July 17, 2025 • 43 mins
Visit Noah at
https://www.rarity7.com/ - Rarity7 website
https://www.instagram.com/numismattack/ - Noah's Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/rarity7coins/ - Rarity7's Instagram
Links to the coins in the video:
(https://cabbagecoins.com/listings/165...) - 1652 Pine Tree Shilling
(https://cabbagecoins.com/listings/194...) - 1945 Saudi Arabia 4 Pound Gold
(https://cabbagecoins.com/listings/188...) - 1884-CC $20 Double Eagle
(https://cabbagecoins.com/listings/191...) - 1914-S $10 Indian
Keywords
coin collecting, numismatics, Rarity 7, Fun Show, currency, coin trends, coin dealers, collector advice, ANA show, coin business
Summary
In this episode of the Cabbage Coins Podcast, Tony Gryckiewicz interviews Noah Lehmann-Haupt from Rarity 7. They discuss their experiences at the recent Fun Show, the dynamics of competition in the coin business, the appeal of currency versus coins, and the current trends in coin collecting. Noah shares insights on standout pieces he acquired, offers advice for new collectors and dealers, and talks about future plans for Rarity 7 and upcoming shows like the ANA.
Takeaways
The FUN Show experience can vary greatly among dealers.
Competition in the coin business is often overstated; many dealers have unique niches.
Currency collecting offers a different aesthetic and historical perspective compared to coins.
The thrill of the hunt is a significant aspect of coin collecting.
Trends in coin collecting can shift rapidly based on collector interest and market dynamics.
Standout pieces often have unique stories or historical significance.
New collectors should take their time at shows but act quickly on desirable coins.
Finding a niche is crucial for success as a dealer in the coin business.
Attending shows early in the week c
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tony Gryckiewicz (00:00):
Folks, we are back with another episode here
(00:02):
of the Cabbage Coins Podcast.I'm extremely excited today to
have Lohman Noah Lehmannhaupt.Is that did I get that right?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (00:12):
You got it, Tony.
Tony Gryckiewicz (00:13):
Alright. Noah Lehmannhaupt with with Rarity
seven coin company. What's theexact title? And maybe you could
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (00:21):
Just Rarity seven. I kinda take the tech
company approach. If you wannabe formal, Rarity seven coins
and currency, but it's justRarity seven.
Tony Gryckiewicz (00:28):
Okay. Rarity seven. So we're gonna do a fun
show review. We just got backfrom the Orlando Fun Show. Fun
stands for the Florida UnitedNimismacists.
It is a biannual show, occurs inJuly as well as in January. The
July show is typically a littlebit smaller than the January
show. We both just got back. Ihad a phenomenal show. Believe
I'm sure you did as well.
(00:49):
And we want to kinda get into itand talk a little bit about
about the about the show. So,first question for you. How many
fun shows have you been to andhow did this one compare to the
rest?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (01:01):
It's an excellent question, Tony. I my
first show was January. So Idid, winter fun January, twenty
three summer fun, twenty fourwinter, twenty four summer, and
now 25 winners. So this is myfifth fun show. Oh, sorry.
Sixth 25 winner and 25 summer.So this is my sixth fun show
(01:23):
now. Wow. That goes that by thatgoes by fast.
Tony Gryckiewicz (01:26):
And so how did this one, you think, compare to
the others?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (01:29):
I think this one was good. You know, I had a
lot of people report on one ofthe forums that were on that
they had some of the best showsever. I did not have my best
show ever. I thought it was avery busy show. I did some great
wholesale business.
I found the retail side of mybusiness to be good. It wasn't
spectacular. It was good. Now Ithink the most interesting
(01:52):
thing, probably the mostinteresting thing about this
industry that I think a lot offolks don't realize right off
the bat, is that you walk into aroom like the Fun Show where
there's 350 dealers, and youthink, wow. There's, 350 coin
dealers.
You're all doing exactly thesame thing. You're all competing
with each other. That must bechaos. The reality is, as you
(02:13):
know, but a lot of people Ithink don't know, is that many
of these dealers are incompletely different businesses
from one another. And, you know,I would probably count the
number of quote unquotecompetitors that I have, and
I'll get back to that in asecond, very low.
I mean, you know, maybe five,maybe six, you know, other
companies in there that I wouldconsider quote, unquote
(02:33):
competitors. Now why do I sayquote? Because the wonderful
thing about this hobby and thisbusiness is that when you do
stuff like I know you like to doand the kind of stuff that I
like to do where we do high endor higher end rather interesting
coins, is that there almostreally isn't because you, Tony,
(02:55):
have a you and I have verysimilar tastes. It's a great
example. We both like, you know,nice high end, old type US
stuff.
Mhmm. But the coins that youhave and your inventory at any
given moment are completelydifferent from the coins that I
have in my inventory. So I wouldI would hardly say that, you
know, we're competing with eachother. And the same goes with
me. I mean, I'm I was at thisshow.
(03:15):
I was right next to our tablesdirectly next to our friends at
Paradigm Coins, Shannon and hisThat's another great example.
His partner. Wonderful coins.And I would say that, you know,
if you looked at the two of ourbusinesses from a buying
perspective, you would say weare direct competitors. We both
have high end, lots of CACstuff, lots of PCGS type.
But the thing is, look at ourcases, and there's not a single
(03:37):
coin that's the same as anyoneelse.
Tony Gryckiewicz (03:38):
That's the same.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (03:39):
Yep. So we have completely different
businesses. We're complementary.You know, a collector may be
looking for a coin that thatParadigm has that we don't and
vice versa. So I think that'sthe wonderful thing about this
business is that, you you havethese companies that are, in
theory, competitors, but aren'treally competing with each
other.
Now, the exception to that iswhen we're buying a deal. Know,
(03:59):
if some collector walks in andsays, I've got a collection of
old Drapes Us dollars, you and Iare both gonna be battling it
out as
Tony Gryckiewicz (04:05):
a complicated if we were to share a table or
whatever because Right. I mean,like why
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (04:11):
I think where the competition happens.
Anyway, my whole point of sayingthat is that when a dealer just
says, we had a great show, thatis almost a meaningless
statement because you have tounderstand what does that mean.
Are they a wholesaler? Are theya retailer? Are they selling
generic Morgan dollars?
Are they selling raw,uncertified US coins $10 and up?
(04:33):
The the business that a specificdealer is in dramatically
affects whether they're gonnahave a good or bad show because
different segments of the marketare doing different things at
any given moment.
Tony Gryckiewicz (04:42):
Yeah. It's a good point. I mean, you could
also, like, go talk to the guywho's selling coin supply, like
coin collecting supplies, and hecould feel like,
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (04:49):
I had a horrible show.
Tony Gryckiewicz (04:51):
Right. Nobody wants it in folders anymore.
Right. You know? And you'relike, sorry.
Know, I'm sorry to hear that. Ihad that phenomenal show. Did
all the buying and selling.What's your, I I completely
agree with everything you saidright there. And, you know,
that's something that I've kindof mulled around and thought
about, like, you know, just likeyou and I collaborating and
doing a podcast together.
We we have similar somewhatsimilar business models. Your
(05:14):
your company is a lot moreestablished and and larger than
mine, but we like the same typesof coins. So are we technically,
competitors? Maybe in a sense onthe buying side, but at the same
time, my coins aren't identicalto your coins and we also have
different relationships withdifferent collectors, so we can
work together a lot and helppromote the hobby and promote
each other's businesses,etcetera, etcetera. It's all
(05:36):
positive things that are gonnaare gonna come from that.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (05:39):
And that's one of the things that I like
about your business model andour business model. Now look,
there are dealers out there, youknow, who love dealing in
generic MS 63 common date Morgandollars. That's just, you know,
that's their business. Mhmm.
Tony Gryckiewicz (05:53):
If you
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (05:53):
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 sMorgans. He's selling them for
$68 each, and the guy next tohim is selling them for $67
each. You know, those guys arecompetitors.
But again, it's a very differentbusiness from what you and I
are. I don't personally have anyinterest in selling commodity
(06:14):
products. And the same thingsame reason why I don't deal in
bullion, really. I don't deal inAmerican Gold Eagles or Silver
Eagles or things like that,because those truly are
commodities. I mean Yeah.
Now you're talking about, youknow, I'm at a dollar 49 over
spot, and I'm at a dollar 20over spot, and you've got, you
know that is a truly competitivebusiness. I the thing I love
about this business is thatthere really isn't competition,
(06:36):
you know, from the traditionalsense for that. Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz (06:38):
So one of the reasons that I do some business
in bullying is becauseoftentimes, other collectors
that wanna buy a larger piecefrom me, and we're way off topic
at the fun show. But sometimesone of the pieces that a
collector might really wannapurchase from me, let's say
that, yeah, I picked up the$16.52 pine tree shilling. I'm
super excited about talkingabout from, you know, pickups
(07:01):
from the from the show. 8053.This is about the $12,000 coin.
12,500 is what the price tag isgonna be on this. A lot of a lot
of my collectors, you know, theymight wanna trade into this, and
as part of their trade, theymight want to do some gold
bullion because gold has gone upfrom, you know, where it was
sitting before around 2,800,2,700, all the way up to close
(07:22):
to $3,400 So they've seen a lotof price appreciation in their
assets and they might want tovery simply move this into a
numismatic and get it for, youknow, 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 thetable, I wanna have kind of
(07:44):
something for for a lot of thethe people. I don't wanna
specialize, you know, too much.
And now you do currency, forexample. Don't do any currency
really yet. Is that a niche?When did you get into that
niche, and do you feel likethat's a growing area of the
hobby, or, you know, or what areyour thoughts about currency
versus coins?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (08:02):
It's a good question. I got into currency
pretty much after I got in rightas I got into coins dealing
wise. It was within my firstcouple 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'sit's adjacent to the hobby, but,
you know, obviously, it's theyboth represent, you know, the
(08:24):
monetary system of The US. And II personally love currency just
because it's a different aspectof the hobby. It's these
beautiful pieces of artworkthat, you know, you're not gonna
get areas of toning and thingslike that with with as you would
with coin. So it is a little bitmore commoditized.
I mean, in general, you know,one silver certificate is gonna
(08:45):
look very similar to anothersilver certificate. But there's
still issues of eye appeal andthings like that. They're very
adjacent. I just personally findit appealing. I think currency
is is a it's beautiful.
It's, you know, wonderful piecesof art. You can look at some of
the older series and and really,you know, think about the fact
that people use this as theirday to day money to spend.
There's politics involved in it,you know, with all the different
(09:06):
laws that went into place andwhy you would have these
different issues. You have, youknow, legal tender versus silver
certificate versus goldcertificate. So learning the
history of currency teaches youa little bit of some political
history of The United States andsome legal history of The US.
So that for many reasons, I justfind it super interesting. I
don't know that I'd say it's agrowing part of a hobby, but
(09:26):
it's certainly an interestingone and Yeah. One that I get a
lot of personal enjoyment outof.
Tony Gryckiewicz (09:31):
Yeah. One of the most interesting things I
picked up or one of the most funI had at the Fun Show was
actually searching for a notefor a client of mine because I
don't really do a lot ofcurrency. I don't really have
currency on my website. One ofthe reasons for that is in
Pennsylvania, currency is one ofthe things that is you have to
collect tax when you sellcurrency in Pennsylvania. And so
I kind of, you know, stick thecoins mostly in Pennsylvania.
(09:53):
But anyways, this client of minewas in Florida. He was looking
for a Bank of Fernandinaobsolete 20 to complete his set
of five tens and twenties. And Iput a lot of notes out there and
some of our dealer groups and Icouldn't find one. And at the
very last day of the show,somebody contacted me and they
had one of these notes. Superexcited just to, like, find this
(10:14):
one little needle in thehaystack, so to speak, and I
found this note for thecollector and hooked them up
with that.
Super cool. I'm gonna see if Icould throw a picture into it. I
I I don't think I took a apicture before I before I mailed
it. But anyways, that was one
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (10:27):
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 lotof people and dealers into the
hobby is the hunt and lookingfor something great and then
finding the thing.
Tony Gryckiewicz (10:38):
Yeah. Uncovering that item that, you
know, you you you just know soone one example of that, one of
the things I love hunting for isthese these Saudi Arabia £4 gold
coins. You know, you're familiarwith these?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (10:53):
I I am. I've got an open order for one. I
have a collector who emails meevery few weeks asking for one.
So as soon as that's AU 58. Yougot one.
Maybe maybe that's somethingthat we can we can talk about
separately.
Tony Gryckiewicz (11:03):
Maybe we could do some business on this one.
Yeah. No, it's super cool aboutthese is when The United States
wanted to buy oil from theKingdom Of Saudi Arabia in the
1940s, the King of Saudi Arabiarequired the payment to be in
gold. And so for The UnitedStates to be able to pay them in
gold, they actually minted thesethese like gold rounds in one
(11:24):
pound and now four poundvariety. Now why they were in
British pounds?
I, if I if I had to just venturea guess, it's because the London
spot price of gold was likemaybe the the the the like the
standard, you know, at thattime. Not exactly sure. But
anyways, the the PhiladelphiaMint made these coins or made
(11:45):
these rounds, whatever you wantto call them. And today these
are collected by people thatwant to get a piece of a piece
of history here. So I waswalking by a table and I found
one of these things and I'msuper psyched when I can get one
for a pretty decent price.
And I was able to pick thisthing up. And there's probably
one one also one of my myfavorite pickups, you know, from
the from the show. But
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (12:04):
You're kind of straddling the line a little
bit between bullion andnumismatics, and they're kind of
fun for that reason. I like it.
Tony Gryckiewicz (12:11):
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I've owned a few of them
in the past, and I'm alwaysexcited 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 thatwould that people were generally
searching for coming up to thetable? Do you have one of these?
(12:33):
Do have one of those? Did youfeel 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 perspectiveat your table. What do you
think?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (12:42):
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 specificshow asking for a particular
series. Now that being said,that doesn't mean that there
aren't particular series thathave these ebbs and flows. I
think it's one of the mostfascinating parts about this
hobby, how and I have nowwitnessed it firsthand, how
(13:05):
certain series do have theseebbs and flows, and you really
see it it almost is it's likethere's something in the water
how everyone decides thatthey're gonna start collecting a
certain series, and they're, youknow, they suddenly become
popular and prices rise becausedemand grows.
A lot and and the dynamics areall over the map, and I think
there's a few reasons for thisfrom what I've gathered. Okay.
(13:27):
On the one hand, you havecommercial activity around a
series. This is an area that Idon't play in and I'm not
involved in, but I do hearthings that certain
telemarketers, folks who are inthe more sales side of the
business run programs. Theythat's what they say.
They run they're running aprogram. And if a given
(13:48):
telemarketer is certainlyrunning a program on, you know,
$18.84 Morgan dollars for oneday, you know, maybe in 1984,
they suddenly started doing thehundred year anniversary of the
Morgan dollars, so you have atelemarketer starting to run a
program on $18.84 Morgandollars. You know what I mean?
The same kind of thing. $19.21peace dollars on the $20.21
(14:08):
peace dollars came out.
Those will drive demand in abusiness because you have these
large commercial entities thathave huge buy orders out for
certain items. So that's oneside of the thing. You will see
you'll see these kind ofcommercially driven, marketing
driven ebbs and flows in certainseries. Yeah. The other thing,
think that's that's fine.
(14:28):
That's the explanation for thatis pretty simple. The more
interesting stuff for me is isalmost like the zeitgeist of the
moment. It's like when justcollectors get a a taste for a
certain thing that goes up anddown. The one that I have
experienced most viscerally wasa few years ago. There was just
this moment in the hobby whereCarson City Gold just became
(14:51):
hot.
And and I don't know how todescribe it other than it seemed
like everybody was building aCarson City gold collection.
They just wanted Carson Citygold coins, and they wanted
them, and they were interestedin them, and you would get
collectors coming up saying, I'mbuilding my Carson City gold
collection. And Carson City $20gold coins shot up. The you
know, you know, some of them hit10,000. The and that was the
(15:15):
sort of moment that happened afew years ago, and that moment
has basically evaporated.
And I can't tell you why it'shappened. I can't tell you the
dynamics of the friends or whathap but all of a sudden, people
aren't interested in Carson CityGold anymore. That, you know,
you don't have collectorswalking up to your table saying,
hey. I really want that CC Goldfor my collection. So Carson
(15:35):
City Gold has come down off ofthat hype cycle.
Yeah. The reason for it, I can'ttell you. I don't know why it
either ebbed or it flowed eitherdirection 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 theseries that I'm interested in.
I love the Seated Libertyseries. Sure. And Seated Dollars
Yep. I think are having a realmoment. And I can't tell you
(15:58):
why.
I can tell you
Tony Gryckiewicz (15:59):
I saw three of those.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (16:00):
Collectors on Instagram that, you know,
post about it, and they buildthese big collections, and you
you maybe start to see, alright.Well, this guy's building a
seeded dollar collection, andthat guy's building a seeded
dollar collection, and thatguy's building maybe I should
build a seeded dollarcollection. All of a sudden,
everybody wants seeded dollars.Demand goes up, especially for
CAC approved coins where, youknow, they're very picky about
(16:20):
that kind of stuff. Yeah.
So I'm seeing that happen. Ididn't get any of that
specifically at the fun show,but I am, of course, seeing it
happen in the industry. Whatabout you?
Tony Gryckiewicz (16:29):
I think you covered the one of the big ones
was just seeded dollars, andwe're referring to the Liberty
Seated Dollar series, which wasproduced just before the Morgan
Dollar series. There was alsotrade dollars that were produced
in there as well. But most ofthe Liberty City dollars were,
went into circulation. Most ofthem are pretty low grade. A lot
(16:49):
of them have been beat up andcleaned up over, over the years.
It's hard to find reallydifficult, really nice ones. And
people, people love them. Theylove them to be original and to
have a really kind ofundisturbed surfaces on them.
And interesting fun fact aboutLiberty Seated Dollars is that
the most common Liberty SeatedDollar is actually more rare
(17:11):
than the most rare Morgandollar, is the 93 S. Yeah.
And yeah, I actually sold threeof those at the show. I sold I
sold a proof one that I've beenholding onto for a little while
and the guy just came up andjust bought the thing. It was
shocking. It was awesome for myasking price. The other one I
(17:34):
sold was an $18.63 dollars and64 plus, which was the biggest
coin that I had in
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (17:38):
I've seven seen that coin. It was gorgeous.
Tony Gryckiewicz (17:41):
Yeah. Was close to $20,000 coin. I I sold
that. And then lastly, I sold a72S, which I kind of almost
regret because if there is onecoin of that series that I would
say if you get a chance to buyone, buy it and hold onto it,
it's a 72S because there's onlytwo years that were made at the
(18:02):
San Francisco Mint. They wereboth made for export to support
the trade US trade relations outin China, I believe, Asia and
The Pacific.
The 59S and the 72S, and I had abeautiful one in AU50 that I had
just gotten re holdered, I askeda big number and the person paid
the big number. Awesome. Yeah.So but now I had I want me to
(18:24):
see the dollars. Right.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (18:26):
So the the other series
Tony Gryckiewicz (18:29):
that I thought that I think was really hot that
everyone's asking about wasDahlonega Gold.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (18:33):
Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz (18:34):
Yeah. And I think there's good reason for
that because there's the BRNAshow that's happening at the end
of this month, which is happensin which is called the Blue
Ridge Numismatic Coin orsomething. I don't really know
what it stands for. But BlueRidge and the Mismatic Club, I
believe. That's in Dalton,Georgia.
And I don't know if you've everdone the Dalton, Georgia shows,
(18:57):
but
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (18:57):
I have not yet, and it's on my list. In
fact, we put it I'm taking alittle break from shows from now
until ANA just so I can catch upand do some stuff. But it is
definitely on my list, and Ithink next year, it's a show.
You know, I'm gonna startlooking at some of the more
regional shows like that to tryout.
Tony Gryckiewicz (19:12):
Yeah. If you have T shirts that say Dahlonega
on them, they will sell out. Ifyou have you know, if you're
selling cheeseburgers and youstamp a d in the on on the bun
in the cheeseburger, they willsell out. That that show, people
are obsessed with the DahlonegaGold. So so there was a lot of
demand from especially otherdealers that are gonna go to do
that show to try to buy as muchDahlonega Gold as they can as
(19:33):
they can buy.
There's something about you talkabout the zeitgeist. It's kind
of been ongoing for years atthat show where people are just
obsessed and crazy about theDahlonega gold, the Diement
gold, and, you know,specifically $5, which is the
the most fun to, I think, own. 2and a halfs are alright too. But
anyways, any standout piecesthat you picked up? Anything
(19:55):
you're excited to talk about?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (19:58):
Oh, man.
Tony Gryckiewicz (19:58):
Yeah. So much. Okay.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (20:02):
This is the wonderful thing about coin shows
these days. As I've started toscale up my business a little
bit, you know, I am a I Rarityseven is a retailer. You know, I
like to talk about you know, asI mentioned earlier, everyone's
in a different business. Notonly are people in different
businesses with respect to thecoins that they offer, different
(20:22):
companies are in differentbusinesses with respect to their
business models. And so, youknow, you've got companies who
are wholesalers and their onlyjob, they don't like dealing
with the collectors.
They don't like dealing with theretail public. They only sell
dealer to dealer. We are aretailer. One of the joys that I
get out of this business is welike to buy coins. I like to
take nice photographs of them.
(20:43):
I like to list them on ourwebsite and send out an email
newsletter and offer them tocollectors to put in their
collection. I find thatextremely satisfying to sell a
coin to a collector who's gonnalove and cherish that coin. Now,
by the way, does that mean I dowholesale biz I don't do
wholesale business? No. I I doplenty of wholesale business.
I work with a lot of otherdealers. I both buy and sell to
other dealers for variousreasons. Sometimes, you know, I
(21:05):
I'll sell a coin for a, youknow, a few percentage points
less than my retail price, butget it done right away. I'm very
happy to do that. But ingeneral, I am a retailer.
So one of the fun things aboutbeing a retailer is that we have
an ever ever, you know, movingflow of coins that sell on our
website, and we need toreplenish because I always wanna
have a full stock. Just like anyretail business, you have
(21:28):
product, you need you sell it,you need to your stocks go down,
you need to replenish. Except inour business, we can't go to a
manufacturer to order more. Wehave to actually go out and find
them and hunt and, you know, andreplenish
Tony Gryckiewicz (21:39):
stocks. Business. Yeah.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (21:40):
So I love shows like this because I get to
replenish my stocks, and I getto come back. I can't quite tilt
the camera down, but I have aentire desk full of coins here.
But I'll pull a few off the offthe 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 guywho I have seen at every coin
show, every national coin showfor the last, call it, three
(22:04):
years.
He stops by my table, and wehave kind of labeled him, well,
we can you can talk about thisin the in the business, and I'm
sure you know this. There arecustomers who just wanna talk,
and we have a slightly, youknow, unkind term, which is we
call them time wasters. They'reguys who wanna you know, at a
coin show, every minute isprecious because you are you are
(22:24):
you have this unique opportunityto be in this environment that
is so dense with numismaticactivity that you really wanna
make sure that you takeadvantage of every minute of it.
And you'll sometimes get acollector who wants to sit and
just talk to you and monopolizeyou for thirty minutes, an hour,
or more, and that is reallycritical time that you need to
be doing transactions andcommerce and meeting with
(22:45):
collectors. By the way, I love,love, love sitting and having
conversations with collectorswho I can build a relationship
with.
Now I'm a capitalist, and Iwanna make sure that those
relationships do sometimes turninto business. You know, I'm
happy to talk to somebody for anhour. I'd like to be able to
sell them a coin. I'd like to beable to buy a coin from them
someday. It's fine.
I I fully recognize thatsometimes you're gonna have long
(23:08):
conversations with people.Anyway, this guy likes to talk
my ear off, doesn't ever wannasell 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 fromhim. He finally made an offer,
and I accepted it, and it was agood thing. And I'm really
excited. It was a really niceone too, so I'm gonna hold it up
to the camera so you can see it.It's a beautiful proof 66 star
(23:31):
cameo, $18.81 trade dollar.
And, I mean, as you can tellfrom here, you know, Tony, you
and I were just in a gradingclass together. No question that
that's a cameo. You know?There's no question. Yeah.
And white feel to the coin isjust no issues whatsoever, both
on the obverse and the reverse,just black and white. Clearly
cameo. Just love coins likethis. I think it is a beautiful
(23:52):
coin. It's retail friendly.
It will you know, a collectorwho has been looking for a proof
trade dollar is gonna put thatin their collection. And, Yeah.
To my point earlier, cherishthat for years. It is a gorgeous
coin that they are just gonnaabsolutely love. By the way,
huge PCGS fan.
They're probably my top gradingcompany. But Uh-huh. Black and
white proof coins and NGCholders like this look
(24:13):
spectacular. You know? Nicewhite, black.
From an aesthetic standpoint, Ithink it looks great. So very
excited about that coin.
Tony Gryckiewicz (24:20):
I like it. I like it.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (24:21):
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 Ilike, and I'll give you a
perfect example. Talk about, youknow, coins of the moment.
Here's a coin that is likehaving a moment. Right?
Drapes dollars are Yeah.Certainly in my business, I'm
moving a lot of my businesstowards this kind of stuff. I
absolutely love Nice. Straightbus dollars. Here is a beautiful
(24:43):
v f 20 5 draped bus dollar.
I think it's spectacular. AndYeah. You know, nice original
NGC coin, and this is again, acollector will find this
incredibly happy in theircollection. They'll they'll just
absolutely love a coin likethat. So that was a really fun
pick up.
And then, of course, I gottashow you something fun because,
you know, we're doing the visualcandy. You know, I love tone
(25:06):
coins, and here's an EDS Morgandollar with really, really,
really spectacular vibrantrainbow toning. And, you know,
I've been trying to kind of staya little bit away from some of
the expensive fancy toners, withexceptions. This was one that I
had been chasing. The dealer whooffered it to me had told me the
(25:26):
price.
It was a little too expensive,and he came back, and it was a
thousand dollars less. So Isaid, okay. Wow. Now you're
actually motivated to sell thecoin. 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 onmy little stack here and see if
I can oh, yeah.
Speaking of, you know, coinshaving a moment, you know, in
addition to Dre bust dollars, wealso have the flowing hair,
(25:52):
which is a wonderful series. Andthen 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 youknow. 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 earlynineties era PCGS holder, and it
(26:13):
has the cast sticker. So this isa coin holder. Not only is the
coin spectacular, but the entirepackage that comes with the coin
is It's beautiful. Very excitedabout that one.
That's another really good one.So those are some of the
highlights that come right offthe right off the top of my
head.
Tony Gryckiewicz (26:27):
Yeah. Those are fantastic. Are you tempted
to keep any of those foryourself as opposed to someone?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (26:32):
This is the eternal question that we all
talk about in this business.Yeah. Of course, I'm tempted to
keep them. I wanna keepeverything for myself. I have
made a decision that the coinsthat I keep for myself in this
business for now are going to becoins that I can't bear to let
go.
(26:53):
And usually, it's not becauseit's a particularly rare coin.
By the way, I'm super tempted tokeep this flowing hair half
dollar. I mean, this is likeYeah. The exact look of what I
would wanna keep in a personalcollection. It is perfect.
So sure. Am I tempted to keepthat? Yes. Am I gonna keep it?
Probably not.
The coins that I like to keepfrom my personal collection are
(27:13):
mostly curiosity coins. Youknow, if I Yeah. I if I get a
coin that's just so weird and sowild that isn't expensive, and I
was like, know what? I just needto keep it. That's the one that
I'm gonna end up keeping.
The first one that comes tomind, I'll get you a picture so
you can include it here, is a Ihave a two and a half Indian
(27:33):
that NGC mechanical errored ontheir slab, poor one. It's an
uncirculated coin. I mean, thecoin is like m s 62, m s 63. But
the holder says poor one. It'sit's not even, like, it's in the
pop reports as a poor one.
Like, the coin fully exists intheir system, in their database.
You look up the serial number,it comes up with poor one.
(27:54):
Everything about it is a poorone, but it's a minstate coin.
Tony Gryckiewicz (27:56):
So Yeah.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (27:57):
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 afun one.
Tony Gryckiewicz (28:03):
So what we're talking about here is the
Numismatic grading scale. Itstarts at pour 1, which is the
lowest grade, which is basicallya fully worn coin that you can
almost not decipher what theimage is. It might show the date
clearly as you could tell whatthe date is, you can make it
out, but it's basically a fullyworn coin. And so what Noah's
(28:23):
describing is that the coininside of it is actually a mint
state or within the top 10grades of the grading scale in
terms of uncirculated coin. ButI guess NGC made some sort of a
an error when slabbing it andput it into a pour one slab.
It's a very it's definitely anoddity. That's an unusual usual
one.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (28:43):
And we call those in the business the
grading companies call thosemech errors or mechanical
errors. In other words, thecoin, someone just typed the
wrong number on the computersystem.
Tony Gryckiewicz (28:51):
Sounds like human being. Yeah. Yeah.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (28:55):
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 thatis is that it's everyone does
this, by the way. PCGS has mecherrors. CAC has mech errors.
NGC. So this is not specific toNGC in any way, shape, or form.
But it's just funny to look athow a coin can make its way
through the entire QA process.The greater typed one, the
(29:15):
person who, you know, finalizedit, saw it in the coin, the QA
person saw it. It kinda wentthrough this whole chain of
systems, and nobody noticed thatthe coin was obviously, like,
you know, 60 grades off fromwhat it was.
Anyway Yeah. That's a coin thatI put in my personal collection
because it's just too fun, andit's a great conversation piece,
and I can have conversationslike this about it.
Tony Gryckiewicz (29:34):
Yeah. I don't have a whole lot in my personal
collection, but, you know, oneof the, the there's a couple
things. But one of the pieces ofadvice that I received was that
it's always best to not, youknow, compete with your clients
per se. And so I may notadvertise that I have a
particular coin, but if aclient, a good client of mine
that I've done a lot of businesswith reaches out to me and says,
(29:56):
you know, I'm really interestedin two Escudos. I'm thinking
about that seventeen fifteenfleet two Escudos I've been
keeping aside of my safe for thelast three years.
And I'm thinking, okay, well,this might be a great
opportunity. This gentleman, youknow, might really, really
appreciate opportunity to buythis. So I'm going to go ahead
and and offer it. But yeah, I Itypically hold back those things
that are special to me in someway. Maybe a story about how I
(30:17):
how I got it or something tiedto it.
But in general, it's always atough thing, right? As a dealer
in this business, you know, ifyou keep all the best stuff for
yourself, then you're not goingto see a whole lot of cash flow.
Especially at the earlieststages of building a business,
cash flow is extremelyimportant. And you want to get
your best info I'm sorry, infoyour best coins out there and
(30:40):
into collectors and build acollector base and build, you
know, reputation for your foryour for your company and your
business. You don't want to holdback the best stuff and compete
against the people that, youknow, are looking to you for for
advice and for for for forcoins.
So,
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (30:56):
I agree with you. I think that's you're spot
on with that.
Tony Gryckiewicz (31:00):
What advice would you give to a newer to a
newer dealer or collectorattending their first big show?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (31:05):
It's a great question. I'm gonna split that
into two parts, because I thinkthe way a dealer or a collector
would approach a show would bevery different. So a collector,
new collector going to a bigshow. First thing, it could be
super overwhelming. You're gonnawalk into this room of, you
know, let's let's define big asanywhere from a 100 to 500
tables, which is hugelyoverwhelming.
(31:28):
I mean, some of the shows thatwe go to are so big that you
literally cannot cover the floorof the show in a single day. You
need multiple days to walkthrough to get that show. So the
first piece of advice is take adeep breath. You do not need to
adopt the frenetic energy thatsome of the dealers and some of
the collectors have. I thinkthat there is a particularly if
(31:52):
you're newer and a little lessexperienced, there is a sense
from some people that you gottaget on the floor.
The good deals are gonnadisappear right away. By the
way, that's just not accurate.It's just not correct. There are
some cases, there are some smallpockets where, you know, maybe a
a a fresh registry set is justcoming on the market and, you
(32:12):
know, a deal the dealers aregonna be competing for that.
That's isolated.
That's one off. Don't worryabout that. For the most part,
coins are there. They're gonnacontinue to be there. Don't
worry.
You know, walk around and take adeep breath and get your
bearings and just look. Justgaze in dealers cases and talk
to them and get a sense for whatis out there. Now I'm going to
(32:35):
make one exception to that rule.And that rule is if you see a
coin on the floor that stirssome emotion in you, that gives
you that little dopamine hit orthat makes your heart skip a
beat, buy it. Don't hesitate.
Don't walk away. Don't assumethat a coin that you discover is
(32:55):
gonna be there the next time youcome around. So that's
different. I'm not saying rusharound to see everything as
quickly as possible. What I'msaying is that take your time,
walk the floor.
But if you see something thatyou really like, don't assume
that it's gonna be there waitingfor you because there is only
one. That's the wonderful thingabout this hobby is that there's
an almost infinite number ofunique items to buy and sell
(33:16):
with the exception of, you know,mint state boring Morgan dollars
and things like that. But if yousee a coin, for example, this
$17.95 half dollar that I havesitting 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 itfor two days, because I have so
many times experienced somebodysaying, let me think about it.
I'll come back. They walk awayfrom the table, and thirty
(33:37):
seconds later, someone elsecomes up to the table, buys the
coin. The original person comesback, and they're like,
Tony Gryckiewicz (33:43):
oh, no. I thought it
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (33:44):
would be here. What did I do? I missed
this thing. So Yeah. That's athat's a piece of advice.
But make sure that you takethose two pieces together.
Relax. Enjoy the show. Get asense for what's out there, but
do move quickly when you seesomething that you like. Right?
That's my first piece of advicefor collectors. For dealers, if
you're a new dealer enteringthis business, I think the most
(34:05):
important thing that you can doat one of these shows is find
your niche. Find your people.Find your part of the business
that you are going to do wellin, that you have expertise,
that you enjoy, that you canspend time, you know, enjoying
the way that you do thisbusiness. And make sure that you
just focus on that because youwill excel and you will do
(34:27):
really well if you focus on thearea of the business that you
really enjoy.
Don't try to be everything foreverybody. You can't do it.
Don't say, well, now I'm gonnago into WorldCoins, and now I'm
gonna go into bullion, and nowI'm gonna do this. Now I'm gonna
do that. As you grow, if youdecide you wanna grow your
business, you can certainlyexpand.
But everybody needs to have thatspecial sauce, that special
(34:48):
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 reallygood, at at finding coins with
eye appeal. Maybe they have areally, really good sense of
prices. They can memorize what'shappening in the market.
Whatever it is, find your yourarea of expertise and go deep on
(35:08):
that area, and then you can dogreat stuff in the business. And
I think the people who I haveseen been become the most
successful on the dealer side ofthis business are the people
that really are able to find andfocus their niche and really aim
that.
Tony Gryckiewicz (35:21):
Yeah. I couldn't have said either of
those things any better thanthan you than you have. I would
say just to mean, I guess, justto reiterate from a dealer's
perspective, when a collector'swalking by, you know the coin
that in your case everybodykeeps asking about, and
everybody keeps asking you justlike, you know, this thing's
going going to at some point,somebody's just gonna pull the
trigger on it because they'relooking through the sea of this
(35:43):
case of 40 coins. And the onethat just seems to keep popping
out is typically stuff that hasgreat eye appeal, strong luster
to the coin. Something there'ssomething about it that stirs
people emotionally and gets themexcited, and, you know it's
gonna sell.
And in my case, for thisparticular show, every one of
those items that I, you know,that that occurred on, every one
of those did did sell. So greatadvice if you are at the early
(36:05):
part of a show and you get thatthat that that feeling. Trusting
your gut is is a is a good wayto go. And, yeah, the
specializing in an area, that'sa strong one. You know, one area
that I'm, I've been focusing ona lot is, San Francisco Mint $10
from, the teens.
So, the, you know, the 12 s, 13s, 14 s, 15 s. Right. Those are
fantastic collector coins, andI'm starting to hunt them and
(36:29):
search search for them and findthose. I'm starting to get a a
good feel for what's a a qualityexample versus a lesser example.
And I think as a as a as adealer specializing, you end up
learning a series, and thenyou're able to find
opportunities that you can thatyou can, so to speak, you know,
capitalize on because you find agreat deal because you you know
the series, you know, very, verywell, and you know what demand
(36:51):
what what collectors look forand what the demand, you know,
is for out there.
So I think fantastic, fantasticadvice. So what is next for Noah
Lehmann Halt? You know, I say Iknow 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 summerplans either for a rarity seven
or just, you know, otherwiseoutside of Numismatics?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt: Unfortunately, I have to make (37:14):
undefined
one correction. I'm not gonna bedoing too much relaxing between
now and ANA. I've I wish I weredoing some more relaxing. The
wonderful thing about thisbusiness is that I I don't think
I have ever worked as much andas hard as I have in this
business since I've been doingthis. But I'm not complaining.
(37:36):
I love literally every second ofit. It's the most fun I have
ever had in any business thatI've run. And, if I could have
more hours in the day to do allthe things, you know, and spend
time with my family and work onthe coin business, I would do
both. So, a lot of planshappening. You know, ANA is
gonna be a big show for us.
I think I'll have a lot of newinventory ready to go, but also
(37:56):
I'm working on a few fun littleprojects. Nothing is, you know,
earth shattering, but, you know,we're we're working on a couple
little projects that that we'veset a deadline to launch at ANA.
There's an exhibit of a reallycool coin that we've got that's
currently at grading, anincredibly rare, and I'll I'll
I'm looking forward to sharingwith you, Tony. Exciting. An
incredibly rare and actuallyunique coin that we've been able
(38:18):
to purchase, and we're gonna puta little exhibit together for
that show, for the ANA show onceit comes back from grading.
And then a couple other funlittle projects that we're
working on. So ANA is gonna be abig show, and there's a lot to
prep for. Awesome. And so forme, it's just a chance, You
know, the the there's a dualityto the way that my business
works. I have coin show modewhere I'm at a show, and I'm
(38:39):
doing, you know, nonstoptransactions.
I'm buying. I'm selling. I'mthinking. I'm strategizing. I'm
hanging out with my team.
We're going to meals. We'resocializing. You know, it's a
very active business week whenwe're at a show. The flip side
of that is I don't get any, whatI call infrastructure work done.
You know, I don't get to, youknow, further our website or
(38:59):
build different features in oursoftware, which powers the
business.
I have to process all theinventory. So the next few weeks
is actually, for the first timein a while, I have a nice, you
know, stretch where I canactually do some infrastructure
work on Rarity seven on thebusiness itself. Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz (39:16):
I tell you, man, I I love your business
model. I love seeing everythingthat you're doing. I think you I
think you and Rarity seven areone of the definitely the the
the best, like like, biggest upand coming kind of numismatic
companies that are happeningwithin this within this market.
It's it's breathing a lot offresh air and life into it. I
love your energy and yourexcitement as well as just your
(39:36):
approach with technology.
I think you have a fantasticbusiness model. So for
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (39:39):
Thanks, man.
Tony Gryckiewicz (39:40):
For people that don't know where can they
find you, where where where canthey find all these great coins
and yeah. Tell us a little bit
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (39:48):
real quick. Super simple. Rarity7.com.
That's rarity the number 7 oreven the word, s e v e n, but go
to the number 7.com. It's supereasy.
Rarity7.com. One of the things,again, you know, I pride myself
is that 100% of the coins thatwe have available for sale are
always on our website at alltimes. I make that a bedrock
foundation of this company.There's no, you know, backroom
(40:10):
stock. There's no stuff that Ihaven't yet listed.
There's no, you know, none ofthat. Are
Tony Gryckiewicz (40:16):
Except for the Tesla collection.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (40:17):
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 ourwebsite to be purchased. And I
and I do that intentionallybecause I don't wanna be the
kind of business where you haveto get in good with me, or you
have to, you know, make a make aphone call and, you know, be on
a special list. Super simple.You sign up for our email list.
(40:37):
You get our emails. You'veguaranteed to have first shot of
all of our best inventory.
Tony Gryckiewicz (40:41):
Oh, nice. That's good. That's really good.
Yeah. I was joking here aboutyour your per the personal
collection.
Somebody's gotta, you know,wrangle that that that poor one
in the annoy from you somehow.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (40:53):
I have a list of people who want it. I'll
probably sell it someday, butnot anytime soon.
Tony Gryckiewicz (40:57):
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 Moneythat occurs in August every
year. This year, it's gonna bein Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and,
it's pretty much the biggestcoin show all year anywhere, and
there's people from all over theworld that come to it.
It's an all week event, andpretty much, you know, it's like
(41:21):
the premier coin event. Ifyou'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
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (41:32):
By the way, one extra piece of advice on
that front that I I tell lots ofcollectors all the time. If a
coin show is, you know, Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, as as is the case ofthe ANA World's Fair money, more
commonly, a coin show isThursday, Friday, Saturday.
That's the more typical story.Do not wait until Saturday to
(41:53):
come to the coin show. So theadvice that I gave you about
taking your time and relaxing,that applies once you're there.
Saturday is like the it's it'sprobably the bane of my
existence in this in thisindustry is that everybody packs
up. All the big dealers pack upon Friday night, or they're
leaving Saturday morning. And Iget these collectors every
single show without fail. Theyshow up. You know, Saturday is
(42:14):
family day.
They come with their family.They've taken time off to, you
know, make a trip. And then theroom is two thirds empty, three
quarters empty, 90% empty, andthey say, what the hell, man?
What's, you know, what's goingon? And and that's just it's
just this thing about thisbusiness, and it bugs me, and I
hate it.
We always stay till the veryend, but don't come to a coin
show on Saturday. The earlierthat you can come, the better.
(42:34):
The peak of the activity at theWorld's Fair of Money is gonna
be the public days on Tuesdayand Wednesday. That's when all
the hardcore collectors aregonna come. And I know you gotta
take time off, and there's awhole thing happening there.
But if you really wanna have thethe authentic coin show
experience to see the meat ofthe action come on the earlier
side.
Tony Gryckiewicz (42:52):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. Hey, Noah.
This has been fantastic. Iappreciate you doing this. I
think people on the the YouTubeas well as Instagram are gonna
absolutely enjoy this interview.Please hit you know, like,
comment, subscribe, do all thethings that help support the
channel, and I'd love to haveyou on again in the future. This
has been fantastic, man.
Thank you so much for doingthis.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (43:12):
Thanks, Tony. Really, really great.
We'll we'll do we'll do itagain.
Tony Gryckiewicz (43:15):
Alright. Absolutely. Have a good one.
Folks, we are back with another episode here
(00:02):
of the Cabbage Coins Podcast.I'm extremely excited today to
have Lohman Noah Lehmannhaupt.Is that did I get that right?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (00:12):
You got it, Tony.
Tony Gryckiewicz (00:13):
Alright. Noah Lehmannhaupt with with Rarity
seven coin company. What's theexact title? And maybe you could
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (00:21):
Just Rarity seven. I kinda take the tech
company approach. If you wannabe formal, Rarity seven coins
and currency, but it's justRarity seven.
Tony Gryckiewicz (00:28):
Okay. Rarity seven. So we're gonna do a fun
show review. We just got backfrom the Orlando Fun Show. Fun
stands for the Florida UnitedNimismacists.
It is a biannual show, occurs inJuly as well as in January. The
July show is typically a littlebit smaller than the January
show. We both just got back. Ihad a phenomenal show. Believe
I'm sure you did as well.
(00:49):
And we want to kinda get into itand talk a little bit about
about the about the show. So,first question for you. How many
fun shows have you been to andhow did this one compare to the
rest?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (01:01):
It's an excellent question, Tony. I my
first show was January. So Idid, winter fun January, twenty
three summer fun, twenty fourwinter, twenty four summer, and
now 25 winners. So this is myfifth fun show. Oh, sorry.
Sixth 25 winner and 25 summer.So this is my sixth fun show
(01:23):
now. Wow. That goes that by thatgoes by fast.
Tony Gryckiewicz (01:26):
And so how did this one, you think, compare to
the others?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (01:29):
I think this one was good. You know, I had a
lot of people report on one ofthe forums that were on that
they had some of the best showsever. I did not have my best
show ever. I thought it was avery busy show. I did some great
wholesale business.
I found the retail side of mybusiness to be good. It wasn't
spectacular. It was good. Now Ithink the most interesting
(01:52):
thing, probably the mostinteresting thing about this
industry that I think a lot offolks don't realize right off
the bat, is that you walk into aroom like the Fun Show where
there's 350 dealers, and youthink, wow. There's, 350 coin
dealers.
You're all doing exactly thesame thing. You're all competing
with each other. That must bechaos. The reality is, as you
(02:13):
know, but a lot of people Ithink don't know, is that many
of these dealers are incompletely different businesses
from one another. And, you know,I would probably count the
number of quote unquotecompetitors that I have, and
I'll get back to that in asecond, very low.
I mean, you know, maybe five,maybe six, you know, other
companies in there that I wouldconsider quote, unquote
(02:33):
competitors. Now why do I sayquote? Because the wonderful
thing about this hobby and thisbusiness is that when you do
stuff like I know you like to doand the kind of stuff that I
like to do where we do high endor higher end rather interesting
coins, is that there almostreally isn't because you, Tony,
(02:55):
have a you and I have verysimilar tastes. It's a great
example. We both like, you know,nice high end, old type US
stuff.
Mhmm. But the coins that youhave and your inventory at any
given moment are completelydifferent from the coins that I
have in my inventory. So I wouldI would hardly say that, you
know, we're competing with eachother. And the same goes with
me. I mean, I'm I was at thisshow.
(03:15):
I was right next to our tablesdirectly next to our friends at
Paradigm Coins, Shannon and hisThat's another great example.
His partner. Wonderful coins.And I would say that, you know,
if you looked at the two of ourbusinesses from a buying
perspective, you would say weare direct competitors. We both
have high end, lots of CACstuff, lots of PCGS type.
But the thing is, look at ourcases, and there's not a single
(03:37):
coin that's the same as anyoneelse.
Tony Gryckiewicz (03:38):
That's the same.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (03:39):
Yep. So we have completely different
businesses. We're complementary.You know, a collector may be
looking for a coin that thatParadigm has that we don't and
vice versa. So I think that'sthe wonderful thing about this
business is that, you you havethese companies that are, in
theory, competitors, but aren'treally competing with each
other.
Now, the exception to that iswhen we're buying a deal. Know,
(03:59):
if some collector walks in andsays, I've got a collection of
old Drapes Us dollars, you and Iare both gonna be battling it
out as
Tony Gryckiewicz (04:05):
a complicated if we were to share a table or
whatever because Right. I mean,like why
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (04:11):
I think where the competition happens.
Anyway, my whole point of sayingthat is that when a dealer just
says, we had a great show, thatis almost a meaningless
statement because you have tounderstand what does that mean.
Are they a wholesaler? Are theya retailer? Are they selling
generic Morgan dollars?
Are they selling raw,uncertified US coins $10 and up?
(04:33):
The the business that a specificdealer is in dramatically
affects whether they're gonnahave a good or bad show because
different segments of the marketare doing different things at
any given moment.
Tony Gryckiewicz (04:42):
Yeah. It's a good point. I mean, you could
also, like, go talk to the guywho's selling coin supply, like
coin collecting supplies, and hecould feel like,
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (04:49):
I had a horrible show.
Tony Gryckiewicz (04:51):
Right. Nobody wants it in folders anymore.
Right. You know? And you'relike, sorry.
Know, I'm sorry to hear that. Ihad that phenomenal show. Did
all the buying and selling.What's your, I I completely
agree with everything you saidright there. And, you know,
that's something that I've kindof mulled around and thought
about, like, you know, just likeyou and I collaborating and
doing a podcast together.
We we have similar somewhatsimilar business models. Your
(05:14):
your company is a lot moreestablished and and larger than
mine, but we like the same typesof coins. So are we technically,
competitors? Maybe in a sense onthe buying side, but at the same
time, my coins aren't identicalto your coins and we also have
different relationships withdifferent collectors, so we can
work together a lot and helppromote the hobby and promote
each other's businesses,etcetera, etcetera. It's all
(05:36):
positive things that are gonnaare gonna come from that.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (05:39):
And that's one of the things that I like
about your business model andour business model. Now look,
there are dealers out there, youknow, who love dealing in
generic MS 63 common date Morgandollars. That's just, you know,
that's their business. Mhmm.
Tony Gryckiewicz (05:53):
If you
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (05:53):
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 sMorgans. He's selling them for
$68 each, and the guy next tohim is selling them for $67
each. You know, those guys arecompetitors.
But again, it's a very differentbusiness from what you and I
are. I don't personally have anyinterest in selling commodity
(06:14):
products. And the same thingsame reason why I don't deal in
bullion, really. I don't deal inAmerican Gold Eagles or Silver
Eagles or things like that,because those truly are
commodities. I mean Yeah.
Now you're talking about, youknow, I'm at a dollar 49 over
spot, and I'm at a dollar 20over spot, and you've got, you
know that is a truly competitivebusiness. I the thing I love
about this business is thatthere really isn't competition,
(06:36):
you know, from the traditionalsense for that. Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz (06:38):
So one of the reasons that I do some business
in bullying is becauseoftentimes, other collectors
that wanna buy a larger piecefrom me, and we're way off topic
at the fun show. But sometimesone of the pieces that a
collector might really wannapurchase from me, let's say
that, yeah, I picked up the$16.52 pine tree shilling. I'm
super excited about talkingabout from, you know, pickups
(07:01):
from the from the show. 8053.This is about the $12,000 coin.
12,500 is what the price tag isgonna be on this. A lot of a lot
of my collectors, you know, theymight wanna trade into this, and
as part of their trade, theymight want to do some gold
bullion because gold has gone upfrom, you know, where it was
sitting before around 2,800,2,700, all the way up to close
(07:22):
to $3,400 So they've seen a lotof price appreciation in their
assets and they might want tovery simply move this into a
numismatic and get it for, youknow, 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 thetable, I wanna have kind of
(07:44):
something for for a lot of thethe people. I don't wanna
specialize, you know, too much.
And now you do currency, forexample. Don't do any currency
really yet. Is that a niche?When did you get into that
niche, and do you feel likethat's a growing area of the
hobby, or, you know, or what areyour thoughts about currency
versus coins?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (08:02):
It's a good question. I got into currency
pretty much after I got in rightas I got into coins dealing
wise. It was within my firstcouple 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'sit's adjacent to the hobby, but,
you know, obviously, it's theyboth represent, you know, the
(08:24):
monetary system of The US. And II personally love currency just
because it's a different aspectof the hobby. It's these
beautiful pieces of artworkthat, you know, you're not gonna
get areas of toning and thingslike that with with as you would
with coin. So it is a little bitmore commoditized.
I mean, in general, you know,one silver certificate is gonna
(08:45):
look very similar to anothersilver certificate. But there's
still issues of eye appeal andthings like that. They're very
adjacent. I just personally findit appealing. I think currency
is is a it's beautiful.
It's, you know, wonderful piecesof art. You can look at some of
the older series and and really,you know, think about the fact
that people use this as theirday to day money to spend.
There's politics involved in it,you know, with all the different
(09:06):
laws that went into place andwhy you would have these
different issues. You have, youknow, legal tender versus silver
certificate versus goldcertificate. So learning the
history of currency teaches youa little bit of some political
history of The United States andsome legal history of The US.
So that for many reasons, I justfind it super interesting. I
don't know that I'd say it's agrowing part of a hobby, but
(09:26):
it's certainly an interestingone and Yeah. One that I get a
lot of personal enjoyment outof.
Tony Gryckiewicz (09:31):
Yeah. One of the most interesting things I
picked up or one of the most funI had at the Fun Show was
actually searching for a notefor a client of mine because I
don't really do a lot ofcurrency. I don't really have
currency on my website. One ofthe reasons for that is in
Pennsylvania, currency is one ofthe things that is you have to
collect tax when you sellcurrency in Pennsylvania. And so
I kind of, you know, stick thecoins mostly in Pennsylvania.
(09:53):
But anyways, this client of minewas in Florida. He was looking
for a Bank of Fernandinaobsolete 20 to complete his set
of five tens and twenties. And Iput a lot of notes out there and
some of our dealer groups and Icouldn't find one. And at the
very last day of the show,somebody contacted me and they
had one of these notes. Superexcited just to, like, find this
(10:14):
one little needle in thehaystack, so to speak, and I
found this note for thecollector and hooked them up
with that.
Super cool. I'm gonna see if Icould throw a picture into it. I
I I don't think I took a apicture before I before I mailed
it. But anyways, that was one
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (10:27):
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 lotof people and dealers into the
hobby is the hunt and lookingfor something great and then
finding the thing.
Tony Gryckiewicz (10:38):
Yeah. Uncovering that item that, you
know, you you you just know soone one example of that, one of
the things I love hunting for isthese these Saudi Arabia £4 gold
coins. You know, you're familiarwith these?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (10:53):
I I am. I've got an open order for one. I
have a collector who emails meevery few weeks asking for one.
So as soon as that's AU 58. Yougot one.
Maybe maybe that's somethingthat we can we can talk about
separately.
Tony Gryckiewicz (11:03):
Maybe we could do some business on this one.
Yeah. No, it's super cool aboutthese is when The United States
wanted to buy oil from theKingdom Of Saudi Arabia in the
1940s, the King of Saudi Arabiarequired the payment to be in
gold. And so for The UnitedStates to be able to pay them in
gold, they actually minted thesethese like gold rounds in one
(11:24):
pound and now four poundvariety. Now why they were in
British pounds?
I, if I if I had to just venturea guess, it's because the London
spot price of gold was likemaybe the the the the like the
standard, you know, at thattime. Not exactly sure. But
anyways, the the PhiladelphiaMint made these coins or made
(11:45):
these rounds, whatever you wantto call them. And today these
are collected by people thatwant to get a piece of a piece
of history here. So I waswalking by a table and I found
one of these things and I'msuper psyched when I can get one
for a pretty decent price.
And I was able to pick thisthing up. And there's probably
one one also one of my myfavorite pickups, you know, from
the from the show. But
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (12:04):
You're kind of straddling the line a little
bit between bullion andnumismatics, and they're kind of
fun for that reason. I like it.
Tony Gryckiewicz (12:11):
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I've owned a few of them
in the past, and I'm alwaysexcited 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 thatwould that people were generally
searching for coming up to thetable? Do you have one of these?
(12:33):
Do have one of those? Did youfeel 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 perspectiveat your table. What do you
think?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (12:42):
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 specificshow asking for a particular
series. Now that being said,that doesn't mean that there
aren't particular series thathave these ebbs and flows. I
think it's one of the mostfascinating parts about this
hobby, how and I have nowwitnessed it firsthand, how
(13:05):
certain series do have theseebbs and flows, and you really
see it it almost is it's likethere's something in the water
how everyone decides thatthey're gonna start collecting a
certain series, and they're, youknow, they suddenly become
popular and prices rise becausedemand grows.
A lot and and the dynamics areall over the map, and I think
there's a few reasons for thisfrom what I've gathered. Okay.
(13:27):
On the one hand, you havecommercial activity around a
series. This is an area that Idon't play in and I'm not
involved in, but I do hearthings that certain
telemarketers, folks who are inthe more sales side of the
business run programs. Theythat's what they say.
They run they're running aprogram. And if a given
(13:48):
telemarketer is certainlyrunning a program on, you know,
$18.84 Morgan dollars for oneday, you know, maybe in 1984,
they suddenly started doing thehundred year anniversary of the
Morgan dollars, so you have atelemarketer starting to run a
program on $18.84 Morgandollars. You know what I mean?
The same kind of thing. $19.21peace dollars on the $20.21
(14:08):
peace dollars came out.
Those will drive demand in abusiness because you have these
large commercial entities thathave huge buy orders out for
certain items. So that's oneside of the thing. You will see
you'll see these kind ofcommercially driven, marketing
driven ebbs and flows in certainseries. Yeah. The other thing,
think that's that's fine.
(14:28):
That's the explanation for thatis pretty simple. The more
interesting stuff for me is isalmost like the zeitgeist of the
moment. It's like when justcollectors get a a taste for a
certain thing that goes up anddown. The one that I have
experienced most viscerally wasa few years ago. There was just
this moment in the hobby whereCarson City Gold just became
(14:51):
hot.
And and I don't know how todescribe it other than it seemed
like everybody was building aCarson City gold collection.
They just wanted Carson Citygold coins, and they wanted
them, and they were interestedin them, and you would get
collectors coming up saying, I'mbuilding my Carson City gold
collection. And Carson City $20gold coins shot up. The you
know, you know, some of them hit10,000. The and that was the
(15:15):
sort of moment that happened afew years ago, and that moment
has basically evaporated.
And I can't tell you why it'shappened. I can't tell you the
dynamics of the friends or whathap but all of a sudden, people
aren't interested in Carson CityGold anymore. That, you know,
you don't have collectorswalking up to your table saying,
hey. I really want that CC Goldfor my collection. So Carson
(15:35):
City Gold has come down off ofthat hype cycle.
Yeah. The reason for it, I can'ttell you. I don't know why it
either ebbed or it flowed eitherdirection 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 theseries that I'm interested in.
I love the Seated Libertyseries. Sure. And Seated Dollars
Yep. I think are having a realmoment. And I can't tell you
(15:58):
why.
I can tell you
Tony Gryckiewicz (15:59):
I saw three of those.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (16:00):
Collectors on Instagram that, you know,
post about it, and they buildthese big collections, and you
you maybe start to see, alright.Well, this guy's building a
seeded dollar collection, andthat guy's building a seeded
dollar collection, and thatguy's building maybe I should
build a seeded dollarcollection. All of a sudden,
everybody wants seeded dollars.Demand goes up, especially for
CAC approved coins where, youknow, they're very picky about
(16:20):
that kind of stuff. Yeah.
So I'm seeing that happen. Ididn't get any of that
specifically at the fun show,but I am, of course, seeing it
happen in the industry. Whatabout you?
Tony Gryckiewicz (16:29):
I think you covered the one of the big ones
was just seeded dollars, andwe're referring to the Liberty
Seated Dollar series, which wasproduced just before the Morgan
Dollar series. There was alsotrade dollars that were produced
in there as well. But most ofthe Liberty City dollars were,
went into circulation. Most ofthem are pretty low grade. A lot
(16:49):
of them have been beat up andcleaned up over, over the years.
It's hard to find reallydifficult, really nice ones. And
people, people love them. Theylove them to be original and to
have a really kind ofundisturbed surfaces on them.
And interesting fun fact aboutLiberty Seated Dollars is that
the most common Liberty SeatedDollar is actually more rare
(17:11):
than the most rare Morgandollar, is the 93 S. Yeah.
And yeah, I actually sold threeof those at the show. I sold I
sold a proof one that I've beenholding onto for a little while
and the guy just came up andjust bought the thing. It was
shocking. It was awesome for myasking price. The other one I
(17:34):
sold was an $18.63 dollars and64 plus, which was the biggest
coin that I had in
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (17:38):
I've seven seen that coin. It was gorgeous.
Tony Gryckiewicz (17:41):
Yeah. Was close to $20,000 coin. I I sold
that. And then lastly, I sold a72S, which I kind of almost
regret because if there is onecoin of that series that I would
say if you get a chance to buyone, buy it and hold onto it,
it's a 72S because there's onlytwo years that were made at the
(18:02):
San Francisco Mint. They wereboth made for export to support
the trade US trade relations outin China, I believe, Asia and
The Pacific.
The 59S and the 72S, and I had abeautiful one in AU50 that I had
just gotten re holdered, I askeda big number and the person paid
the big number. Awesome. Yeah.So but now I had I want me to
(18:24):
see the dollars. Right.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (18:26):
So the the other series
Tony Gryckiewicz (18:29):
that I thought that I think was really hot that
everyone's asking about wasDahlonega Gold.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (18:33):
Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz (18:34):
Yeah. And I think there's good reason for
that because there's the BRNAshow that's happening at the end
of this month, which is happensin which is called the Blue
Ridge Numismatic Coin orsomething. I don't really know
what it stands for. But BlueRidge and the Mismatic Club, I
believe. That's in Dalton,Georgia.
And I don't know if you've everdone the Dalton, Georgia shows,
(18:57):
but
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (18:57):
I have not yet, and it's on my list. In
fact, we put it I'm taking alittle break from shows from now
until ANA just so I can catch upand do some stuff. But it is
definitely on my list, and Ithink next year, it's a show.
You know, I'm gonna startlooking at some of the more
regional shows like that to tryout.
Tony Gryckiewicz (19:12):
Yeah. If you have T shirts that say Dahlonega
on them, they will sell out. Ifyou have you know, if you're
selling cheeseburgers and youstamp a d in the on on the bun
in the cheeseburger, they willsell out. That that show, people
are obsessed with the DahlonegaGold. So so there was a lot of
demand from especially otherdealers that are gonna go to do
that show to try to buy as muchDahlonega Gold as they can as
(19:33):
they can buy.
There's something about you talkabout the zeitgeist. It's kind
of been ongoing for years atthat show where people are just
obsessed and crazy about theDahlonega gold, the Diement
gold, and, you know,specifically $5, which is the
the most fun to, I think, own. 2and a halfs are alright too. But
anyways, any standout piecesthat you picked up? Anything
(19:55):
you're excited to talk about?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (19:58):
Oh, man.
Tony Gryckiewicz (19:58):
Yeah. So much. Okay.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (20:02):
This is the wonderful thing about coin shows
these days. As I've started toscale up my business a little
bit, you know, I am a I Rarityseven is a retailer. You know, I
like to talk about you know, asI mentioned earlier, everyone's
in a different business. Notonly are people in different
businesses with respect to thecoins that they offer, different
(20:22):
companies are in differentbusinesses with respect to their
business models. And so, youknow, you've got companies who
are wholesalers and their onlyjob, they don't like dealing
with the collectors.
They don't like dealing with theretail public. They only sell
dealer to dealer. We are aretailer. One of the joys that I
get out of this business is welike to buy coins. I like to
take nice photographs of them.
(20:43):
I like to list them on ourwebsite and send out an email
newsletter and offer them tocollectors to put in their
collection. I find thatextremely satisfying to sell a
coin to a collector who's gonnalove and cherish that coin. Now,
by the way, does that mean I dowholesale biz I don't do
wholesale business? No. I I doplenty of wholesale business.
I work with a lot of otherdealers. I both buy and sell to
other dealers for variousreasons. Sometimes, you know, I
(21:05):
I'll sell a coin for a, youknow, a few percentage points
less than my retail price, butget it done right away. I'm very
happy to do that. But ingeneral, I am a retailer.
So one of the fun things aboutbeing a retailer is that we have
an ever ever, you know, movingflow of coins that sell on our
website, and we need toreplenish because I always wanna
have a full stock. Just like anyretail business, you have
(21:28):
product, you need you sell it,you need to your stocks go down,
you need to replenish. Except inour business, we can't go to a
manufacturer to order more. Wehave to actually go out and find
them and hunt and, you know, andreplenish
Tony Gryckiewicz (21:39):
stocks. Business. Yeah.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (21:40):
So I love shows like this because I get to
replenish my stocks, and I getto come back. I can't quite tilt
the camera down, but I have aentire desk full of coins here.
But I'll pull a few off the offthe 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 guywho I have seen at every coin
show, every national coin showfor the last, call it, three
(22:04):
years.
He stops by my table, and wehave kind of labeled him, well,
we can you can talk about thisin the in the business, and I'm
sure you know this. There arecustomers who just wanna talk,
and we have a slightly, youknow, unkind term, which is we
call them time wasters. They'reguys who wanna you know, at a
coin show, every minute isprecious because you are you are
(22:24):
you have this unique opportunityto be in this environment that
is so dense with numismaticactivity that you really wanna
make sure that you takeadvantage of every minute of it.
And you'll sometimes get acollector who wants to sit and
just talk to you and monopolizeyou for thirty minutes, an hour,
or more, and that is reallycritical time that you need to
be doing transactions andcommerce and meeting with
(22:45):
collectors. By the way, I love,love, love sitting and having
conversations with collectorswho I can build a relationship
with.
Now I'm a capitalist, and Iwanna make sure that those
relationships do sometimes turninto business. You know, I'm
happy to talk to somebody for anhour. I'd like to be able to
sell them a coin. I'd like to beable to buy a coin from them
someday. It's fine.
I I fully recognize thatsometimes you're gonna have long
(23:08):
conversations with people.Anyway, this guy likes to talk
my ear off, doesn't ever wannasell 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 fromhim. He finally made an offer,
and I accepted it, and it was agood thing. And I'm really
excited. It was a really niceone too, so I'm gonna hold it up
to the camera so you can see it.It's a beautiful proof 66 star
(23:31):
cameo, $18.81 trade dollar.
And, I mean, as you can tellfrom here, you know, Tony, you
and I were just in a gradingclass together. No question that
that's a cameo. You know?There's no question. Yeah.
And white feel to the coin isjust no issues whatsoever, both
on the obverse and the reverse,just black and white. Clearly
cameo. Just love coins likethis. I think it is a beautiful
(23:52):
coin. It's retail friendly.
It will you know, a collectorwho has been looking for a proof
trade dollar is gonna put thatin their collection. And, Yeah.
To my point earlier, cherishthat for years. It is a gorgeous
coin that they are just gonnaabsolutely love. By the way,
huge PCGS fan.
They're probably my top gradingcompany. But Uh-huh. Black and
white proof coins and NGCholders like this look
(24:13):
spectacular. You know? Nicewhite, black.
From an aesthetic standpoint, Ithink it looks great. So very
excited about that coin.
Tony Gryckiewicz (24:20):
I like it. I like it.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (24:21):
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 Ilike, and I'll give you a
perfect example. Talk about, youknow, coins of the moment.
Here's a coin that is likehaving a moment. Right?
Drapes dollars are Yeah.Certainly in my business, I'm
moving a lot of my businesstowards this kind of stuff. I
absolutely love Nice. Straightbus dollars. Here is a beautiful
(24:43):
v f 20 5 draped bus dollar.
I think it's spectacular. AndYeah. You know, nice original
NGC coin, and this is again, acollector will find this
incredibly happy in theircollection. They'll they'll just
absolutely love a coin likethat. So that was a really fun
pick up.
And then, of course, I gottashow you something fun because,
you know, we're doing the visualcandy. You know, I love tone
(25:06):
coins, and here's an EDS Morgandollar with really, really,
really spectacular vibrantrainbow toning. And, you know,
I've been trying to kind of staya little bit away from some of
the expensive fancy toners, withexceptions. This was one that I
had been chasing. The dealer whooffered it to me had told me the
(25:26):
price.
It was a little too expensive,and he came back, and it was a
thousand dollars less. So Isaid, okay. Wow. Now you're
actually motivated to sell thecoin. 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 onmy little stack here and see if
I can oh, yeah.
Speaking of, you know, coinshaving a moment, you know, in
addition to Dre bust dollars, wealso have the flowing hair,
(25:52):
which is a wonderful series. Andthen 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 youknow. 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 earlynineties era PCGS holder, and it
(26:13):
has the cast sticker. So this isa coin holder. Not only is the
coin spectacular, but the entirepackage that comes with the coin
is It's beautiful. Very excitedabout that one.
That's another really good one.So those are some of the
highlights that come right offthe right off the top of my
head.
Tony Gryckiewicz (26:27):
Yeah. Those are fantastic. Are you tempted
to keep any of those foryourself as opposed to someone?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (26:32):
This is the eternal question that we all
talk about in this business.Yeah. Of course, I'm tempted to
keep them. I wanna keepeverything for myself. I have
made a decision that the coinsthat I keep for myself in this
business for now are going to becoins that I can't bear to let
go.
(26:53):
And usually, it's not becauseit's a particularly rare coin.
By the way, I'm super tempted tokeep this flowing hair half
dollar. I mean, this is likeYeah. The exact look of what I
would wanna keep in a personalcollection. It is perfect.
So sure. Am I tempted to keepthat? Yes. Am I gonna keep it?
Probably not.
The coins that I like to keepfrom my personal collection are
(27:13):
mostly curiosity coins. Youknow, if I Yeah. I if I get a
coin that's just so weird and sowild that isn't expensive, and I
was like, know what? I just needto keep it. That's the one that
I'm gonna end up keeping.
The first one that comes tomind, I'll get you a picture so
you can include it here, is a Ihave a two and a half Indian
(27:33):
that NGC mechanical errored ontheir slab, poor one. It's an
uncirculated coin. I mean, thecoin is like m s 62, m s 63. But
the holder says poor one. It'sit's not even, like, it's in the
pop reports as a poor one.
Like, the coin fully exists intheir system, in their database.
You look up the serial number,it comes up with poor one.
(27:54):
Everything about it is a poorone, but it's a minstate coin.
Tony Gryckiewicz (27:56):
So Yeah.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (27:57):
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 afun one.
Tony Gryckiewicz (28:03):
So what we're talking about here is the
Numismatic grading scale. Itstarts at pour 1, which is the
lowest grade, which is basicallya fully worn coin that you can
almost not decipher what theimage is. It might show the date
clearly as you could tell whatthe date is, you can make it
out, but it's basically a fullyworn coin. And so what Noah's
(28:23):
describing is that the coininside of it is actually a mint
state or within the top 10grades of the grading scale in
terms of uncirculated coin. ButI guess NGC made some sort of a
an error when slabbing it andput it into a pour one slab.
It's a very it's definitely anoddity. That's an unusual usual
one.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (28:43):
And we call those in the business the
grading companies call thosemech errors or mechanical
errors. In other words, thecoin, someone just typed the
wrong number on the computersystem.
Tony Gryckiewicz (28:51):
Sounds like human being. Yeah. Yeah.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (28:55):
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 thatis is that it's everyone does
this, by the way. PCGS has mecherrors. CAC has mech errors.
NGC. So this is not specific toNGC in any way, shape, or form.
But it's just funny to look athow a coin can make its way
through the entire QA process.The greater typed one, the
(29:15):
person who, you know, finalizedit, saw it in the coin, the QA
person saw it. It kinda wentthrough this whole chain of
systems, and nobody noticed thatthe coin was obviously, like,
you know, 60 grades off fromwhat it was.
Anyway Yeah. That's a coin thatI put in my personal collection
because it's just too fun, andit's a great conversation piece,
and I can have conversationslike this about it.
Tony Gryckiewicz (29:34):
Yeah. I don't have a whole lot in my personal
collection, but, you know, oneof the, the there's a couple
things. But one of the pieces ofadvice that I received was that
it's always best to not, youknow, compete with your clients
per se. And so I may notadvertise that I have a
particular coin, but if aclient, a good client of mine
that I've done a lot of businesswith reaches out to me and says,
(29:56):
you know, I'm really interestedin two Escudos. I'm thinking
about that seventeen fifteenfleet two Escudos I've been
keeping aside of my safe for thelast three years.
And I'm thinking, okay, well,this might be a great
opportunity. This gentleman, youknow, might really, really
appreciate opportunity to buythis. So I'm going to go ahead
and and offer it. But yeah, I Itypically hold back those things
that are special to me in someway. Maybe a story about how I
(30:17):
how I got it or something tiedto it.
But in general, it's always atough thing, right? As a dealer
in this business, you know, ifyou keep all the best stuff for
yourself, then you're not goingto see a whole lot of cash flow.
Especially at the earlieststages of building a business,
cash flow is extremelyimportant. And you want to get
your best info I'm sorry, infoyour best coins out there and
(30:40):
into collectors and build acollector base and build, you
know, reputation for your foryour for your company and your
business. You don't want to holdback the best stuff and compete
against the people that, youknow, are looking to you for for
advice and for for for forcoins.
So,
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (30:56):
I agree with you. I think that's you're spot
on with that.
Tony Gryckiewicz (31:00):
What advice would you give to a newer to a
newer dealer or collectorattending their first big show?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (31:05):
It's a great question. I'm gonna split that
into two parts, because I thinkthe way a dealer or a collector
would approach a show would bevery different. So a collector,
new collector going to a bigshow. First thing, it could be
super overwhelming. You're gonnawalk into this room of, you
know, let's let's define big asanywhere from a 100 to 500
tables, which is hugelyoverwhelming.
(31:28):
I mean, some of the shows thatwe go to are so big that you
literally cannot cover the floorof the show in a single day. You
need multiple days to walkthrough to get that show. So the
first piece of advice is take adeep breath. You do not need to
adopt the frenetic energy thatsome of the dealers and some of
the collectors have. I thinkthat there is a particularly if
(31:52):
you're newer and a little lessexperienced, there is a sense
from some people that you gottaget on the floor.
The good deals are gonnadisappear right away. By the
way, that's just not accurate.It's just not correct. There are
some cases, there are some smallpockets where, you know, maybe a
a a fresh registry set is justcoming on the market and, you
(32:12):
know, a deal the dealers aregonna be competing for that.
That's isolated.
That's one off. Don't worryabout that. For the most part,
coins are there. They're gonnacontinue to be there. Don't
worry.
You know, walk around and take adeep breath and get your
bearings and just look. Justgaze in dealers cases and talk
to them and get a sense for whatis out there. Now I'm going to
(32:35):
make one exception to that rule.And that rule is if you see a
coin on the floor that stirssome emotion in you, that gives
you that little dopamine hit orthat makes your heart skip a
beat, buy it. Don't hesitate.
Don't walk away. Don't assumethat a coin that you discover is
(32:55):
gonna be there the next time youcome around. So that's
different. I'm not saying rusharound to see everything as
quickly as possible. What I'msaying is that take your time,
walk the floor.
But if you see something thatyou really like, don't assume
that it's gonna be there waitingfor you because there is only
one. That's the wonderful thingabout this hobby is that there's
an almost infinite number ofunique items to buy and sell
(33:16):
with the exception of, you know,mint state boring Morgan dollars
and things like that. But if yousee a coin, for example, this
$17.95 half dollar that I havesitting 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 itfor two days, because I have so
many times experienced somebodysaying, let me think about it.
I'll come back. They walk awayfrom the table, and thirty
(33:37):
seconds later, someone elsecomes up to the table, buys the
coin. The original person comesback, and they're like,
Tony Gryckiewicz (33:43):
oh, no. I thought it
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (33:44):
would be here. What did I do? I missed
this thing. So Yeah. That's athat's a piece of advice.
But make sure that you takethose two pieces together.
Relax. Enjoy the show. Get asense for what's out there, but
do move quickly when you seesomething that you like. Right?
That's my first piece of advicefor collectors. For dealers, if
you're a new dealer enteringthis business, I think the most
(34:05):
important thing that you can doat one of these shows is find
your niche. Find your people.Find your part of the business
that you are going to do wellin, that you have expertise,
that you enjoy, that you canspend time, you know, enjoying
the way that you do thisbusiness. And make sure that you
just focus on that because youwill excel and you will do
(34:27):
really well if you focus on thearea of the business that you
really enjoy.
Don't try to be everything foreverybody. You can't do it.
Don't say, well, now I'm gonnago into WorldCoins, and now I'm
gonna go into bullion, and nowI'm gonna do this. Now I'm gonna
do that. As you grow, if youdecide you wanna grow your
business, you can certainlyexpand.
But everybody needs to have thatspecial sauce, that special
(34:48):
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 reallygood, at at finding coins with
eye appeal. Maybe they have areally, really good sense of
prices. They can memorize what'shappening in the market.
Whatever it is, find your yourarea of expertise and go deep on
(35:08):
that area, and then you can dogreat stuff in the business. And
I think the people who I haveseen been become the most
successful on the dealer side ofthis business are the people
that really are able to find andfocus their niche and really aim
that.
Tony Gryckiewicz (35:21):
Yeah. I couldn't have said either of
those things any better thanthan you than you have. I would
say just to mean, I guess, justto reiterate from a dealer's
perspective, when a collector'swalking by, you know the coin
that in your case everybodykeeps asking about, and
everybody keeps asking you justlike, you know, this thing's
going going to at some point,somebody's just gonna pull the
trigger on it because they'relooking through the sea of this
(35:43):
case of 40 coins. And the onethat just seems to keep popping
out is typically stuff that hasgreat eye appeal, strong luster
to the coin. Something there'ssomething about it that stirs
people emotionally and gets themexcited, and, you know it's
gonna sell.
And in my case, for thisparticular show, every one of
those items that I, you know,that that occurred on, every one
of those did did sell. So greatadvice if you are at the early
(36:05):
part of a show and you get thatthat that that feeling. Trusting
your gut is is a is a good wayto go. And, yeah, the
specializing in an area, that'sa strong one. You know, one area
that I'm, I've been focusing ona lot is, San Francisco Mint $10
from, the teens.
So, the, you know, the 12 s, 13s, 14 s, 15 s. Right. Those are
fantastic collector coins, andI'm starting to hunt them and
(36:29):
search search for them and findthose. I'm starting to get a a
good feel for what's a a qualityexample versus a lesser example.
And I think as a as a as adealer specializing, you end up
learning a series, and thenyou're able to find
opportunities that you can thatyou can, so to speak, you know,
capitalize on because you find agreat deal because you you know
the series, you know, very, verywell, and you know what demand
(36:51):
what what collectors look forand what the demand, you know,
is for out there.
So I think fantastic, fantasticadvice. So what is next for Noah
Lehmann Halt? You know, I say Iknow 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 summerplans either for a rarity seven
or just, you know, otherwiseoutside of Numismatics?
Noah Lehmann-Haupt: Unfortunately, I have to make (37:14):
undefined
one correction. I'm not gonna bedoing too much relaxing between
now and ANA. I've I wish I weredoing some more relaxing. The
wonderful thing about thisbusiness is that I I don't think
I have ever worked as much andas hard as I have in this
business since I've been doingthis. But I'm not complaining.
(37:36):
I love literally every second ofit. It's the most fun I have
ever had in any business thatI've run. And, if I could have
more hours in the day to do allthe things, you know, and spend
time with my family and work onthe coin business, I would do
both. So, a lot of planshappening. You know, ANA is
gonna be a big show for us.
I think I'll have a lot of newinventory ready to go, but also
(37:56):
I'm working on a few fun littleprojects. Nothing is, you know,
earth shattering, but, you know,we're we're working on a couple
little projects that that we'veset a deadline to launch at ANA.
There's an exhibit of a reallycool coin that we've got that's
currently at grading, anincredibly rare, and I'll I'll
I'm looking forward to sharingwith you, Tony. Exciting. An
incredibly rare and actuallyunique coin that we've been able
(38:18):
to purchase, and we're gonna puta little exhibit together for
that show, for the ANA show onceit comes back from grading.
And then a couple other funlittle projects that we're
working on. So ANA is gonna be abig show, and there's a lot to
prep for. Awesome. And so forme, it's just a chance, You
know, the the there's a dualityto the way that my business
works. I have coin show modewhere I'm at a show, and I'm
(38:39):
doing, you know, nonstoptransactions.
I'm buying. I'm selling. I'mthinking. I'm strategizing. I'm
hanging out with my team.
We're going to meals. We'resocializing. You know, it's a
very active business week whenwe're at a show. The flip side
of that is I don't get any, whatI call infrastructure work done.
You know, I don't get to, youknow, further our website or
(38:59):
build different features in oursoftware, which powers the
business.
I have to process all theinventory. So the next few weeks
is actually, for the first timein a while, I have a nice, you
know, stretch where I canactually do some infrastructure
work on Rarity seven on thebusiness itself. Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz (39:16):
I tell you, man, I I love your business
model. I love seeing everythingthat you're doing. I think you I
think you and Rarity seven areone of the definitely the the
the best, like like, biggest upand coming kind of numismatic
companies that are happeningwithin this within this market.
It's it's breathing a lot offresh air and life into it. I
love your energy and yourexcitement as well as just your
(39:36):
approach with technology.
I think you have a fantasticbusiness model. So for
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (39:39):
Thanks, man.
Tony Gryckiewicz (39:40):
For people that don't know where can they
find you, where where where canthey find all these great coins
and yeah. Tell us a little bit
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (39:48):
real quick. Super simple. Rarity7.com.
That's rarity the number 7 oreven the word, s e v e n, but go
to the number 7.com. It's supereasy.
Rarity7.com. One of the things,again, you know, I pride myself
is that 100% of the coins thatwe have available for sale are
always on our website at alltimes. I make that a bedrock
foundation of this company.There's no, you know, backroom
(40:10):
stock. There's no stuff that Ihaven't yet listed.
There's no, you know, none ofthat. Are
Tony Gryckiewicz (40:16):
Except for the Tesla collection.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (40:17):
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 ourwebsite to be purchased. And I
and I do that intentionallybecause I don't wanna be the
kind of business where you haveto get in good with me, or you
have to, you know, make a make aphone call and, you know, be on
a special list. Super simple.You sign up for our email list.
(40:37):
You get our emails. You'veguaranteed to have first shot of
all of our best inventory.
Tony Gryckiewicz (40:41):
Oh, nice. That's good. That's really good.
Yeah. I was joking here aboutyour your per the personal
collection.
Somebody's gotta, you know,wrangle that that that poor one
in the annoy from you somehow.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (40:53):
I have a list of people who want it. I'll
probably sell it someday, butnot anytime soon.
Tony Gryckiewicz (40:57):
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 Moneythat occurs in August every
year. This year, it's gonna bein Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and,
it's pretty much the biggestcoin show all year anywhere, and
there's people from all over theworld that come to it.
It's an all week event, andpretty much, you know, it's like
(41:21):
the premier coin event. Ifyou'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
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (41:32):
By the way, one extra piece of advice on
that front that I I tell lots ofcollectors all the time. If a
coin show is, you know, Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, as as is the case ofthe ANA World's Fair money, more
commonly, a coin show isThursday, Friday, Saturday.
That's the more typical story.Do not wait until Saturday to
(41:53):
come to the coin show. So theadvice that I gave you about
taking your time and relaxing,that applies once you're there.
Saturday is like the it's it'sprobably the bane of my
existence in this in thisindustry is that everybody packs
up. All the big dealers pack upon Friday night, or they're
leaving Saturday morning. And Iget these collectors every
single show without fail. Theyshow up. You know, Saturday is
(42:14):
family day.
They come with their family.They've taken time off to, you
know, make a trip. And then theroom is two thirds empty, three
quarters empty, 90% empty, andthey say, what the hell, man?
What's, you know, what's goingon? And and that's just it's
just this thing about thisbusiness, and it bugs me, and I
hate it.
We always stay till the veryend, but don't come to a coin
show on Saturday. The earlierthat you can come, the better.
(42:34):
The peak of the activity at theWorld's Fair of Money is gonna
be the public days on Tuesdayand Wednesday. That's when all
the hardcore collectors aregonna come. And I know you gotta
take time off, and there's awhole thing happening there.
But if you really wanna have thethe authentic coin show
experience to see the meat ofthe action come on the earlier
side.
Tony Gryckiewicz (42:52):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. Hey, Noah.
This has been fantastic. Iappreciate you doing this. I
think people on the the YouTubeas well as Instagram are gonna
absolutely enjoy this interview.Please hit you know, like,
comment, subscribe, do all thethings that help support the
channel, and I'd love to haveyou on again in the future. This
has been fantastic, man.
Thank you so much for doingthis.
Noah Lehmann-Haupt (43:12):
Thanks, Tony. Really, really great.
We'll we'll do we'll do itagain.
Tony Gryckiewicz (43:15):
Alright. Absolutely. Have a good one.
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