Popular Coin Shop Loses Its Lease; to Close October 31, 2016

Reno Gazette Journal

Staff Report (Special thanks to Peggy Santoro and Jeff Gifford)

October 21, 2016

Citing the termination of their lease, the owners of Southgate Coins have decided to close the popular shop they’ve run in Reno since 2001.

Rusty Goe said that he and his wife, Marie, had not planned to close their store on South Virginia Street in such an abrupt fashion, but that they had little choice.

Marie Goe said that if a perfect retail-space somewhere on South Virginia Street’s southern corridor had become available, she and her husband would have considered setting up a new store.

“But since we are already near retirement age it doesn’t make sense for us to go to all the trouble and expense to set up a new store,” she said.

She said it takes considerable effort and cost to build out a coin shop that would replicate their current store.

“Just to have the basic facilities we have now, with all the security systems (and safes) we need, so we could provide our customers with the services they have come to expect would require a substantial investment of time and money on our part,” she said.

“When we were younger we met such challenges with vigor; but now we aren’t as adventurous,” she said.

The coin shop’s landlord, Basin Street Properties, will be leasing the property at 5032 S. Virginia St., between Kietzke Lane and McCarran Boulevard, to a dental care provider, the Goes said.

“We had heard rumors for the past year and a half that a dental management services organization called Absolute Dental wanted our space and the space next door to us,” said Rusty Goe. “But it wasn’t until early August this year that our landlord, Basin Street, sent us an email notifying us that they would not renew our lease when it expired at the end of November.”

The Goes moved their rare-coin business from Las Vegas to Reno in 2001. Marie said it took months to find the right location for their store in Reno and that the process of building out their store to meet their needs “was exhausting.”

Business soon increased beyond the Goes’ expectations, they said, and within three years of establishing their Reno site they more than doubled the size of their store.

A remodel in 2004-05 took five months, and was “very costly,” said Marie. “But we were happy with the results.”

The Goes said they would have preferred to work in their existing coin shop until 2021, their shop’s 20th anniversary. By then, they would have tried to find a buyer who could have taken over the business.

The Goes said they are uncertain as to what extent they will continue their business once they vacate the shop at the end of November.

“We still have our website, and the hundreds of customers we have can follow us on it,” he said.

Rusty Goe says he will miss the “the daily one-on-one personal interaction” with his in-store customers.

“We have developed so many friendships with persons who frequently visit our Reno store,” he said. “Our time in Reno has been good for us.”

Rusty Goe said he will pursue his research projects and do more writing. He has already published two books that have received awards from numismatic groups: “The Mint on Carson Street,” a history of the Carson City Mint and guide to the coins produced there, and “James Crawford: Master of the Mint at Carson City,” a biography of the longest-serving superintendent at the Carson City Mint. He is currently working on a third book, “The Confident Carson City Coin Collector.”

In 2005 he founded the Carson City Coin Collectors of America, a club dedicated to increasing knowledge about the Carson City Mint and the coins produced there. This club published a journal called Curry’s Chronicle from 2005 through 2015, for which Goe served as editor. Goe has also written articles in national and local publications and presented lectures both locally and across the country.