying without seeing in hand (like for online auctions), and one has to be dead sure that the available images are good enough to evaluate the coin.  Mostly, I buy CAC/CACG coins in these cases, where either a PCGS True View or a CACG image is available as back up as both are very good. 

But deals can go wrong very quickly.  For example, early this year I was sent a list of ~12 early gold coins with sell prices.   I had met the gentleman at my table at FUN and we had talked about my interests for early gold inventory.  So it was nice of him to send me the list of what he had to sell with his ask prices.  Out of those, 7 of them fell within my interests, the other 5 or so did not.  Out of the group I was interested in, 4 of them were priced at a level where there was just enough of a margin for resell although not much.  But these were the kinds of coins I want to sell and recognize how tough it is to acquire them.  So I then sent the gentleman an agreement to buy those 4 at the prices he listed.  He then said, well I am surprised you are not interested in the other ones (rare die marriages and not CAC, looked messed with even though with grades, way too pricey and not for me), so I am going to first see if I can sell them to dealers I know at the ‘such and such show’ (which was in 5 weeks…...).  He said he would keep my ‘offers’ (er, his ask prices) in mind if they don’t sell there.  Hold it I wrote back, I am agreeing to your price now for 4 of them, not an insubstantial amount of money you can have in your pocket asap.

  So I guess he wanted me to buy all of them, including the rare die marriages that were priced high that honestly would be impossible for us to sell, in order to get the good stuff.  It was a strange way to go about it, but sometimes buyer and seller are just not on the same page.

There are other ways to get inventory as well of course, and each comes with interesting challenges as noted above.  But getting cool coins is not easy, there is a reason they are cool and everyone wants them.  I have now in the past year learned why dealers are always telling me how hard it is to acquire inventory, especially if one is very picky as we are.

We have listed 6 new coins on the website this week.  Images for 3 of them are shown below and as always, all of our coins are shown on our inventory listings page.  Please email us at desertmoonnm@yahoo.com if you are interested in any of our offerings.

Thanks for reading!

Best, DM