2025 Summer Baltimore Whitman Show Report w/Gil Comito
Alright. Welcome, Gil. Thank you so much for joining me. This is the first first episode I'm doing on my YouTube channel where I'm doing some conversations about coins, and you are my very first guest. We got Gil Camido, the Gil Camido.
Speaker 1:He's a he's a famous individual within the coin coin market. Very popular with the with the collectors as well as the dealers out there. Anyways, Gil, tell us a little bit so first off, this is going to be a impressions or kind of a show report from the Baltimore Whitman show. We'll get into that in a second, but just wanna give you a chance to introduce yourself. You work in a small little shop, I believe in Virginia.
Speaker 1:Right?
Speaker 2:Yes. Berryville, Virginia.
Speaker 1:Berryville, Virginia. Okay. Nice. And how long have you been in the hobby overall?
Speaker 2:Totally thirty five years.
Speaker 1:Wow. Okay. Thirty five years. So I was assuming you started as a kid because you're I want to reveal your age
Speaker 2:and know if that's I'm 45. It's okay.
Speaker 1:You started at 10, but did you actually start selling coins at 10 years old?
Speaker 2:Yes, I did. I am a fourth generation coin dealer. My grandfather was a coin dealer. His father was a coin dealer. Originate from New York, which is kind of the beginning of coin collecting is the Northeast.
Speaker 2:So I originate from that area, basically. Like said, my grandfather was a dealer. He's out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It's a family thing. And, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:I've been doing it ever since I was 10.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, this is, hopefully gonna be the first of of many appearances, you know, on my channel. I'm hoping to to grow this. Grow this little, segment segment here because I think this is what people are interested in hearing a little bit about seeing some content, learning about the what's going on in the market. And I think it's one of the things I want to focus on with what I produce on my channel is I really want to help educate the collector and talk about the coin market per se and coin collecting, but specifically about markets and about how to kind of navigate the coin market.
Speaker 1:So we just had the Baltimore Whitman Expo that occurred last week. I was not able to attend because I have to work at my other job. You were there and you got a good sense of what was going on the floor. So to give us just general overview. I got some questions for you, but, you know, just give us a general overview, you know, how was how was Baltimore?
Speaker 2:So Baltimore was actually quite good. This is the summer Baltimore. Typically, this one is not very good due to the weather, due to the part of the season. And there is a Long Beach show that's typically going on around the same time. And the ANA has their summer seminar at the same time.
Speaker 2:So usually, this show is kind of on is the downside show. A lot of people don't want to come to it because it's a far travel. And they just like I said, they just got done with Long Beach. Unfortunately, Long Beach is no longer happening this year, canceled. So Baltimore actually had a decent turnout.
Speaker 2:From the dealer standpoint, a lot of the West Coast dealers did show up, which was really good. Interesting. Wholesale business was off the chain. I mean, it was it was ridiculous. Had great things to say about the wholesale market, which is a good thing for our market in general.
Speaker 2:So
Speaker 1:you think that I mean, it's possible that the the Long Beach show, which paused or they they're only doing the September show. Is that right? Is that what I read?
Speaker 2:Done. 2025 is done.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. Actually, believe it or not, new news. The show did get sold. Oh, really? As the collectors
Speaker 1:We got got breaking news on the Cabbage Coins coin it's a YouTube channel here. So anyways, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Long Beach show got sold. I don't know exactly the gentleman who purchased it, but the story that I the rumor at the Baltimore show here was that it was sold, and they are looking for either a new venue, a new place to put it. It's most likely gonna change. It may not be the Long Beach Expo anymore. It may be something else.
Speaker 2:We don't exactly know. But Long Beach as we know it is pretty much done.
Speaker 1:Wow. Wow. Okay. Well, that could be a whole topic for mean, could talk quite a bit about about that time. But I I so there was a lot of dealer activity at the show.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of wholesale business, which is which is really good because overall, I think that gets money moving. It keeps dealers in the market, keeps people like myself excited about going out there and finding coins because I can find a way to sell them. If I can't find a collector for it, I might be able to wholesale it or a collection of them to, you know, to to to a dealer. That's really good. So what about so what did you notice on the collector side?
Speaker 1:So obviously the collector, the retail crowd, whatever you want to call them, they kind of usually show up on the first full day. Right? What was your sense of of the traffic from the collector side?
Speaker 2:Collectors are getting smarter. They're getting wiser to what they particularly want. I think because of our dissemination of information now, you can you can look up anything. Auction records for a lot of coins, people are the collectors are getting smarter, they're understanding more about what they're buying as opposed to just looking at one piece of information as to like the pricing and whatnot. They're not looking just at gray sheet anymore.
Speaker 2:They're looking at auction records, they're looking more at the actual coin like we have an old saying in the coin world, buy the coin, not the holder. And that is playing a big part in this in today's market.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. Appreciate that. Yeah, I was I was kind of curious about the size of the collector crowd, but it sounds like you've had you had a couple of good conversations with some collectors that were really well educated about what it is they were looking for. Anything you remember to kinda stick out in your mind in terms of the interaction and what the coin was, for example?
Speaker 2:The the I would say the key date coins are key date coins are always popular as we know. They're always in demand. They I won't say they're soft. There's a few key dates that are a little soft right now. And that's probably because they were on an uptick for so long.
Speaker 2:But overall, I think every '93 s, Morgan dollars seems to be a little soft. And that may be because there's, and I'm not, the low end. I think the low end is really strong. Like, you look at the pricing on the ninety three s, it has gone through the roof on goods and fees and fines. The XFAUs, they got priced out of people's collection.
Speaker 2:So that's kinda what happens is Yeah. These coins go up and up and up, and they get priced out, and people start saying, well, I want to get I'll end up getting the lower end. Yeah. And those ones now pick up. You see?
Speaker 2:So it's a trickle down effect.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The 93 S is a great example where from, from an investment dollar perspective, you either, I think you get, you got to go low or you got to go pretty high. I mean, on what your budget is and what kind of money you got to work with. But those lower ones, I mean, everybody who's going to collect the Morgans, they need one. So, you know, you're going to pick up an AG3, you're going to pick up a good four or whatever.
Speaker 1:And Or yeah, it's a good four or good six. Yeah. Yep. I forgot my grades. But anyways, yeah, that's As you have more collectors, you're going need more coins are limited and so they're going to rise in price and so forth.
Speaker 1:So what segments of the market at this show here, what segments seemed hot? Is there anything that was, in your opinion, that you guys sold a lot of, that you saw trading a lot on the floor?
Speaker 2:Gold. Gold is moving Sure. For obvious reasons. Better date gold seems to be a little soft, but it's hard to really judge. And there's a lot of variables to why it's a little soft.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of the a lot of high end gold coins came out of that Fairmont collection that we've been dealing with the last couple years. So it's soft for that reason. But it's also kind of hot in the sense that if you want gold, you're you kind of want the better stuff. You don't want the mundane. Yeah, I did see one thing that I did see that it kind of threw me off is a lot of vintage holders are coming out of the woodwork stuff that I didn't think I knew existed, but I thought were kind of cracked out in a sense, like we all hear the stories about the crack out game.
Speaker 2:I saw a lot of vintage holders were offered to me at this show, which was unique. And it was a lot of gold in the in the old holders. So good stuff.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you want me mentioning this, if we could edit this out later, I guess, but you did pick up some really nice vintage Polar gold. Right?
Speaker 2:I did. Picked up a a consecutive set of $19.26 $10 Indians. They're just your common Consecutive set. Grade 62, but they were all con they were consecutively graded. They're NGC three point o holders, which meant they were graded thirty five years ago.
Speaker 1:It means that they stayed together over thirty five years Yeah.
Speaker 2:Exactly. That's awesome. You don't see that too often anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Is things about that. One is that, you know, they that means that they have not kind of been in the market during these thirty five years. People have been passing them around that just scuffing up polars and things, also assessing them for the upgrade. That means that they have probably Maybe they do have some great potentials potentially because no one's looked at them in the last thirty five years.
Speaker 1:They've stayed together in one collection. Just making some assumptions there, kind of deducing that from the fact that they are, you know, that they're all sequentials, which is a which is a cool thing. Yep. Yeah. I saw a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 2:There was a lot more pieces like that that a lot of twenties. Twenties were in abundance. Picked up a two and a half in the same type holder. Beautiful coin, and it it blew me away.
Speaker 1:In your opinion, how does how does the rise in gold value end up impacting the the more numismatic, you know, coins? So like I've got an example here. I've got this nineteen oh nine s, MS sixty five twenty, which is a pretty, fairly rare, date for, you know, in the MS sixty five grade, nineteen oh nine s. This coin is roughly about $6,000 is I think my asking price for for this coin. How does the gold price, which of course people are going come in the door trying to buy gold because gold is on the rise and they're gonna buy the Boolean pieces, the pieces where, you know, you're just buying like the the the coin for its gold value.
Speaker 1:But how does that end up kind of impacting the numismatic side? Does it have an effect? Does it have a positive effect, negative effect? What's your what's your opinion on that?
Speaker 2:Honestly, I think it's kind of a negative effect, in that when gold hits this number, the premiums just shrink. Like, now, you can buy MS $64.20 dollars saints for a hair above melt. And that typically that coin was a significant coin. It had numismatic value. It didn't matter what the date was.
Speaker 2:Now it's I mean, you have common dates, MS 64, and you're buying them for Melt. It's it kind of sucks in a sense, you know, because normally you would have bought that coin for that numismatic value. Now you're buying it for its gold value in a sense. Yeah. So is it good long term?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Because if gold does drop, you are you're actually kind of saving yourself. You're you're you're retaining some value because that premium will come back.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. The I the way some of those I the way that I see it is that you have alternative investments. You have the people it's the people that are new Hispanic collectors when they see the price of gold itself rising. And let's say they look at the price guide and the value of their $0.09 S and 60 5 kind of a staying flat.
Speaker 1:I think psychologically, they some of them choose to like, you know, move more towards the bullying stuff, more towards the stuff that is showing some price appreciation. Right. So it can kind of hurt the numismatic side when you have that. On the other hand, I think that the rise in the metal prices brings people into the coin show and gets kind of like the energy going. Know, people are investing, people are looking to buy coins in general.
Speaker 1:And some of them, you know, they choose the branch for the first time into Numismatic. So then there's a little bit more demand, you know, on the on that side.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, if you're gonna spend $4,000 on a coin, why not get a badass Carson City or, you know, an S Mint or, you know, get get a better date coin for the same price as your as your, you know, basic bullion piece. You know, I tell people that all the time, go, you know, if you got maximize your money, maximize your value by buying the best coin you possibly can with the money that you got. Don't buy 10 coins out of the if you got $10,000 buy one coin for $10,000 Don't buy $10,000 coins. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know? So
Speaker 1:Yep. Yep. That is definitely the kind of conventional wisdom on on coin collecting. And, you know, I would I'd agree with that. Just make sure that 10,000 coin is when you really, really, really love it.
Speaker 1:Yes. You Yes. You know, you're gonna wanna sit with it and and have dinner with it, you know, every night of the week. Yes. I got a couple of those coins.
Speaker 1:I got a couple of really nice ones that are like that. But anyway, also about the so we'd have a lot of dealers acting pretty aggressively at the show in terms of on on the wholesale side. People were doing a lot of buying. You had a lot of the West Coast dealers that were there at the show because Long Beach got canceled in theory. That's probably one of reasons why they were why they were there.
Speaker 1:You got some collectors on the floor. Did you have any sense of what the collectors were looking for? More type collectors there that you interacted with or Type collectors?
Speaker 2:I would say early type seems to be it's always a hot, you know, section, but it seems to be really hot right now. Early type. Usually when when you go into solar Can
Speaker 1:you explain for our viewers? Because I always get a lot of these questions about, like, some very basic concepts that I kinda take for granted that people, you know, may not be introduced. So can you explain for everybody, like, what is a type coin?
Speaker 2:Okay. A type coin is for every section of denomination, there's a type, like, for instance, mercury dime. That is a type of coin. From 1916 to 1945, we made a dime. We call it the Merck dime.
Speaker 2:There's before that, there's the Barber series that whatever series is a type. And then we can you can kind of generalize the term type. We like to use the the word type for anything before 1900. So basically the nineteenth century coinage, we kind of call that early type, kind of group that all into one big general consensus. But that's your your bust type, your seated liberty type.
Speaker 2:And then you've got all your little oddities, your shield nickels, your 2¢ pieces, your 3¢ pieces, you know, the silver and the nickel, then you've got your, of course, you only got your weird guys like the half dime, the 20¢ piece. That's your early type. That stuff right now seems to be a really good niche. It seems to be really popular. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's the the collectors are getting really smart about that in the sense that they're not just looking at, like I said earlier, they're not looking at gray sheet for value on that because gray sheet, yeah, it's a wonderful reference. But there's so much information out there now with auction records. And then again, you with some of these more common grades, like let's say an XF 20¢ piece, you can have a variety of conditions within that condition. And the collectors are getting smarter with this. They're understanding they're learning what an ugly coin is from a nice coin.
Speaker 2:And they're understanding what they want, which is really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So It is is definitely encouraging to see. And I for sure. Because I think for for for too long and a lot of people that I talk to, they rely very heavily on the grading services. They rely very heavily, almost too much on CAC stickers, in my opinion, in terms of nobody in terms of what they want to buy and what they're going to choose to buy.
Speaker 1:They it might it's like they they think that sticker like gives them some peace of mind that this is a good coin. When there's a lot of really nice coins that John at CAC just simply doesn't like and didn't want to put a sticker on in my in my estimation.
Speaker 2:Plenty of those coins. And you and I have both talked about plenty of those coins that we under we scratch our head and say, why didn't it sticker? Yeah. The years, I've obviously I've, I've sent many, many coins in and I've kind of learned a little bit about what john likes. But there's there's so many coins out there that are just eye appealing that, you know, still a
Speaker 1:lot of people
Speaker 2:love and some people don't.
Speaker 1:So I I definitely would love to put a pin on that one and come back to it another, like, time with you because I I think there's probably nobody that could talk through their history of sending for submissions, you know, with more and more detail and and explain your philosophy better than probably you could. I know you got a lot to to to say there's a lot to unpack there. So I think our viewers would love to hear about that maybe in another episode. Do want to come back real quick. Just I wanted to make a point about the type about type coins.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Because one of the things that I've noticed is I think that like, for example, when early type gold seems to always be really, really strong. And I have a great example of why this is the case. And sometimes in my opinion, I think this is almost a better place from an investment perspective than key dates or trying to put together dates that are trying to find the rarest coin or whatever. So I had this $10 Eagle. I know you remember it.
Speaker 1:It was an $1,800 $10 Eagle. Yes. That coin, the 1,800 was one of the most rare of the series. I don't know how many are in the series, maybe it's seven or eight coins or whatever. The 1,800 was like the second most rare, I believe, of that series.
Speaker 1:But the people that I interacted with were only interested in finding a good example of the type. They just wanted a large $10 gold coin. And they they cared less about the date. They cared more about the look nice and that it was a nice example of the type because they just want an example of a $10 old, you know, bust drape bust Liberty head or turbine head or whatever, whatever's on the $10
Speaker 2:I don't know what they call them yet.
Speaker 1:They're cool. Yeah. I mean, so in the case of early gold, you know, buying the type or being a type collector, think makes a lot, a lot of sense. When it comes to something like Morgans, for example, that's like the dumbest thing, right? I mean, there's what would be the point of, like, being a just you want one example of type of a Morgan?
Speaker 2:I it's my opinion. I think they're overrated, but there's there's a lot of history to the Morgan dollar, and there's a lot of kind of like uncertainty, like, understand that a lot of these coins were made and a lot of them didn't get circulated. So it's kind of an anomaly. So I think there's there's a lot of little nuances to why Morgan dollars are so popular.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But like like you're saying that early gold, I actually saw quite a bit of early gold pop out at this show, and it was trading and it was trading very strong.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. It I mean, if I see it, I know that people wanna buy it. I'm always trying to see if I can if it's a good example, if it's a nice looking example, and can I get it a decent price? Because I know that there's people that are gonna they're gonna want this thing, know, early early type gold is a is a great but it's not cheap.
Speaker 1:I mean, let's just be honest, you're talking at least over $10 for most basic pieces in a, in a reasonable collectible grade, like an AU grade, and you're going to be, you know, close to $10 or above paying if it's a 5 or 10 or whatever. Yeah, the the Morgan Morgan dollar is an interesting coin because it is like the opposite of a lot of other series. A lot of other coins were made, you know, and there was very few that did not go into circulation, but everything else went into circulation like, you know, Barbara quarters, Barbara halves, Barbara all the Barbara coinage. But then you got Morgan dollars that were created basically due to a lot of politics with the silver lobby. They created all this, you know, all these silver coins and they stuck them in the treasury vaults and very few of them went into circulation, so you get the opposite effect.
Speaker 1:And today, yeah, I mean, there's just thousands and thousands, millions in in case in cases of of them. Yeah. So the topic of like how to collect Morgans, I think it's also another great topic for, you know, for a time. But I did wanna ask your opinion about something that I haven't been able to figure out yet. Okay.
Speaker 1:This is the state of the market for the CAC graded coin. Because what I got right here is this '19 '18 94 s m s 63 Morgan in this, yeah, this m s 63 CAC holder. And there's a couple of things I wanna talk ask you about. One is that whether or not this m s 63 is equivalent to a PCGS 63 with a sticker. And then secondly is just how well is the market receiving these?
Speaker 1:Did you see them selling at all? Are you seeing people coming to sell them to you? What what's your what's your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Okay. So first of all, yes, that coin is comparable to a PCGS stickered MS 63. It's they're equal. I know there's a lot of people that speculate, you know, well, if a CAC 63, is that like a NGC or PCGS 64? The market is still kind of trying to figure that out, but I don't agree.
Speaker 2:I think a 63 is a 63, whether it's in an NGC or PCGS or CACG holder. Now the CACG coin in '63 might be nicer than the other two, but they're all going to be in the same, that same bracket of within the grade. They're not one's not going be better than the other. It's just going be eye appeal in a sense. The grade itself is going to be dead nuts.
Speaker 2:I mean, across the board. Mean, guys have been doing this for so long. They're not screwing that up.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But but the key point there is about the eye appeal because I feel like when my submissions with to to to CAC stickering is that of a coin that simply doesn't have the eye appeal, sometimes they'll hold back the sticker. But it seems like that this it seems like with this, the IPL factor doesn't really matter too much.
Speaker 2:It doesn't in a sense. It's more of technical grade. It's yeah. It's more of a technical it's definitely technical because a lot of the coins now they've been grading for, I think it's almost two years now. The first year, they were very conservative, very strict, and they had to be.
Speaker 2:You can't come out of the gate and just throw out grades. It just doesn't that's not what they're about. They're about putting really nice coins in their holders. So of course, are going to send anything, you know, the kitchen sink at them. Well, of course, they're going to identify that, you know, and it was good for them to be able to put their foot down and say, no, we're not going to straight grade this coin because of this scratch or because of this little wipe or because of this or that.
Speaker 2:I actually respected them for doing that in the sense of bringing us back to a, like, more conservative grading system. So I do commend them for that. Yeah. The CACG holders on the market, it's still people are a little skeptical about it. They're still kinda trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2:I think some holders break.
Speaker 1:How many are coming across across the case for you guys when you're at the show? How many are coming across the case either either direction? Mean, people selling them to you? Are you guys selling them?
Speaker 2:We don't sell too many where I'm at right now. My former employer, Northern Nevada Coin, they do move them. They did get a lot more in. They sold them. They they do a lot more in that industry.
Speaker 2:The current employer that I have, we're not that much into them. But that at in Baltimore, I did see a lot of them moving a little bit more than normal. They are starting to pick up a little steam in a sense. I think the strongest is still the PCGS with the sticker that seems to be where most people are going. It's it's I hate to say it, but it's all about that registry.
Speaker 2:And the PC Jets registry seems to be where most collectors, they like to they like that registry more. I think if the CAC registry picks up some steam, I think you're gonna see a lot more people buying those coins.
Speaker 1:Okay. Appreciate that perspective. I got a couple more questions here before we end up, we're gonna wrap things up because I'm getting hungry. It's like, well, it's it's after seven. Did you run into any interesting people during or have any good conversations or interesting conversations on the floor?
Speaker 1:This is of the of the questions I got prepared, this is just one that I I thought was a little bit oddball.
Speaker 2:Do I at this Baltimore, I didn't run into too many, but I did at the last Baltimore. Yeah. Because I've I
Speaker 1:am from New York. I was there. I was at the last Baltimore, and we went to dinner, and we had steaks. And
Speaker 2:and Yeah. I did have some interesting conversation with some customers at the last one. This one, not so much in a sense. I did make a few new customers that are, know, starting in coming in. They're, they're getting away from the telemarketer kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:I really think that the telemarketer industry, it seems to be very strong, but it seems like I said, I think collectors and people are starting to wise up to it a little more, and get and not spend so much money with that. I think people are a little more
Speaker 1:That's a good quest it's a good topic. I mean, who's watching who's watching television nowadays? I mean, the only people left watching actual television, I don't know, are retirees. Yes. I guess, you know, there's and I think there's fewer of them that are not savvy enough to, you know, recognize that it's you're massively overpaying.
Speaker 1:But That
Speaker 2:think when they go to these bigger shows and they start talking to more dealers and you get different variety of different inputs on certain things from different dealers, you're getting more information, and they're they're being smarter. They're actually getting much smarter.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh, based on what you saw, where do you think the hobby is headed in the next six to twelve months?
Speaker 2:Six to twelve months, I think you're gonna see, I think you're gonna see a lot of strength in the earlier stuff. We're coming up. Let's see. Next year's 2026. It's the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of America.
Speaker 2:So I wouldn't be surprised if you see a lot of movement in the coin world. You're gonna see a lot of the commemoratives. So anything that's gonna be patriotic in a sense. Yeah. Gonna see that stuff's gonna be it's gonna be pretty hot.
Speaker 1:I wonder what the the high relief design's gonna be. I always look forward to the, you know, to the whatever they call the you know, I'm talking about the US Mint high relief. Like, they they came out just recently with the Bronco one, which is like the coin of the year, which is an amazing coin. If I could get a picture of it, I'll put it here. Anyways, this one's coming up is gonna be a sunflower, which I'm pretty excited about.
Speaker 1:My my mother loves sunflowers. I don't know if I wanna buy her a $3,500 coin as a gift, but the idea is there. I'll definitely buy them for inventory for sure.
Speaker 2:I think I'm
Speaker 1:on a payment plan.
Speaker 2:What I understand, I believe there is gonna be an introduction of, like, the older style, like, I that flowing hair design that the mint released with Coke are crazy. So I think that the mint's gonna bring some of that stuff back. So you're gonna I think you're gonna see some of that. And I I wouldn't be surprised if you see a change like they did in 1976, where they did a change to the quarter and a half. I would not be surprised one day.
Speaker 1:Oh, you just mean in general for the coinage that year?
Speaker 2:I think they're gonna change something. They're they have. They something's meant they're gonna do something.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, yeah. I was just thinking in terms of mint designs for, like, the special stuff, you know, like the all the mint in the mint products.
Speaker 2:Think they're gonna do that too, but I think they're going to change the even maybe the half dollar that you give it a different reverse. They're going to do something. You know, the men's going to do something. They're they're sneaky like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Nice. That's exciting. All right, man. Well, hey, thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 1:This is turned out to be, I think, an incredible little thirty minutes. I'm going to be able to post my my YouTube channel. This will also be on Instagram, I think, some capacity if I can get it to work. But, thanks a lot for doing this. Hope we could do this again.
Speaker 2:No problem. Absolutely. Definitely wanna do it again.
Speaker 1:Alright. Hopefully, you had some fun. And I think our friends out there will enjoy seeing this episode to us. Alright, buddy. Alright.
Speaker 1:Thanks a lot, and I'm gonna see you next time. So Yes, sir.
