Charmy's 2011 PORTLAND PNNA Show Report w/Lots of Pics!

Friday: I love visiting Portland, it’s always so green and lush, full of beautiful trees – it makes you feel like you’re in the mountains. When I arrived, I enjoyed seeing all the pretty colors of the trees – last year it rained quite a bit and the trees had already lost most of their leaves, so it was nice to see such beautiful fall colors.




The show is held at the DoubleTree hotel in Portland. Set up was from 3-6pm, then opened to the public on Saturday and Sunday.




After I was finished setting up my booth, we opened up a very nice bottle of Merlot (we shared it with a couple other dealers, so it didn’t last long!)


I then took a tour around the show, and checked out some of the exhibits.



And here are our wonderful, hardworking show promoters, Lisa and Scott Loos


This is Walter Ostromecki, the ANA VP – he does an amazing job putting together and running the kids’ treasure hunt program and the scout’s merit coin collecting merit badge class at the ANA shows and several other coin shows.


My table was on the kids’ treasure hunt – this time, they had to look for a lady bug sticker at the participating dealers’ tables – can you find the one at my table in this picture?


Then Friday night we went to one of my favorite restaurants – PF Changs. Since it’s always so crowded (especially on a Friday night), we usually eat (and drink) at the bar. This is a neat horse statute outside PF Changs


Me and my Portland buddy Ron



Glenn/PonyExpress also joined us.


Our hard-working cutie-pie bartenders!



This is the fortune cookie I got at PF Changs and fortune that was inside – seriously!



Saturday: Before the show, we went to breakfast at this wonderful place out in Lake Oswego – it has old fashioned décor and delicious eggs benedict!



When the show opened, there were quite a few people waiting to come in. Several forum members made it to the show and stopped by my table (of course, they are holding their new “The Penny Lady” copper coin cards!

Brian/Meltdown


David/SeattleSlammer


Alan/Realone (he wanted to remain incognito)


Matt/BillyGoat


Rob/Lostsisler


Jeff Shevlin and his grandson Toby


Karl/Kove


Me!


There was a definite “buzz” to the show for a good part of the day on Saturday; however, several dealers, including me, found that many customers were not looking to spend a lot of money, so sales in general were low. I heard that Portland has a very high unemployment rate, and they have been among the hardest hit states for home foreclosures, so I think many people were wanting to keep their money in their wallets in Portland.

Here’s the bottle of wine we had on Saturday – it was very yummy!


I was able to visit a couple of my favorite dealers, especially my wonderful Conder token dealer (Gary Groll) who recently moved to the Pacific Northwest.


Gary always has some wonderful Conder tokens! I picked out several that I fell in love with, then narrowed it down to three tokens: one is in an almost terminal die state (Middlesex 746), another is extremely rare (Middlesex 298), and the third one is not rare, but fun and pretty (Middlesex 1017) – I can’t wait to have Todd properly photograph them for me.





Gary also had on display in his case a very cool print, and two extremely rare books worth 6 figures.

This “Pig’s Meat” poster is an original hand-painted artwork relating to the “pig” Conder tokens




This issue of the Coin Collectors Companion was printed especially for Thomas Spence and includes some of Spence’s handwritten notes.





Rob/Lostsisler showed me a couple nice Lincolns that I bought, but then he pulled out this really beautiful 1877-S Seated Liberty Half LoveToken. As everyone knows, I am a copper lover and, other than some Native American silver rounds, I don’t own ANY silver coins. However, this piece just caught my eye, especially since it is the same date as the key date to the Indian cent series, so I decided to pull the trigger and buy it (shhhhh, don’t tell Todd or I’ll never hear the end of it!!!). It has beautiful engraving on the obverse in the fields on both sides of Liberty, and is in at least AU55-AU58 condition – all original.



On Saturday night, Ron and I went to another very good chain restaurant – the Claim Jumper. Again, it was packed (it happened to be Homecoming night for the local high school!), so we at the bar. I really like how decorative the draft beer pull handles are so I took another photo of them at the Claim Jumper (I also had taken a photo of the one at the German pub in Pittsburgh)!



I decided to have their house special Mai Tai – and boy was it yummy! They even added an extra orange slice and cherry for me!


Though their chicken tortilla soup was very tasty, I’m a spice wimp and it was a little too spicy for me, so I gave it to Ron



Sunday: When the show opened on Sunday, about a dozen or so people were waiting to come in. More trickled in but the show remained sparse throughout the day. Most people just wanted to stop by and chat which is fine, especially when the show is slow – and Sunday was very slow. I made a couple sales, then it was time to pack up and head to the airport for home!

Before I end my report, I wanted to relay a couple interesting events that occurred at this show, one good and one bad. I’ll start with the bad one. I didn’t get all the details but a dealer had put his inventory in his car after the show Saturday night (I’m not sure for how long or why he left it there), but someone apparently had watched him leave the show and then broke into his car and took the inventory (again, I’m not sure how much was taken but I heard it was significant). To me, this is sickening and heartbreaking. Security reminded all the dealers on Sunday morning to be extremely careful and diligent when leaving the show.

Now the good thing. On Saturday, an elderly couple who have been my customers for quite a while, were looking at some coins in my case when a dealer came over to speak with them. After the dealer left, the couple told me that they had just bought a beautiful 1916-D Mercury dime in PCGS AU58FB from this dealer for over $5,000, and that the dealer came over to tell them that he had made a mistake. Apparently, the dealer also had a 1916-D Mercury dime in PCGS XF45 and when he looked at his price list, he quoted the couple the price for the XF45 rather than the AU58 (for which he had paid over $10,000).



However, the dealer didn’t ask the couple for the coin back, nor any more money, he just wanted to make sure the couple knew that the 1916-D dime they bought was worth a lot more in case they intended to resell it.

So after the dealer left, the couple told me the story and asked what I thought they should do. I said if it were me, I wouldn’t feel comfortable keeping the coin under those circumstances, and that I would probably go back to the dealer and try to work something out that was more fair to both parties. The couple said they felt the same way. So when they were finished with our transaction, the couple went back over to the dealer and offered to “undo” the deal, either giving him more money or returning the coin. However, they were even more surprised when the dealer refused both and said it was his mistake and that he wanted the couple to keep the coin, and didn’t want any additional money either. Of course, the couple was quite surprised – and told me that, even though the dealer refused to take any additional money for the coin, they still intended to send him more money when they got home.

When the couple told me this, I too was very surprised because losing more than $5,000 on a deal due to a simple mistake would cause any dealer severe heart palpitations. So when I thought about including this story in my show report, I went over to the dealer to ask if he minded me using his name. I told him it was a very heartwarming story, and that it would really show the coin community that there are truly some honest and honorable dealers amongst us. However, the dealer said he really didn’t want any notoriety, and that yes, it was a “costly” mistake, but it was his mistake and he felt good about handling it this way.

So on that note, see you all in Baltimore!!

 

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all I can say is "Wow!"

at both the dealer and another great report! Thanks again, Charmy! Makes me feel like I've been there... except for the aftertaste of wine...

 

Fantastic report, Charmy. Learn a valuable lesson with each and every post.

-Brian

 

another great report Charmy. My son Christopher collects business card tokens, is there any way I could get a copy of yours? I'm sure it would instantly become the center of his collection as the kind way you treated him at 2010 World's Fair is one of his favorite stories about that event.

Richard

 

Thank you for the wonderful pictures and your write up. Since I no longer can participate in these shows, I always look forward to your recap.

 

I've never been to a show but now I want to go bad. Thank you this made my morning!

 

Thanks for the report Charmy, always fun to read!

 

Thanks for sharing this one

Charmy:thumb:
Great post as always !!!

 

Once, again, Charmy, your pictures and descriptions maske me feel as if I attended the show! "THANKS!"

Clinker

 

Thanks everyone, I really enjoy reading your comments letting me know that you actually read these reports!

Ziggy, just stop by my table at the next show, and I'll be happy to give you one of my coin cards.

By the way, did anyone find the ladybug in one of my photos?

 

Top of your black light, I think.

 

Charmy, Lets see that Middlesex 746 a little closer and clearer. Both sides would be great to see. From what I can tell from the posted picture, I would have zero self control and bought it on sight, if offered. Very interesting die state, well done!

Matt

 

Matt, I did jump on that one as soon as Gary showed it to me - I absolutely love die states like this one on Conders or any of my copper pieces, but a closer image will have to wait until I have Todd photograph it.

 

Charmy
I would love to stop by your table but being from the Boston area I don't have much opportunity to make it to west coast shows.

Richard

 

Was it the one floating in your soup, or another one?
Guy

 

Man... I can't believe how much work you put into these threads. Great work Charmy!

 

Why do you think I REALLY gave my soup to Ron!

RLM, yep!

Ziggy, I really prefer not to have to mail these coins out to people as it costs more than the coin, but for you and your son, I will be happy to, so just send me an email with your address.