“WOW” is the best adjective I have for this show! It seemed like a whirlwind of activity almost the whole time. From the minute all the dealers were let in, the show had a loud buzz until at least Saturday afternoon. I had a lot more of dealer to dealer activity than usual since many dealers were looking for quality collector material that seemed hard to find. I had just purchased a nice group of high grade toned proof Indian cents and sold almost all of them before the end of the show. Here is just one of them. on Tuesday, I left nice sunny warm 85 degree Southern California and arrived Tuesday evening to biting 40 degree cold Florida temperatures! At the last minute, I decided to take what I call my “Baltimore” coat with me and was I glad I did – at least for the first couple days. I got settled into my condo who I shared with a couple other people, then it was off to dinner at Maggiano’s for some dinner and fine wine! They even have their own monogrammed wine glasses! Though the temperature was probably below 40 degrees on Wednesday morning, the sun was bright and shining and it was a gorgeous day! I took these photos of the lake and pool from the balcony off our condo. Dealer set up was Wednesday at 2pm so we stopped for some lunch at TGI Fridays before heading to the convention center. Along the way, we came upon this hilarious car advertisement for a lobster restaurant! The convention center The registration area of the convention center was already crowded with people (mostly dealers) waiting to get in for set up. This is the registration line There was also a long line at the top of the escalators which you had to take to get down to the convention floor area. However, they had actually turned off the escalators so as not to create an overly crowded area on the floor right in front of the doors to the bourse floor. But that also created much difficulty for people who had large suitcases and boxes of material they were bringing onto the bourse floor – and there was only ONE elevator. So all of this greatly slowed down everyone getting onto the bourse floor. Fortunately, everyone seemed very courteous and helpful, and there were no accidents. Towards the end of set up on Wednesday, NGC held a wonderful reception to celebrate their 25th anniversary. I have to say, the reception was top notch and the wine they served was absolutely wonderful! They also had a beautiful display of these rare coins! After set up, we headed out to dinner at Ming Court on International Drive – one of my favorite Chinese food restaurants! They have the most excellent ambiance and superb service, not to mention very tasty food! They also had beautiful live Asian musicians playing on these very interesting instruments I had this very yummy spicy chicken curry dish – and of course a good bottle of wine!
On Thursday, we met several forum members for the “forum breakfast” at Denny’s. Me, Jerry/Yellowkid, Rick Snow and his assistant Karin Dennis/Dennis88 and Mike/MFH More forum members Here are the PCGS/NGC/CoinTalk forum members who stopped by my table throughout the show (in no particular order) Wayne/Auraborealis Alden and Nick/OnlyRoosies Gary/FrozenInk One of my ANA Summer Seminar Buddies (wanted to remain nameless!) and his brother on my right Shane/Kryptonite The next day Shane wore this very expensive colorful shirt and wanted me to be sure I got a photo of him in this shirt – so here he is! B./Tamu15 and Paul/CoinKid Joe/JMW Greg/SavoySpecial Alan/HardTimes Mark Feld (looking like he felt that day – very tired!) Ken/Green18 Jason/PhysicsFan Matt/BillyGoat Chris/CPM9Ball – who brought me these two wonderful bottles of wine! My fellow wine lover and good buddy Dennis/DennisH Rick Snow and his assistant Karin (who always brings tasty homemade chocolate chip cookies to the shows so she is known as the “Cookie Lady”! Ron Guth Stewart Bley Doug/GDJMSP (CoinTalk Moderator) – he may seem a bit “gruff” on the CoinTalk forum, and although I know probably won’t like me dispelling that perception, but he is actually a big kind and charming teddy bear in person and I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with Doug! Todd/Blu62vette, me and his dad Roger/MustangGT Don Willis, me and David Hall I also ran into several more of the “regular” forum members, including Wei, TomB, Colonel Jessup, Ian Russell, and more!
After the show on Thursday, a large group of us went to Vito’s Chop House for dinner where we had some amazing steaks, and even more amazing wine!! When you walk into the restaurant, they have a display of some of their cuts of steak and lobster They also had this huge aquarium containing beautiful salt water fish I realize tequila doesn’t mix well with wine, but before dinner (and before we ordered the wine), Rick and I had some Don Julio 1942 sipping tequila – mmmmmmmmmm, tequila doesn't get much better than this! Just before dinner, we ordered this double-sized bottle of wine which cost over $200, but it was definitely worth it!! Here is the plate of beef they bring to the table to demonstrate the different cuts that are available They also have their own signature steak knives (that’s Karin demonstrating what she would do if someone tried to steal her steak!) This is the second bottle of yummy wine we ordered at Vito’s After we rolled ourselves out of Vito’s, we all headed down the street to Howl at the Moon (a chain of dueling piano bars which anyone who has read my previous show reports may be familiar with). The two piano guys at this Howl at the Moon were true entertainers and were very good at engaging the audience. Here they are playing a Devo song! A lot of my friends have now become fans of the Irish Car Bomb, so of course, they ordered a round as soon as we got there! (Yes, I know exactly what you are all thinking – tequila, wine, beer/whisky/Bailys all in one night – and though each of these are wonderful drinks all by themselves, yes, I definitely paid the price the next morning for combining them!) Anyway, one of the trademarks of Howl at the Moon bars is that they also have these dry-erase boards where you can pay a tip to have any “advertisement” or phrase written on the board but you have to increase the prior tip by at least $1. We paid double the prior tip to “advertise” the FUN show and was surprised when someone soon paid even more to have their own phrase replace it! My hubby and I are Chargers fans so of course, I have to be sure to promote them on the east coast! A Scotch lover who felt “what goes on at Howl at the Moon, stays at Howl at the Moon!” Those of us who didn’t care! I was moving quite slowly on Friday morning but I did manage to go around the bourse floor and take photos of what was going on. As you can see, the bourse was quite crowded for most of the day. David Lange at the NGC table The PCGS table They had a gold panning set up where anyone could stop by and try their hand at panning for gold. Mike Bean had his spider press on display The Hobo Nickel Club table During the show, I was able to acquire several nice key date pieces for inventory, including an 1856 Flying Eagle. I even found a few toned Lincoln cents for my own personal collection and 4 more beautiful Conder tokens as well, including a really neat Conder that was struck over another Conder token! The Conder token on the left was struck on a Conder token just like the one on the right. More critter Conders! Friday night after the show we were all still pretty worn out from staying up so late the night before, so we had a low key dinner, went back to the condo, and watched a mindless movie. In the morning I walked out onto the balcony and, although the sky wasn’t as clear, I noticed what a difference the temperature was from the first morning. We had bought a lot of snacks for the condo and still had quite a bit left so we brought them to the show to share with our customers on Saturday. Since my son Erik who lives in Italy came home for the holidays, I scheduled my flight to leave the show on Saturday to spend more time with him. (He’s the one on the far right next to my other son Troy – and that’s my hubby holding our very upset kitty who wanted desperately not to be in the photo) Even though my flight wasn’t until 7pm, I headed to the airport around 4pm since we heard it was very crowded and security lines were long. Luckily, they had died down by the evening and, even though they screened (privately) my bags, it didn’t take very long. But each of the terminals did seem quite crowded, including mine. Here’s a view of the sun setting from inside my terminal And from my plane window just before taking off for home! Even though I very much look forward to each show I attend, I look forward even more to coming back home – and it sure is good to be home!
Thanks for the report so those of us on the complete opposite end of the Continental United States can see.
Thanks for the pictures and wonderful account of the show. The wife and I attended Thursday and made our rounds for most of the day. Being a new member I didn't know who was who at the show. Hope to meet you guys next Fun show.
As always, had a great time at the show ! Glad I got to meet all those I did, and sad I missed many others. Had some great conversations, listened to many conversations, and of course learned a few new things
Nice thread Charmy! Nice thread Charmy! I was at the FUN show on Thursday & Friday. We found some really interesting coins that I will post in the world coin & error coin sections of CT. Jason (Physics Fan) was inspecting a coin at The Penny Lady’s booth in this photo.
