To enter Sarasota Rare Coin Gallery is to experience a portal to the past, a place where you can hold the face of an obscure coin in your hand and hearken back to bygone eras of grace and adventure. So say David Klein and Kent Gulley, owners of Sarasota Rare Coin Gallery and longtime students of the art of numismatics— the collection of rare coins.
Klein and Gulley share more than 40 years experience as dealers in the unique and precious. Ben Todd fullfills the duties of Auction representation and rare coin buying for clients around the counrty. A partner in Kentucky, Jeff Garrett, adds another 25. To these four gentlemen, every day is a treasure hunt. Sarasota Rare Coin Gallery buys, sells and trades both U.S. and foreign coins and currency. In addition, Klein, Todd and Gulley are dealers in precious metals and coin jewelry. Gulley says everyone collects for different reasons, but the advantages are abundant. “Because they hold tangible value, paper currency and coins were seldom destroyed,” he says. As a result, he adds, “we can hold the threads of history in our hands. It is a great way to learn geography, history and language.” A gallery of this caliber in a city the size of Sarasota is rather unusual.
To maintain that quality, Ben Todd attends every major show or auction in order to bring only the best to Sarasota. Their company is also a major sponsor of the Sarasota Coin Club, where Klein is President. In the Professional Numismatics Society, Todd, Gulley and Garrett have attained guild status— a designation given only to a select few in the profession who have demonstrated significant knowledge in the field. The partners put the extensive knowledge and passion to work for their customers. Says Gulley, “Our largest collectors value coins as objects of art, but we also service the smallest enthusiast.”
At their spacious showroom on South Washington Boulevard, they are in constant contact with a network of major dealers throughout the country and allow them to gather information for clients within minutes. Appraisals are free to all clients, and Sarasota Rare Coin Gallery offers the unusual service of in-home and on-site appraisal.