Because the shop is closed Sundays and Mondays, Bart says customers often are lined up on the sidewalk Tuesday mornings when the shop opens at 10. It closes at 6 p.m. weekdays and is open Saturdays from 9 a.m to 3 p.m.
In the back is a baseball card shop dedicated mostly to pre-1969 cards, and one wall is lined with old military uniforms.
“This opened as basically a coin shop,” Bart said. “Then we brought in baseball cards. It morphed into military items.”
But the big part of the business today is gold and silver.
“It fluctuates,” Bart said. “It’s like the stock market. It fluctuates constantly. People will buy it for future delivery.”
Bart says he sees a lot of old gold jewelry, and usually will buy it if it’s worn or broken and can’t be repaired. He sends it out to have it melted down.
For better pieces, he might suggest the owner try a jewelry store more interested in salvaging the piece.
The store came about as Bart and Jack, who was a district shoe store manager moving at the whim of the parent company, collected coins.
“I started going to coin shows back in 1965,” Bart said. “We would buy things for our own collections, and the excess we would sell.”
Eventually, the family landed in the Dayton area, opened the shop and has ridden the waves.
“For us, this is a very up market,” Bart said. “We have quite a few people buying for the investment end of it. Dayton is a very competitive area, but we’re one of the few shops licensed by the state.
“I tell my son, ‘this won’t last.’ The first boom was 1979-80. After that, the market just collapsed. We were living off inventory. Nothing was coming in.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2157 or mkatz@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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