David Lawrence Rare Coins (DLRC) was founded in 1979 by David Lawrence Feigenbaum. Dave had been an avid collector of U.S. coins since his childhood. Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1940's, he commuted by subway to Manhattan for school and quickly made friends with token-booth operators, who would pull the interesting coins out of circulation for him. On a good day he would get Barber coinage and V-Nickels. Standing Liberty quarters and Buffalos were commonly found but all intrigued the young collector.

Shortly before graduating from college, Dave sold his coin collection to Stack's to buy his wife-to-be an engagement ring. He later vowed to rebuild it better than the first time. Dave eventually earned his Ph.D. in marine biology and spent many years as a researcher -- a skill he would later apply to numismatics in the form of writing and editing more than a dozen books in the 'The Complete Guide' series.

In 1979, Dave quickly found his appetite for coins was greater than his budget, so he starting running classified ads in Coin World to sell circulated Barber coins, his specialty. He also set up a table at local coin shows with his son, John, who was only 10 years old at the time. Together, they regularly attended coin shows and slowly began growing the mail-order business.

John took a hiatus from the business in 1986 to attend Virginia Tech, where he earned a marketing degree with a concentration in computer science. He graduated in 1990, applying these skills to DLRC. Growth in the company quickly followed.

Today, DLRC has 14 full-time employees and maintains the same ideals that Dave strove for on day one. He would tell John, "Whether buying or selling, treat your customers fairly and always pay your bills the minute they come in." Of course, our love of numismatics is central to the core of our foundation, but our mission has never changed. Dave retired from DLRC in 1996 and passed away on May 25, 2002, after a heroic 6-year battle with Lou Gehrig's disease. John is now president and owner.

There have been scores of highlights and rarities sold at DLRC over the years. We feature these in our Coin/Currency Hall of Fame & Auction Hall of Fame pages.

A few of those achievements include:

Live Auction Sale of the Richmond Collection in 2004-5: $22 million




Private Sale of the 1894-S dime in 2007 for a record $1.9 million




Creation of Dominion Grading Service in 2008. The first coin grading company with a Visual Population Report.