Little shop of coppers
Park Slope rare-coin dealer keeps old-timey hobby rolling
This shop will always embrace
change!
A dealer of coins from
around the world is now
hawking the collectible tokens
from a Seventh Avenue storefront
in Park Slope, where he
appraises and trades ancient
relics of great value that — yes
— you’re more than welcome
to touch.
“They’re coins, they’re
metal, you’re not going to hurt
them,” said numismatist Louis
DiLauro, before casually chucking
a 2,169-year-old Greek coin
DiLauro opened Lou’s Coin
Shop between 15th and 16th
streets in September, after
high commercial rents forced
him to fl ee Manhattan, where
he ran the business since opening
it in 2002, he said.
His Brooklyn store receives
about to or three walkin
clients a day, many of whom
stop by to check the value of
some choice item from grandpa’s
collection, according to
the dealer.
The expert determines
prices based on a coin’s rarity
and condition, sometimes
surprising would-be sellers
with appraisals that exceed
their wildest expectations.
But there are no hard feelings
if customers want to think
twice about trading a coin after
learning it could command
thousands at auction, he said.
“My attitude is this, I don’t
need to steal anything,” Di-
Lauro said. “If anybody comes
in with a rarity, I’ll tell them.”
DiLauro’s services come
with his expertise learned
from traveling the world collecting
tokens dating back to
some of the earliest civilizations,
and from decades working
with various rare-and-antique
coin dealers, including
the British fi rm Spink and
Son, which was established
back in 1666.
CUCINA ITALIANA
BY COLIN MIXSON
against his wooden desk.
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His shop’s shelves, for example,
feature numerous Roman
coins engraved with the
faces of renown emperors, including
Hadrian and Marcus
Aurelius, and others bearing
likenesses of the once-powerful
Empire’s not-so-famous
rulers, including Macrinus —
whose year-long reign didn’t
leave much time to produce
a ton of tokens with his face,
making those few that exist today
quite valuable.
But DiLauro regards a silver
disk minted in the ancient-
Grecian colony of Syracuse,
called the Demareteion, as the
greatest coin he’s ever held.
The commemorative token,
which depicts the goddess
Nike crowning a fourhorse
chariot and dates to 479
BC, was bestowed as a prize to
champions of the early Olympic
Games, and can go for tens
of thousands of dollars today.
And although a waning interest
in coin collecting has
made stores like DiLauro’s
nearly as rare as some of their
inventory, the hobby is still
popular enough that Lou’s
Coin Shop isn’t Kings County’s
sole place to fi nd tokens of
the past. The dealer counts the
Brooklyn Gallery of Coins and
Stamps, on Fourth Avenue in
Bay Ridge, as his local competitor
in the change business.
Plus, DiLauro — who called
his move to Park Slope a “retirement”
— doesn’t mind if
his shop isn’t always bustling,
because he doesn’t surround
himself with coins for the
money, he said.
“I do it out of pleasure,” he
said. “I do it to pass the time.”
GOT CHANGE?: Lou DiLauro appraises and deals rare coins from his Seventh
Avenue shop in Park Slope. Photo by Colin Mixson
/danonnarosas.com