FUN is Serious Business

2019 is making its presence known in a big way in numismatic circles. A well-known, major dealer asserted, “FUN was serious business. Demand for high-quality and rarities was extremely strong. I am having to stretch my bids at auction much higher than I anticipated; the demand and competition was heated.”

Fresh from winter FUN, the majority of dealers are proclaiming a solid show and lots of noise on the bourse. “Not just noises, but sales being made,” said a familiar vest pocket dealer from Michigan.

Collectors who made the pilgrimage to Orlando were also thrilled with the electric atmosphere. Fred, hailing from Marblehead, Massachusetts, said he was intent on tracking down higher-end circ Capped Bust Dimes and Quarters. “I was just looking for clean VF/XF coins, either raw or certified, but they had to have the right look. I call them black-and-white coins: just enough dirt, well, patina to fill-in the devices, adding some character to the look of the coins.”

Fred advised me that he was successful in locating 10 Capped Bust Dimes and eight Capped Bust Quarters. The Massachusetts resident said seven coins were NGC-certified. “Three dimes and four quarters, all graded NGC XF 40: what a great looking group. I was psyched to get home and match them up with the rest of my collection. I picked several up from a dealer from Boston! I kidded him and said I could have stayed home and done some dealing.”

Other collectors were spending time viewing auction lots from the host Heritage sale. Janice and her husband Miles described themselves as “Morgan fanatics” and wanted to spend time looking at auction lots of their favorite coin: Morgan Dollars.

“I got the bug from ad”, said Janice. “He collected Morgans for about 20 years and I used to help him sort coins. I never really got into collecting; it was more or less housekeeping for Dad’s collection. But when Miles and I got together, I quickly found out that he was a big Morgan Dollar buff. So, well, here we are.”

Heritage Signature Sale claims $43.7 million

The Heritage FUN auction was the scene of spectacular strength, too. In total, a powerful $43.7 million was realized, making this the top sale for dollars realized since the mammoth 2015 Heritage Winter FUN outing, which captured $70.1 million. In that sale, four years ago, an astounding seven coins were featured, which eclipsed the hallowed $1 million benchmark! That was, indeed, quite the sale. But consider the following data for the auctions that just concluded.

Points of strength for the 2019 Heritage FUN are easily seen in the numbers below:

• 59 lots exceeded $100,000
• 4 coins surpassed $1 million
• Average price realized per lot: $7,717

Each off these statistics reflects the most potent and diverse numismatic line-up since that historic 2015 FUN sale.

The only thing “small” with the 2019 Heritage Winter FUN was the number of lots, which numbered 5,657. (Compare this with the 11,014 lots to appear in the 2013 Heritage FUN extravaganza; yet the average price per lot reported then was only $4,085.)

I had to dig back to the 2002 winter FUN sale to find fewer lots offered- up for prospective bidders than the number of lots at the just-concluded 2019 sale. For the record, in 2002 there were 3,850 lots in the Heritage Winter FUN Signature Sale, and another 1,697 lots featured in the 2002 FUN Bullet sale, or equal to 5,547 lots. Wow! How many of my fellow Coindexters remember those old bullet sales?

Leading the way at the 2019 Heritage FUN Show Signature Auction were a trio of fantastic NGC-graded icons.