(Carolyn Graham and Colleen McGrew | Photo by Jeff Spry)
Delivering exemplary service and advice in the rare coins, currency, jewelry, diamonds and gold and silver bullion market, Bend’s Mountain High Coins and Jewelry is a trusted family-owned establishment that’s faithfully served the Central Oregon community for over four decades.
Founded in 1984 by vintage coin and precious metals enthusiast Michael Graham, Mountain High Coins and Jewelry was formed with his son-in-law Dave McGrew. Now situated in the bustling midtown section of Bend on Third Street, this fully licensed and certified numismatic enterprise is operated by Graham’s wife, Carolyn Graham, and her daughter Colleen McGrew.
“Kids come in and they look at all the coins and that fascinates them,” Graham notes. “Coins still fascinate me. I love Indian Head pennies, and sure we’ve got a lot of them, but they’re so fun to see and so fun to work with. A young man came in a couple of weeks ago and said he’d never seen a half-dollar. So I said, ‘Really? Well let me be the first one to show you one.’”
Their shop, one of the oldest in the entire region, transacts business out of a quaint historic home built in 1925 on a small lot that’s now a prominent Bend artery. With gold and silver prices now at all-time prices, Graham and McGrew preside over a nexus of buying and selling activity.
“We’ve been in this location since 1990, family owned and operated,” McGrew tells Cascade Business News. “It started that way and it continues to go that way. My father passed away almost eleven years and my husband went on to new adventures. It’s just my mom and I now and we’ve carried on the tradition. We’re registered numismatic experts specializing in U.S. coins. We also do foreign and we have a gentlemen upstairs right now going through lots of foreign coins. We do currency and also specialize in all types of gold, silver, platinum and palladium bullion, which is for investment purposes.”
In addition to dealing in collectible U.S. coins and providing appraisals, their basket of professional services includes working with estates, attorneys and probates in the area.
“We’re also licensed to purchase items over the counter and we also sell over the counter,” she adds. “We are not a pawn shop, we do not pawn. Basically our expertise is numismatic coins, gold and silver bullion, and vintage jewelry. Oh, and scrap because gold and silver is so high. Scrap from jewelry, flatware, anything of that kind, there’s good melt money in that. My dad used to say, ‘The junk in your drawers is cash in your pocket.’ What’s called junk silver, 1964 and before in your quarters, dimes and halves, that’s 90% silver back when money had value.”
McGrew reveals that part of the most rewarding aspects of the business are the people, dealing with the public and hearing all the interesting stories they bring in on regular basis.
“My children were born and raised here. I went to high school here, so a lot of times we’re dealing with people that we’ve known in our community for a really long time. And the markets are always vacillating and changing. I love the history of the jewelry and there’s stories to be told, and coins are history too. Like in twenty-dollar gold pieces. There’s some history in them. There’s history in your Morgan CC dollars. Those are more rare. Or the Seated Liberties or the Seated Dime and Half-Dimes. Things like that that you’ve never seen before.”
Currently, bullion is extremely lucrative with spot prices at astronomical levels never before seen, and one of McGrew and Graham’s main objectives for Mountain High Coins and Jewelry is to become the go-to primary resource for anyone’s bullion needs on any transaction.
“People used to go to Portland or go to Eugene,” McGrew says. “I want to be the person for them right here. We were fortunate that we were able to stay open during COVID because we were considered an essential entity and with that, no one was driving to Portland or Eugene anymore. I want to be in the community for everyone. I’ve noticed so many people purchase gold and silver online, but then when they want to sell it they don’t want to ship it back to where they bought it from. Hopefully I can be that broker for people all over. That is my goal.”
Mountain High Coins and Jewelry is centrally located at 185 SE Third St. in Bend.
mtnhighcoin.com • 541-385-7113
