Doug Ryder might’ve collected stamps as a kid, but today, coins are his currency.
Ryder owns B and J Coins, a Shenandoah Valley shop jam-packed with precious metals, odd lots of American and foreign money, and game and sports cards.
But with gold now commanding $4,000 an ounce, a record high, and silver ticking ever closer to its 1980 high of nearly $50 an ounce, the shop’s phone keeps ringing, and sales at its eBay store and retail location are brisk.
Ryder’s also hitting coin shows, like the one this weekend at the Virginia Beach Convention Center, where he’ll set up two eight-foot tables with more than $20,000 of goods.
“I think it started around Labor Day,” explained Ryder. “Initially, it was everybody was selling. Now we’re starting to see some folks coming in and purchasing. I’m making sales. I only have one or two large ounce-sized gold pieces up there for sale. I don’t have any now. Sold.”
Ryder said he made $1.6 million in sales in 2024 but spent $600,000 buying new inventory. Collectors like Kenneth Hyden, a retired Virginia state trooper who helps out in the shop, often get first dibs.
“A roll of Silver Eagle Dollars, I bought them for $350 eight years ago,” Hyden said. “The price of that roll today is $1,000.”
“All the coins I have I’m going hang on to because I think they’re going to go up,” Hyden added. “It’s a good thing to leave people when you’re dead and gone. I’m 71 years old now. We’ll just have to wait and see. But when I am dead and gone my family’s going be very happy.”
Ryder, though, is ready to make a deal.
“Like one of the dealers says, ‘Hey, this is not a museum,’” he said. “It’s all for sale.”
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.