by RENEE PATRICK Cascade Business News Feature Writer
Mountain High Coin, a family owned and operated business in Bend for over 20 years, attributes their success to a passion for collecting coins, supporting the community and creating a business that draws on the strengths of family and friends.
Mike Graham and son-in-law, Dave McGrew, operate the business at 185 SE Third Street. Mountain High Coin’s operations are diverse: from selling jewelry, sports collectables, coins and paper money to creating custom designed commemorative medallions and providing inventory to some of the country’s biggest coin retailers.
The diversity in the business comes out of opportunity, but central to the business is their desire to serve their customers. “We just want to be friendly,” Graham said. “We want to help people in whatever way we can, if that means turning the junk in their drawers to cash for a vacation or food on the table, you will get a fair deal.”
Graham has turned his early love of collecting stamps and coins into a profitable business that has spanned over thirty years. Raised in Southern California, he began buying and selling coins on bid boards (a type of silent auction for collectible coins) and would drive 100 miles a couple times a week as a teenager to manage his coins. “I like to wheel and deal,” Graham says, and his wheeling and dealing has helped him to create a business that sells and trades all over the country.
After graduating from Cal Poly Pomona with an engineering degree and newly married, Graham pursued work in engineering, while all the time continuing to play with coins. In 1971, he went to work for the biggest corporation in the coin business, A-Mark, running the retail portion of the business for several years before transitioning to running a mail-order business.
Graham decided to look for property around Sisters after his wife, Carolyn, fell in love with the area. Sisters was a frequent stop on summer road trips, and the family bought a local ranch in 1980. He ran a small mail-order business out of the house for a few years, and in 1990, opened a retail store next to Shopko in the Bend River Mall. Unfortunately the spot did not have enough traffic, and in 1993 relocated to the current location on Third Street.
Graham brought McGrew into the operation to take over the sales portion of the business, and now McGrew travels around the country to promote Mountain High Coin. “David is a great concept person,” Graham said. “He has come up with packaging concepts for coins and creates up to 20 different proposals a month for Publishing Clearing House.”
The partners are active sponsors of the High Desert Treasure Club and the Bend Coin Club of Central Oregon. Both clubs meet once a month; the Treasure Club on the second Wednesday of each month at the Bend Senior Center and the Coin Club the third Tuesday of each month at the High Desert Community Grange.
Mountain High Coin supplies companies like the Bradford Coin Exchange, the HSN-TV coin show and projects for clearing and catalogue houses – Graham sources the coins from specialty shows that take place around the country, and the company operates by having a continuous cash flow. “I use the money as much as I can and turn it over,” said Graham. “We did nearly a million in sales per month last year that way.”
The shop is a busy place with several full time and part time employees. Graham’s wife Carolyn often works the coin shows and is responsible for running the show; they enjoy calling many of the employees “family.”
“We try and service people with friendly and honest regard as to selling and buying,” Graham said. He has cultivated ties with other businesses in town and has created a niche market based on offering stable prices.
Over the last year, Graham has closely watched the trend of transferring wealth into precious metals. “People were scared. More people put their money in gold than ever before; they are coming out of banks and CDs and looking for safe havens in anything that is a world commodity or with a value that can be documented. My advice has always been, buy the best you can afford. Push for quality. Junk is always junk.”
Looking to the future, Graham talks about his pleasure at being a grandfather. He wants to continue taking care of his family and enjoying the business he has built, “You have to have a good memory and a little bit of common sense and a little luck and the ability to hold on to the money.”
Mountain High Coin, 185 SE Third Street, Bend. 541-385-7113, www.mtnhighcoin.com.
