Where to Find Your Guns and Gold

Written By: Danielle Small  |  Posted: Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

The first coin collectors were King Farouk of Egypt and roman emperors. Generations after, coin collecting still remained an elitist hobby reserved for the royal class who owned rooms filled with rare coins. With such a venerable history it is no surprise that modern day coin collecting is a hobby that is commonly passed from generation to generation. Brian Zinn, owner of General Coin and Gun Exchange on London Road, got into coin collecting because of his father. "He would give me sets and boxes of coins and that gave me an awareness of coins." Brian's awareness of coins translated to a solid business idea when, after being in construction related business for many years, Brian decided to run a small business of his own. At first, he sought to buy a local coin shop that recently closed, and when that didn't work he opened a modest coin shop of his own downtown. That was eight years ago, and since then, the modest coin shop has changed from a coin and jewelry shop (Zinn added jewelry to bring in more revenue) to, most recently, a coin and gun shop that is situated in Queens Plaza.

I asked Brian why he started selling guns in addition to coins and liquidating jewelry. He explained to me that in the coin business he deals with a lot of estate sales and the sellers who were selling coins were also looking for gun buyers. Always the acclimatizing opportunist, Zinn accommodated his business for gun selling and that's how his business has stayed for the past three years

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