Folks, we are back with another episode here of the Cabbage Coins Podcast. I'm extremely excited today to have Lohman Noah Lehmannhaupt. Is that did I get that right?
You got it, Tony.
Alright. Noah Lehmannhaupt with with Rarity seven coin company. What's the exact title? And maybe you could
Just Rarity seven. I kinda take the tech company approach. If you wanna be formal, Rarity seven coins and currency, but it's just Rarity seven.
Okay. Rarity seven. So we're gonna do a fun show review. We just got back from the Orlando Fun Show. Fun stands for the Florida United Nimismacists. It is a biannual show, occurs in July as well as in January. The July show is typically a little bit smaller than the January show. We both just got back. I had a phenomenal show. Believe I'm sure you did as well.
And we want to kinda get into it and talk a little bit about about the about the show. So, first question for you. How many fun shows have you been to and how did this one compare to the rest?
It's an excellent question, Tony. I my first show was January. So I did, winter fun January, twenty three summer fun, twenty four winter, twenty four summer, and now 25 winners. So this is my fifth fun show. Oh, sorry. Sixth 25 winner and 25 summer. So this is my sixth fun show now. Wow. That goes that by that goes by fast.
And so how did this one, you think, compare to the others?
I think this one was good. You know, I had a lot of people report on one of the forums that were on that they had some of the best shows ever. I did not have my best show ever. I thought it was a very busy show. I did some great wholesale business.
I found the retail side of my business to be good. It wasn't spectacular. It was good. Now I think the most interesting thing, probably the most interesting thing about this industry that I think a lot of folks don't realize right off the bat, is that you walk into a room like the Fun Show where there's 350 dealers, and you think, wow. There's, 350 coin dealers.
You're all doing exactly the same thing. You're all competing with each other. That must be chaos. The reality is, as you know, but a lot of people I think don't know, is that many of these dealers are in completely different businesses from one another. And, you know, I would probably count the number of quote unquote competitors that I have, and I'll get back to that in a second, very low.
I mean, you know, maybe five, maybe six, you know, other companies in there that I would consider quote, unquote competitors. Now why do I say quote? Because the wonderful thing about this hobby and this business is that when you do stuff like I know you like to do and the kind of stuff that I like to do where we do high end or higher end rather interesting coins, is that there almost really isn't because you, Tony, have a you and I have very similar tastes. It's a great example. We both like, you know, nice high end, old type US stuff.
Mhmm. But the coins that you have and your inventory at any given moment are completely different from the coins that I have in my inventory. So I would I would hardly say that, you know, we're competing with each other. And the same goes with me. I mean, I'm I was at this show.
I was right next to our tables directly next to our friends at Paradigm Coins, Shannon and his That's another great example. His partner. Wonderful coins. And I would say that, you know, if you looked at the two of our businesses from a buying perspective, you would say we are direct competitors. We both have high end, lots of CAC stuff, lots of PCGS type. But the thing is, look at our cases, and there's not a single coin that's the same as anyone else.
That's the same.
Yep. So we have completely different businesses. We're complementary. You know, a collector may be looking for a coin that that Paradigm has that we don't and vice versa. So I think that's the wonderful thing about this business is that, you you have these companies that are, in theory, competitors, but aren't really competing with each other.
Now, the exception to that is when we're buying a deal. Know, if some collector walks in and says, I've got a collection of old Drapes Us dollars, you and I are both gonna be battling it out as
a complicated if we were to share a table or whatever because Right. I mean, like why
I think where the competition happens. Anyway, my whole point of saying that is that when a dealer just says, we had a great show, that is almost a meaningless statement because you have to understand what does that mean. Are they a wholesaler? Are they a retailer? Are they selling generic Morgan dollars?
Are they selling raw, uncertified US coins $10 and up? The the business that a specific dealer is in dramatically affects whether they're gonna have a good or bad show because different segments of the market are doing different things at any given moment.
Yeah. It's a good point. I mean, you could also, like, go talk to the guy who's selling coin supply, like coin collecting supplies, and he could feel like,
I had a horrible show.
Right. Nobody wants it in folders anymore. Right. You know? And you're like, sorry. Know, I'm sorry to hear that. I had that phenomenal show. Did all the buying and selling. What's your, I I completely agree with everything you said right there. And, you know, that's something that I've kind of mulled around and thought about, like, you know, just like you and I collaborating and doing a podcast together.
We we have similar somewhat similar business models. Your your company is a lot more established and and larger than mine, but we like the same types of coins. So are we technically, competitors? Maybe in a sense on the buying side, but at the same time, my coins aren't identical to your coins and we also have different relationships with different collectors, so we can work together a lot and help promote the hobby and promote each other's businesses, etcetera, etcetera. It's all positive things that are gonna are gonna come from that.
And that's one of the things that I like about your business model and our business model. Now look, there are dealers out there, you know, who love dealing in generic MS 63 common date Morgan dollars. That's just, you know, that's their business. Mhmm.
If you
put two of those dealers next to each other, they're competitors. Right? You know, there's a guy selling he's got a stack of 81 s Morgans. He's selling them for $68 each, and the guy next to him is selling them for $67 each. You know, those guys are competitors.
But again, it's a very different business from what you and I are. I don't personally have any interest in selling commodity products. And the same thing same reason why I don't deal in bullion, really. I don't deal in American Gold Eagles or Silver Eagles or things like that, because those truly are commodities. I mean Yeah.
Now you're talking about, you know, I'm at a dollar 49 over spot, and I'm at a dollar 20 over spot, and you've got, you know that is a truly competitive business. I the thing I love about this business is that there really isn't competition, you know, from the traditional sense for that. Yeah.
So one of the reasons that I do some business in bullying is because oftentimes, other collectors that wanna buy a larger piece from me, and we're way off topic at the fun show. But sometimes one of the pieces that a collector might really wanna purchase from me, let's say that, yeah, I picked up the $16.52 pine tree shilling. I'm super excited about talking about from, you know, pickups from the from the show. 8053. This is about the $12,000 coin.
12,500 is what the price tag is gonna be on this. A lot of a lot of my collectors, you know, they might wanna trade into this, and as part of their trade, they might want to do some gold bullion because gold has gone up from, you know, where it was sitting before around 2,800, 2,700, all the way up to close to $3,400 So they've seen a lot of price appreciation in their assets and they might want to very simply move this into a numismatic and get it for, you know, you know, at a cost basis wise, get a little bit cheaper. So that's one of the reasons why I do do have some, you know, bullion. And, you know, in general, when people come by the table, I wanna have kind of something for for a lot of the the people. I don't wanna specialize, you know, too much.
And now you do currency, for example. Don't do any currency really yet. Is that a niche? When did you get into that niche, and do you feel like that's a growing area of the hobby, or, you know, or what are your thoughts about currency versus coins?
It's a good question. I got into currency pretty much after I got in right as I got into coins dealing wise. It was within my first couple shows that I started dabbling in currency. You know, is it growing? I don't know if I could say it's growing.
I really like currency. It's it's adjacent to the hobby, but, you know, obviously, it's they both represent, you know, the monetary system of The US. And I I personally love currency just because it's a different aspect of the hobby. It's these beautiful pieces of artwork that, you know, you're not gonna get areas of toning and things like that with with as you would with coin. So it is a little bit more commoditized.
I mean, in general, you know, one silver certificate is gonna look very similar to another silver certificate. But there's still issues of eye appeal and things like that. They're very adjacent. I just personally find it appealing. I think currency is is a it's beautiful.
It's, you know, wonderful pieces of art. You can look at some of the older series and and really, you know, think about the fact that people use this as their day to day money to spend. There's politics involved in it, you know, with all the different laws that went into place and why you would have these different issues. You have, you know, legal tender versus silver certificate versus gold certificate. So learning the history of currency teaches you a little bit of some political history of The United States and some legal history of The US.
So that for many reasons, I just find it super interesting. I don't know that I'd say it's a growing part of a hobby, but it's certainly an interesting one and Yeah. One that I get a lot of personal enjoyment out of.
Yeah. One of the most interesting things I picked up or one of the most fun I had at the Fun Show was actually searching for a note for a client of mine because I don't really do a lot of currency. I don't really have currency on my website. One of the reasons for that is in Pennsylvania, currency is one of the things that is you have to collect tax when you sell currency in Pennsylvania. And so I kind of, you know, stick the coins mostly in Pennsylvania.
But anyways, this client of mine was in Florida. He was looking for a Bank of Fernandina obsolete 20 to complete his set of five tens and twenties. And I put a lot of notes out there and some of our dealer groups and I couldn't find one. And at the very last day of the show, somebody contacted me and they had one of these notes. Super excited just to, like, find this one little needle in the haystack, so to speak, and I found this note for the collector and hooked them up with that.
Super cool. I'm gonna see if I could throw a picture into it. I I I don't think I took a a picture before I before I mailed it. But anyways, that was one
of the things. Satisfying to be able to do stuff like that, you know, and, like, it's part of the thing that I think draws a lot of people and dealers into the hobby is the hunt and looking for something great and then finding the thing.
Yeah. Uncovering that item that, you know, you you you just know so one one example of that, one of the things I love hunting for is these these Saudi Arabia £4 gold coins. You know, you're familiar with these?
I I am. I've got an open order for one. I have a collector who emails me every few weeks asking for one. So as soon as that's AU 58. You got one. Maybe maybe that's something that we can we can talk about separately.
Maybe we could do some business on this one. Yeah. No, it's super cool about these is when The United States wanted to buy oil from the Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia in the 1940s, the King of Saudi Arabia required the payment to be in gold. And so for The United States to be able to pay them in gold, they actually minted these these like gold rounds in one pound and now four pound variety. Now why they were in British pounds?
I, if I if I had to just venture a guess, it's because the London spot price of gold was like maybe the the the the like the standard, you know, at that time. Not exactly sure. But anyways, the the Philadelphia Mint made these coins or made these rounds, whatever you want to call them. And today these are collected by people that want to get a piece of a piece of history here. So I was walking by a table and I found one of these things and I'm super psyched when I can get one for a pretty decent price.
And I was able to pick this thing up. And there's probably one one also one of my my favorite pickups, you know, from the from the show. But
You're kind of straddling the line a little bit between bullion and numismatics, and they're kind of fun for that reason. I like it.
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I've owned a few of them in the past, and I'm always excited to get a hand get my hands on on one of these. Okay. So what from your perspective, you know, during the show, what what types of coins or notes, you know, were hot? Did you feel like there was anything that would that people were generally searching for coming up to the table? Do you have one of these? Do have one of those? Did you feel like there was a particular area or series?
I definitely have one in mind, but I'll give the question over to you first, your perspective at your table. What do you think?
It's a good question. I will tell you, I I have a two part answer to this. One, I didn't get any sense from people coming at this specific show asking for a particular series. Now that being said, that doesn't mean that there aren't particular series that have these ebbs and flows. I think it's one of the most fascinating parts about this hobby, how and I have now witnessed it firsthand, how certain series do have these ebbs and flows, and you really see it it almost is it's like there's something in the water how everyone decides that they're gonna start collecting a certain series, and they're, you know, they suddenly become popular and prices rise because demand grows.
A lot and and the dynamics are all over the map, and I think there's a few reasons for this from what I've gathered. Okay. On the one hand, you have commercial activity around a series. This is an area that I don't play in and I'm not involved in, but I do hear things that certain telemarketers, folks who are in the more sales side of the business run programs. They that's what they say.
They run they're running a program. And if a given telemarketer is certainly running a program on, you know, $18.84 Morgan dollars for one day, you know, maybe in 1984, they suddenly started doing the hundred year anniversary of the Morgan dollars, so you have a telemarketer starting to run a program on $18.84 Morgan dollars. You know what I mean? The same kind of thing. $19.21 peace dollars on the $20.21 peace dollars came out.
Those will drive demand in a business because you have these large commercial entities that have huge buy orders out for certain items. So that's one side of the thing. You will see you'll see these kind of commercially driven, marketing driven ebbs and flows in certain series. Yeah. The other thing, think that's that's fine.
That's the explanation for that is pretty simple. The more interesting stuff for me is is almost like the zeitgeist of the moment. It's like when just collectors get a a taste for a certain thing that goes up and down. The one that I have experienced most viscerally was a few years ago. There was just this moment in the hobby where Carson City Gold just became hot.
And and I don't know how to describe it other than it seemed like everybody was building a Carson City gold collection. They just wanted Carson City gold coins, and they wanted them, and they were interested in them, and you would get collectors coming up saying, I'm building my Carson City gold collection. And Carson City $20 gold coins shot up. The you know, you know, some of them hit 10,000. The and that was the sort of moment that happened a few years ago, and that moment has basically evaporated.
And I can't tell you why it's happened. I can't tell you the dynamics of the friends or what hap but all of a sudden, people aren't interested in Carson City Gold anymore. That, you know, you don't have collectors walking up to your table saying, hey. I really want that CC Gold for my collection. So Carson City Gold has come down off of that hype cycle.
Yeah. The reason for it, I can't tell you. I don't know why it either ebbed or it flowed either direction of that, but I can tell you that it happened. Yeah. We seem to be having a little bit of a moment right now on the series that I'm interested in. I love the Seated Liberty series. Sure. And Seated Dollars Yep. I think are having a real moment. And I can't tell you why. I can tell you
I saw three of those.
Collectors on Instagram that, you know, post about it, and they build these big collections, and you you maybe start to see, alright. Well, this guy's building a seeded dollar collection, and that guy's building a seeded dollar collection, and that guy's building maybe I should build a seeded dollar collection. All of a sudden, everybody wants seeded dollars. Demand goes up, especially for CAC approved coins where, you know, they're very picky about that kind of stuff. Yeah.
So I'm seeing that happen. I didn't get any of that specifically at the fun show, but I am, of course, seeing it happen in the industry. What about you?
I think you covered the one of the big ones was just seeded dollars, and we're referring to the Liberty Seated Dollar series, which was produced just before the Morgan Dollar series. There was also trade dollars that were produced in there as well. But most of the Liberty City dollars were, went into circulation. Most of them are pretty low grade. A lot of them have been beat up and cleaned up over, over the years.
It's hard to find really difficult, really nice ones. And people, people love them. They love them to be original and to have a really kind of undisturbed surfaces on them. And interesting fun fact about Liberty Seated Dollars is that the most common Liberty Seated Dollar is actually more rare than the most rare Morgan dollar, is the 93 S. Yeah.
And yeah, I actually sold three of those at the show. I sold I sold a proof one that I've been holding onto for a little while and the guy just came up and just bought the thing. It was shocking. It was awesome for my asking price. The other one I sold was an $18.63 dollars and 64 plus, which was the biggest coin that I had in
I've seven seen that coin. It was gorgeous.
Yeah. Was close to $20,000 coin. I I sold that. And then lastly, I sold a 72S, which I kind of almost regret because if there is one coin of that series that I would say if you get a chance to buy one, buy it and hold onto it, it's a 72S because there's only two years that were made at the San Francisco Mint. They were both made for export to support the trade US trade relations out in China, I believe, Asia and The Pacific.
The 59S and the 72S, and I had a beautiful one in AU50 that I had just gotten re holdered, I asked a big number and the person paid the big number. Awesome. Yeah. So but now I had I want me to see the dollars. Right.
So the the other series
that I thought that I think was really hot that everyone's asking about was Dahlonega Gold.
Yeah.
Yeah. And I think there's good reason for that because there's the BRNA show that's happening at the end of this month, which is happens in which is called the Blue Ridge Numismatic Coin or something. I don't really know what it stands for. But Blue Ridge and the Mismatic Club, I believe. That's in Dalton, Georgia. And I don't know if you've ever done the Dalton, Georgia shows, but
I have not yet, and it's on my list. In fact, we put it I'm taking a little break from shows from now until ANA just so I can catch up and do some stuff. But it is definitely on my list, and I think next year, it's a show. You know, I'm gonna start looking at some of the more regional shows like that to try out.
Yeah. If you have T shirts that say Dahlonega on them, they will sell out. If you have you know, if you're selling cheeseburgers and you stamp a d in the on on the bun in the cheeseburger, they will sell out. That that show, people are obsessed with the Dahlonega Gold. So so there was a lot of demand from especially other dealers that are gonna go to do that show to try to buy as much Dahlonega Gold as they can as they can buy.
There's something about you talk about the zeitgeist. It's kind of been ongoing for years at that show where people are just obsessed and crazy about the Dahlonega gold, the Diement gold, and, you know, specifically $5, which is the the most fun to, I think, own. 2 and a halfs are alright too. But anyways, any standout pieces that you picked up? Anything you're excited to talk about?
Oh, man.
Yeah. So much. Okay.
This is the wonderful thing about coin shows these days. As I've started to scale up my business a little bit, you know, I am a I Rarity seven is a retailer. You know, I like to talk about you know, as I mentioned earlier, everyone's in a different business. Not only are people in different businesses with respect to the coins that they offer, different companies are in different businesses with respect to their business models. And so, you know, you've got companies who are wholesalers and their only job, they don't like dealing with the collectors.
They don't like dealing with the retail public. They only sell dealer to dealer. We are a retailer. One of the joys that I get out of this business is we like to buy coins. I like to take nice photographs of them.
I like to list them on our website and send out an email newsletter and offer them to collectors to put in their collection. I find that extremely satisfying to sell a coin to a collector who's gonna love and cherish that coin. Now, by the way, does that mean I do wholesale biz I don't do wholesale business? No. I I do plenty of wholesale business.
I work with a lot of other dealers. I both buy and sell to other dealers for various reasons. Sometimes, you know, I I'll sell a coin for a, you know, a few percentage points less than my retail price, but get it done right away. I'm very happy to do that. But in general, I am a retailer.
So one of the fun things about being a retailer is that we have an ever ever, you know, moving flow of coins that sell on our website, and we need to replenish because I always wanna have a full stock. Just like any retail business, you have product, you need you sell it, you need to your stocks go down, you need to replenish. Except in our business, we can't go to a manufacturer to order more. We have to actually go out and find them and hunt and, you know, and replenish
stocks. Business. Yeah.
So I love shows like this because I get to replenish my stocks, and I get to come back. I can't quite tilt the camera down, but I have a entire desk full of coins here. But I'll pull a few off the off the top and and show you. So first coin that comes to mind, this was a collector just walked up to the table. This was a guy who I have seen at every coin show, every national coin show for the last, call it, three years.
He stops by my table, and we have kind of labeled him, well, we can you can talk about this in the in the business, and I'm sure you know this. There are customers who just wanna talk, and we have a slightly, you know, unkind term, which is we call them time wasters. They're guys who wanna you know, at a coin show, every minute is precious because you are you are you have this unique opportunity to be in this environment that is so dense with numismatic activity that you really wanna make sure that you take advantage of every minute of it. And you'll sometimes get a collector who wants to sit and just talk to you and monopolize you for thirty minutes, an hour, or more, and that is really critical time that you need to be doing transactions and commerce and meeting with collectors. By the way, I love, love, love sitting and having conversations with collectors who I can build a relationship with.
Now I'm a capitalist, and I wanna make sure that those relationships do sometimes turn into business. You know, I'm happy to talk to somebody for an hour. I'd like to be able to sell them a coin. I'd like to be able to buy a coin from them someday. It's fine.
I I fully recognize that sometimes you're gonna have long conversations with people. Anyway, this guy likes to talk my ear off, doesn't ever wanna sell me coins. Always wants to show me his coins, and then Oh, no. And then kind of walk away. That'd be frustrating.
I finally bought a coin from him. He finally made an offer, and I accepted it, and it was a good thing. And I'm really excited. It was a really nice one too, so I'm gonna hold it up to the camera so you can see it. It's a beautiful proof 66 star cameo, $18.81 trade dollar. And, I mean, as you can tell from here, you know, Tony, you and I were just in a grading class together. No question that that's a cameo. You know? There's no question. Yeah.
And white feel to the coin is just no issues whatsoever, both on the obverse and the reverse, just black and white. Clearly cameo. Just love coins like this. I think it is a beautiful coin. It's retail friendly. It will you know, a collector who has been looking for a proof trade dollar is gonna put that in their collection. And, Yeah. To my point earlier, cherish that for years. It is a gorgeous coin that they are just gonna absolutely love. By the way, huge PCGS fan.
They're probably my top grading company. But Uh-huh. Black and white proof coins and NGC holders like this look spectacular. You know? Nice white, black. From an aesthetic standpoint, I think it looks great. So very excited about that coin.
I like it. I like it.
I'm gonna look on my desk and see what else here. I mean, you know, since we're doing show and tell, this is the kind of stuff that I like, and I'll give you a perfect example. Talk about, you know, coins of the moment. Here's a coin that is like having a moment. Right? Drapes dollars are Yeah. Certainly in my business, I'm moving a lot of my business towards this kind of stuff. I absolutely love Nice. Straight bus dollars. Here is a beautiful v f 20 5 draped bus dollar.
I think it's spectacular. And Yeah. You know, nice original NGC coin, and this is again, a collector will find this incredibly happy in their collection. They'll they'll just absolutely love a coin like that. So that was a really fun pick up.
And then, of course, I gotta show you something fun because, you know, we're doing the visual candy. You know, I love tone coins, and here's an EDS Morgan dollar with really, really, really spectacular vibrant rainbow toning. And, you know, I've been trying to kind of stay a little bit away from some of the expensive fancy toners, with exceptions. This was one that I had been chasing. The dealer who offered it to me had told me the price.
It was a little too expensive, and he came back, and it was a thousand dollars less. So I said, okay. Wow. Now you're actually motivated to sell the coin. I can't say no. Yeah. So I ended up buying it. Yeah. A really, really fun coin. I'm gonna keep looking on my on my little stack here and see if I can oh, yeah.
Speaking of, you know, coins having a moment, you know, in addition to Dre bust dollars, we also have the flowing hair, which is a wonderful series. And then this is another one of my absolute favorites, a $17.95. Old grid gold. Coin has the full package as you as I'm sure you know. This is a flowing hair half dollar.
It's got a beautiful look to it. It's in the OGH, which is, you know, your nineties early nineties era PCGS holder, and it has the cast sticker. So this is a coin holder. Not only is the coin spectacular, but the entire package that comes with the coin is It's beautiful. Very excited about that one. That's another really good one. So those are some of the highlights that come right off the right off the top of my head.
Yeah. Those are fantastic. Are you tempted to keep any of those for yourself as opposed to someone?
This is the eternal question that we all talk about in this business. Yeah. Of course, I'm tempted to keep them. I wanna keep everything for myself. I have made a decision that the coins that I keep for myself in this business for now are going to be coins that I can't bear to let go.
And usually, it's not because it's a particularly rare coin. By the way, I'm super tempted to keep this flowing hair half dollar. I mean, this is like Yeah. The exact look of what I would wanna keep in a personal collection. It is perfect. So sure. Am I tempted to keep that? Yes. Am I gonna keep it? Probably not.
The coins that I like to keep from my personal collection are mostly curiosity coins. You know, if I Yeah. I if I get a coin that's just so weird and so wild that isn't expensive, and I was like, know what? I just need to keep it. That's the one that I'm gonna end up keeping.
The first one that comes to mind, I'll get you a picture so you can include it here, is a I have a two and a half Indian that NGC mechanical errored on their slab, poor one. It's an uncirculated coin. I mean, the coin is like m s 62, m s 63. But the holder says poor one. It's it's not even, like, it's in the pop reports as a poor one.
Like, the coin fully exists in their system, in their database. You look up the serial number, it comes up with poor one. Everything about it is a poor one, but it's a minstate coin.
So Yeah.
I kept that because I was like, I don't know. That's just such a weird, cool coin. How could I possibly sell that? Like, that's just a fun one.
So what we're talking about here is the Numismatic grading scale. It starts at pour 1, which is the lowest grade, which is basically a fully worn coin that you can almost not decipher what the image is. It might show the date clearly as you could tell what the date is, you can make it out, but it's basically a fully worn coin. And so what Noah's describing is that the coin inside of it is actually a mint state or within the top 10 grades of the grading scale in terms of uncirculated coin. But I guess NGC made some sort of a an error when slabbing it and put it into a pour one slab.
It's a very it's definitely an oddity. That's an unusual usual one.
And we call those in the business the grading companies call those mech errors or mechanical errors. In other words, the coin, someone just typed the wrong number on the computer system.
Sounds like human being. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. The the old days when it was literally a dot matrix printer, they would call it a mech error. The thing that I love about that is is that it's everyone does this, by the way. PCGS has mech errors. CAC has mech errors.
NGC. So this is not specific to NGC in any way, shape, or form. But it's just funny to look at how a coin can make its way through the entire QA process. The greater typed one, the person who, you know, finalized it, saw it in the coin, the QA person saw it. It kinda went through this whole chain of systems, and nobody noticed that the coin was obviously, like, you know, 60 grades off from what it was.
Anyway Yeah. That's a coin that I put in my personal collection because it's just too fun, and it's a great conversation piece, and I can have conversations like this about it.
Yeah. I don't have a whole lot in my personal collection, but, you know, one of the, the there's a couple things. But one of the pieces of advice that I received was that it's always best to not, you know, compete with your clients per se. And so I may not advertise that I have a particular coin, but if a client, a good client of mine that I've done a lot of business with reaches out to me and says, you know, I'm really interested in two Escudos. I'm thinking about that seventeen fifteen fleet two Escudos I've been keeping aside of my safe for the last three years.
And I'm thinking, okay, well, this might be a great opportunity. This gentleman, you know, might really, really appreciate opportunity to buy this. So I'm going to go ahead and and offer it. But yeah, I I typically hold back those things that are special to me in some way. Maybe a story about how I how I got it or something tied to it.
But in general, it's always a tough thing, right? As a dealer in this business, you know, if you keep all the best stuff for yourself, then you're not going to see a whole lot of cash flow. Especially at the earliest stages of building a business, cash flow is extremely important. And you want to get your best info I'm sorry, info your best coins out there and into collectors and build a collector base and build, you know, reputation for your for your for your company and your business. You don't want to hold back the best stuff and compete against the people that, you know, are looking to you for for advice and for for for for coins.
So,
I agree with you. I think that's you're spot on with that.
What advice would you give to a newer to a newer dealer or collector attending their first big show?
It's a great question. I'm gonna split that into two parts, because I think the way a dealer or a collector would approach a show would be very different. So a collector, new collector going to a big show. First thing, it could be super overwhelming. You're gonna walk into this room of, you know, let's let's define big as anywhere from a 100 to 500 tables, which is hugely overwhelming.
I mean, some of the shows that we go to are so big that you literally cannot cover the floor of the show in a single day. You need multiple days to walk through to get that show. So the first piece of advice is take a deep breath. You do not need to adopt the frenetic energy that some of the dealers and some of the collectors have. I think that there is a particularly if you're newer and a little less experienced, there is a sense from some people that you gotta get on the floor.
The good deals are gonna disappear right away. By the way, that's just not accurate. It's just not correct. There are some cases, there are some small pockets where, you know, maybe a a a fresh registry set is just coming on the market and, you know, a deal the dealers are gonna be competing for that. That's isolated. That's one off. Don't worry about that. For the most part, coins are there. They're gonna continue to be there. Don't worry.
You know, walk around and take a deep breath and get your bearings and just look. Just gaze in dealers cases and talk to them and get a sense for what is out there. Now I'm going to make one exception to that rule. And that rule is if you see a coin on the floor that stirs some emotion in you, that gives you that little dopamine hit or that makes your heart skip a beat, buy it. Don't hesitate.
Don't walk away. Don't assume that a coin that you discover is gonna be there the next time you come around. So that's different. I'm not saying rush around to see everything as quickly as possible. What I'm saying is that take your time, walk the floor.
But if you see something that you really like, don't assume that it's gonna be there waiting for you because there is only one. That's the wonderful thing about this hobby is that there's an almost infinite number of unique items to buy and sell with the exception of, you know, mint state boring Morgan dollars and things like that. But if you see a coin, for example, this $17.95 half dollar that I have sitting on my desk, and you say, wow, that is a really nice one. I really wanna own that one. Don't say, let me think about it for two days, because I have so many times experienced somebody saying, let me think about it.
I'll come back. They walk away from the table, and thirty seconds later, someone else comes up to the table, buys the coin. The original person comes back, and they're like,
oh, no. I thought it
would be here. What did I do? I missed this thing. So Yeah. That's a that's a piece of advice. But make sure that you take those two pieces together. Relax. Enjoy the show. Get a sense for what's out there, but do move quickly when you see something that you like. Right?
That's my first piece of advice for collectors. For dealers, if you're a new dealer entering this business, I think the most important thing that you can do at one of these shows is find your niche. Find your people. Find your part of the business that you are going to do well in, that you have expertise, that you enjoy, that you can spend time, you know, enjoying the way that you do this business. And make sure that you just focus on that because you will excel and you will do really well if you focus on the area of the business that you really enjoy.
Don't try to be everything for everybody. You can't do it. Don't say, well, now I'm gonna go into WorldCoins, and now I'm gonna go into bullion, and now I'm gonna do this. Now I'm gonna do that. As you grow, if you decide you wanna grow your business, you can certainly expand.
But everybody needs to have that special sauce, that special secret thing or not even secret, but, know, that special niche that they are able to excel in. Maybe they're really good graders. Maybe they're really good, at at finding coins with eye appeal. Maybe they have a really, really good sense of prices. They can memorize what's happening in the market.
Whatever it is, find your your area of expertise and go deep on that area, and then you can do great stuff in the business. And I think the people who I have seen been become the most successful on the dealer side of this business are the people that really are able to find and focus their niche and really aim that.
Yeah. I couldn't have said either of those things any better than than you than you have. I would say just to mean, I guess, just to reiterate from a dealer's perspective, when a collector's walking by, you know the coin that in your case everybody keeps asking about, and everybody keeps asking you just like, you know, this thing's going going to at some point, somebody's just gonna pull the trigger on it because they're looking through the sea of this case of 40 coins. And the one that just seems to keep popping out is typically stuff that has great eye appeal, strong luster to the coin. Something there's something about it that stirs people emotionally and gets them excited, and, you know it's gonna sell.
And in my case, for this particular show, every one of those items that I, you know, that that occurred on, every one of those did did sell. So great advice if you are at the early part of a show and you get that that that that feeling. Trusting your gut is is a is a good way to go. And, yeah, the specializing in an area, that's a strong one. You know, one area that I'm, I've been focusing on a lot is, San Francisco Mint $10 from, the teens.
So, the, you know, the 12 s, 13 s, 14 s, 15 s. Right. Those are fantastic collector coins, and I'm starting to hunt them and search search for them and find those. I'm starting to get a a good feel for what's a a quality example versus a lesser example. And I think as a as a as a dealer specializing, you end up learning a series, and then you're able to find opportunities that you can that you can, so to speak, you know, capitalize on because you find a great deal because you you know the series, you know, very, very well, and you know what demand what what collectors look for and what the demand, you know, is for out there.
So I think fantastic, fantastic advice. So what is next for Noah Lehmann Halt? You know, I say I know you're you're you're spending a lot of time relaxing. The next big show for you is is the ANA. Any other great summer plans either for a rarity seven or just, you know, otherwise outside of Numismatics?
Unfortunately, I have to make one correction. I'm not gonna be doing too much relaxing between now and ANA. I've I wish I were doing some more relaxing. The wonderful thing about this business is that I I don't think I have ever worked as much and as hard as I have in this business since I've been doing this. But I'm not complaining.
I love literally every second of it. It's the most fun I have ever had in any business that I've run. And, if I could have more hours in the day to do all the things, you know, and spend time with my family and work on the coin business, I would do both. So, a lot of plans happening. You know, ANA is gonna be a big show for us.
I think I'll have a lot of new inventory ready to go, but also I'm working on a few fun little projects. Nothing is, you know, earth shattering, but, you know, we're we're working on a couple little projects that that we've set a deadline to launch at ANA. There's an exhibit of a really cool coin that we've got that's currently at grading, an incredibly rare, and I'll I'll I'm looking forward to sharing with you, Tony. Exciting. An incredibly rare and actually unique coin that we've been able to purchase, and we're gonna put a little exhibit together for that show, for the ANA show once it comes back from grading.
And then a couple other fun little projects that we're working on. So ANA is gonna be a big show, and there's a lot to prep for. Awesome. And so for me, it's just a chance, You know, the the there's a duality to the way that my business works. I have coin show mode where I'm at a show, and I'm doing, you know, nonstop transactions. I'm buying. I'm selling. I'm thinking. I'm strategizing. I'm hanging out with my team.
We're going to meals. We're socializing. You know, it's a very active business week when we're at a show. The flip side of that is I don't get any, what I call infrastructure work done. You know, I don't get to, you know, further our website or build different features in our software, which powers the business.
I have to process all the inventory. So the next few weeks is actually, for the first time in a while, I have a nice, you know, stretch where I can actually do some infrastructure work on Rarity seven on the business itself. Yeah.
I tell you, man, I I love your business model. I love seeing everything that you're doing. I think you I think you and Rarity seven are one of the definitely the the the best, like like, biggest up and coming kind of numismatic companies that are happening within this within this market. It's it's breathing a lot of fresh air and life into it. I love your energy and your excitement as well as just your approach with technology. I think you have a fantastic business model. So for
Thanks, man.
For people that don't know where can they find you, where where where can they find all these great coins and yeah. Tell us a little bit
real quick. Super simple. Rarity7.com. That's rarity the number 7 or even the word, s e v e n, but go to the number 7.com. It's super easy. Rarity7.com. One of the things, again, you know, I pride myself is that 100% of the coins that we have available for sale are always on our website at all times. I make that a bedrock foundation of this company. There's no, you know, backroom stock. There's no stuff that I haven't yet listed. There's no, you know, none of that. Are
Except for the Tesla collection.
You can see our full inventory on the website. When I go to a show, every single coin in that case is gonna be available on our website to be purchased. And I and I do that intentionally because I don't wanna be the kind of business where you have to get in good with me, or you have to, you know, make a make a phone call and, you know, be on a special list. Super simple. You sign up for our email list. You get our emails. You've guaranteed to have first shot of all of our best inventory.
Oh, nice. That's good. That's really good. Yeah. I was joking here about your your per the personal collection. Somebody's gotta, you know, wrangle that that that poor one in the annoy from you somehow.
I have a list of people who want it. I'll probably sell it someday, but not anytime soon.
Yeah. Yeah. So for those that don't know, we're going to wrap things up here. But ANA, what we're referring to is the World's Fair of Money that occurs in August every year. This year, it's gonna be in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and, it's pretty much the biggest coin show all year anywhere, and there's people from all over the world that come to it.
It's an all week event, and pretty much, you know, it's like the premier coin event. If you're getting into the hobby, been for the hobby for a while, I'd recommend, you know, making your way out to Oklahoma City, and you'll definitely see myself as well as well as Noah there. So
By the way, one extra piece of advice on that front that I I tell lots of collectors all the time. If a coin show is, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, as as is the case of the ANA World's Fair money, more commonly, a coin show is Thursday, Friday, Saturday. That's the more typical story. Do not wait until Saturday to come to the coin show. So the advice that I gave you about taking your time and relaxing, that applies once you're there.
Saturday is like the it's it's probably the bane of my existence in this in this industry is that everybody packs up. All the big dealers pack up on Friday night, or they're leaving Saturday morning. And I get these collectors every single show without fail. They show up. You know, Saturday is family day.
They come with their family. They've taken time off to, you know, make a trip. And then the room is two thirds empty, three quarters empty, 90% empty, and they say, what the hell, man? What's, you know, what's going on? And and that's just it's just this thing about this business, and it bugs me, and I hate it.
We always stay till the very end, but don't come to a coin show on Saturday. The earlier that you can come, the better. The peak of the activity at the World's Fair of Money is gonna be the public days on Tuesday and Wednesday. That's when all the hardcore collectors are gonna come. And I know you gotta take time off, and there's a whole thing happening there. But if you really wanna have the the authentic coin show experience to see the meat of the action come on the earlier side.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. Hey, Noah. This has been fantastic. I appreciate you doing this. I think people on the the YouTube as well as Instagram are gonna absolutely enjoy this interview. Please hit you know, like, comment, subscribe, do all the things that help support the channel, and I'd love to have you on again in the future. This has been fantastic, man. Thank you so much for doing this.
Thanks, Tony. Really, really great. We'll we'll do we'll do it again.
Alright. Absolutely. Have a good one.