Packing for Coin Shows

With July FUN right around the corner and the ANA hot on its heels, we figured we’d give you a glimpse of what packing for coin shows at ECC actually looks like. If you’ve been to our booth at a show before, you’ve seen our trademark gigantic crates (if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?) Here’s what the process of deciding what to put in them goes.

1. Slabs

Romans? Medieval? Byzantine? Should we focus on silver or on bronze? High-grade but expensive items, or more common grades at more affordable prices? We have shelves and shelves of slabbed items from NGC, both graded and not, and it’s always best to start thinking about which of them to bring early. Roman and Judaean slabs tend to be popular, so those tend to get priority. But then it’s always nice to bring variety, so items like Celtic silver and Byzantine slabs get packed as well. Fortunately with our crates we can fit a few thousand slabs, but somehow it never feels like enough space!

Then each type of slab and each grade is priced, added to the inventory list, and put in the crate.

2. Raw coins

As popular as slabs are, raw coins tend to be the favorite of the most experienced coin collectors. Again, we have to balance price, interest, variety, and a host of other factors when selecting unslabbed coins to bring to shows. We group coins together by time period or culture, then put them in boxes for you to browse at your leisure (see the image above). Lastly, each box needs a complete record of what is in it, down to the last kopek.

3. Banknotes and Lots and Packages oh my!

Last but certainly not least, we have to consider….well, everything else.

People go to coin shows not only for coins, of course, but other interesting numismatic items as well. We always have a case of banknotes, carefully packed by Greg, and we try to have a case displaying our packaged items as well. Sometimes these sell (such as to one grandfather who immediately knew his grandkids would love one of our wood box collections!) and sometimes they don’t, but they almost always spark interesting conversation.

And then all that’s left is to load the crates onto a truck and hop on a plane or train to the next show!