Even though I've been an EAC member for a few years, this is the first EAC Convention I've attended. I really love the Portland area, it's so green and beautiful, and this show is in the same facility as the PNNA Portland show, and I happen to have my exact same table as that show. I arrived here Thursday afternoon and my buddy Ron picked me up at the airport and we drove straight to the show. We arrived a little early so we had lunch at the Doubletree, then set up my table. My nighbor brought some local wine and was gracious enough to share it with us. Then the EAC had a wonderful reception following set up, so we enjoyed a few snacks and more tasty wine. Quarternut was also at the reception This is my buddy Ron This is my other buddy Mark Following the reception they held some programs called "Happenings" that I understand to be a sort of show and tell for specific coins, but not being familiar with this event, I had already made other plans so I wasn't able to attend. This morning I took a few photos from the car on the way in (can't understand why photos taken with my cell phone from a car come out more clearly than photos taken of someone standing still right in from of me!). Portland has this tram that goes over the freeway connecting a parking lot with the hospital! My buddy Ron had a large group of beautiful Indian cents he was selling from his personal collection, which of course I couldn't pass up. I ended up buying this whole pile of Indian cents, many of which were in rattler and old green holders. All were pristine MS64/MS65 RB and RED! This alone made the trip up here welll worth it! A few forum members stopped by, some of whom were gracious enough to let me take their photo and post it here!: Moldnut ColoradoCoinGuy Tomorrow night is the big much-anticipated EAC auction - heres a photo of auction lot viewing: Here are some photos of the bourse taken this morning: Doug Byrd's table right across from me: And ......me...... Not sure yet what we're doing tonight, the EAC has a dinner but I hadn't signed up for it. I'll have to make some inquiries!
What a great score on those MS 64's and 65's. I see that some of them have the Eagle Eye Photo Seal on them. That's always a plus. Good luck and keep the reviews and photos coming.
Yesterday was pretty busy at the show. They had several seminars throughout the day, so people were in and out, with the crown ebbing and flowing. I sold a beautiful PCGS AU55 1877 Indian cent that I had bought raw in Tukwila and sent to PCGS for grading. I also sold several neat cuds, retained cuts, shattered dies and clipped planchet Indian cents to a customer who has an amazing collection of these types of Indian cents. We went to dinner at PF Changs, one of my favorite restaurants on the planet, then headed home early so I could work up all my nep Indian cents to ship off to Todd for photographing. This morning was another pretty nice day here in Oregon, sun shining, no rain, a little cool, but very nice - I sincerely do appreciate having mild climate during my time here in Oregon! Here are a few shots i took this morning on the way to the show. Today the show part of this convention has been a little slow and more sparsely attended than yesterday. So i was able to get away and attend a very interesting talk given by our own John Kraljevich (even though I have a similar sounding Polish maiden name, I still always have to look up how to spell his name!). His talk had a very intriguing title: "The Taste of Dogmeat: Lewis and Clark in the Pacific Northwest." (As many of you U.S. history buffs already know, Lewis and Clark subsisted on salmon and dog meat during their time in the Pacific Northwest before heading back home.) John is an amazing young man and very entertaining to listen to - I don't think there is a question you could ask him relating to history that he couldn't answer. (Sorry, most of the photos I took caught John while he was blinking!) While I write this, I'm having some nice Wild Horse cab along with my fav Ritz crackers . Then tonight I'm headed to dinner with another good client/buddy, then it will be off to the highight of the entire convention - the auction! So I'll report back tomorrow hopefully with some photos from the auction.
I went to the auction last night just to observe. I noticed that McCauley was bidding (and winning) up a storm - it seemed he had his bidder number up on every other lot! Being new to an EAC auction, what I found very interesting was the number of electroplate (sp?) copies and restrikes in the auction that were selling for what I considered strong money - but what do I know? Today was what I call a "nothing" day: no public and no sales, just mostly people coming in to pick up their auction lots, and dealers packing up and leaving. However, my buddy did pick up a very pretty 1903 1$ gold piece PCGS MS64 in an old green holder from "the Colonel" that he is very pleased with. All I did was finish entering all the new slabbed Indian cents I bought into my inventory sheet, then packaged them up so my buddy could ship them off to Todd tomorrow for photographing. After that was done, we packed up my table and headed to the airport. Now I'm here at an typical airport bar a couple hours early, so I changed it up a bit and am having a very yummy White Russian (or two) for my customary pre-flight beverage while watching the Memphis/Oklahoma playoffs. So here are my final photos from the Portland EAC Convention. Here's one I took from the back of the room at the auction last night. The auctioneer was a hoot (don't recall his name), but he kept the lots moving and he was quite entertaining. I took this on our way home after the auction - Portland at night.... I forgot to mention the great local diner we went to several times for breakfast in the Lake Oswego area - Miller's has an amazing avocado eggs benedict! After two beautiful sunny days in Portland, here's what I left behind - I took this last photo as we approached the airport. My hubby told me it poured pretty hard this morning here in SoCal but when I arrived home, it was absolutely the beautiful sunny SoCal I know and love! Boy, is it good to be home!
The auctioneer is Brad Karoloff (sp?) Very knowledgeable about early US silver (an advantage of having the JRCS group join us at our EAC convention is we add people like Brad.) and a really nice guy.
Thanks everyone! For those who have never attended an EAC convention, it was an interesting and very enlightening event especially compared to a regular coin show. It was certainly evident that the club put a lot of work and effort into making the EAC convention a very educational experience for everyone. There are so many people involved in the EAC who have a wealth of knowledge and expertise, and it is our great gain that they are willing to share that knowledge and expertise with the coin community. So I for one want to thank the EAC folks for putting on this convention, and for all they do to promote our hobby.
