Charmy's 2014 PNNA TUKWILA/SEATTLE SHOW REPORT w/lots of Pics!!!

I especially look forward to attending the PNNA Tukwila (Seattle) show since my brother Paul lives just outside of Seattle and I get to spend time with him and his wonderful girlfriend Vicki. So I arrived at the John Wayne airport on Thursday, had my customary preflight beverage – this time it was a very refreshing rum and pineapple juice since had been in the 90’s for the past several days.



I had checked the weather reports and knew that Seattle was going to be very warm and sunny the first 2 days I was there, and I was not disappointed!





I grabbed my checked bag, and waited at the airport curb for Paul to pick me up. While I was waiting, I noticed a beautiful shiny bright red Corvette pull up just ahead of me. I was thinking, “Wow, who’s the lucky person who is getting picked up in this beauty?” Then I see Paul climbing out of it – I had forgotten he recently bought a beautiful 2002 red Corvette! Boy, this baby looked brand spanking new! Then I began thinking, “Geese, how are all my bags going to fit in this car?” Well, he pops open the back and sure enough, not only do all my bags fit, but he also had his trumpet and other band bags in there!







Wow, what a fun car to ride in, it accelerated so smoothly and fast, and took sharp corners so easily, it was a lot of fun! But the first question I asked him was how many tickets has he gotten. He said he actually drove more carefully in this car than his regular car since he knew his “arrest-me-red” sports car was definitely a cop magnet!

So we drove through the city and headed to downtown Kirkland to meet Paul’s friend for dinner before they had band practice.







What a beautiful town Kirkland is!



This is where we had dinner, it was yummy!



This cute little statue was right outside the diner





Then we headed over to band practice - they have been together for quite a while and are really great!







After band practice, we stopped by the store so I could pick up a couple bottles of wine for the show, then headed back to his house in Maple Valley and called it a night!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

On Friday morning, we headed over to the show. The drive along the Cedar River to and from Tukwila was really pretty, with lots of wilderness, gorgeous green trees, the river, the old railroad which is now a bike trail, etc.









I had also brought my Penny Potpourri exhibit and Scott Loos (the bourse chair) kindly let me in a little early to set up my bourse table so I would still have enough time to set up my exhibit before the public was let in at noon.



By noon, there was a really long line of people waiting to get into the bourse – including Wei/WTCG!





The bourse floor





Several forum member familiar faces stopped by to say hi

Jeremy/Airplanenut and Bochiman



Lakesammman and Seattleslammer



ANA President Walter Ostromecki was manning the kids table out by registration



This is the roach coach that was outside the community center and actually had really good food!



The playground also just outside the community center, next to the roach coach



I opened one of the bottles of wine I picked up at the store, but forgot to take photo! It was a wonderful Michael David Earthquake cab – this picture is from their website



That night, my BFF Cindi Snow-Rae (Logan’s daughter of VAMS and More, who was working for ANACS at this show) and I joined my brother Paul and his girlfriend Vicki for dinner at Bahama Breeze not far from the show. The food was great and we had a good time catching up!

 

Saturday morning, we also picked up Cindi at her hotel on the way to the show.





This is the bridge over the Cedar River right near the Tukwila Community Center



And there was plenty of coin show signage along the way!









Saturday is the kids’ treasure trivia so there are always lots of kids participating



My sister-in-law Anne and her husband Steve happened to be visiting their son who lives in Seattle this weekend, so they all stopped by to say hi and see what a coin show looks like. It was really great to see them!





More forum members stopped by for a photo op!

My buddy Matt Powell



Cannyn/Cazkaboom stopped by and chatted for a few minutes



Ryan/JensenBay from CoinTalk and his adorable son Joshua



Michael and his cutey-pie son Spencer



The bourse floor on Saturday



Dealers Gary Groll (Conder Tokens) and Gene Bruder (U.S. coins)



Dealer Larry Hirsch and his wonderful wife Shelley (they deal in foreign paper money)

 

My BFF Cindi Snow-Rae working the ANACS table – her table was quite busy, especially on Sunday!



Glenn Holsonbake/PonyExpress, Revick Galstan, and his helper, and another collector



A new customer Kyle and his beautiful wife Natasha – I have a cute story about this sweet couple. Natasha called me a few days before the show because it was going to be her husband’s birthday on Saturday and she wanted to buy a coin for him that he had been admiring on my website. She said they would be at the Tukwila show so I told her I would set it aside for her. She wanted it to be a surprise, so we worked it out that when they came to my table, I would act like I didn’t know her, and when Kyle asked to see the coin, I would tell him it was sold.

So they came on Saturday, I saw Natasha standing behind Kyle as he introduced himself and asked to see the 1931-S that he saw on my website. He was so disappointed when I told him the coin was already sold, that I just hadn’t had a chance to take it off my website. By the way, I just happened to also have two other similarly toned 1931-S Lincolns that I had just purchased but weren’t yet on my website, so I had removed them from my case as well, just so he wouldn’t see them and want to buy one of them instead. He looked around at some other of my coins, was mostly interested in ones with pretty toning, but he didn’t find anything else since he was set on finding a 1931-S and wanted to look around at the show.

A couple hours later I was at another dealer’s table and ran into them. Kyle told me he had found another 1931-S in a higher grade but it wasn’t as nicely toned as the one on my website, and cost a little more than what he wanted to pay, but he was seriously thinking about buying it. Not wanting him to upset his wife’s birthday surprise that night by buying another 1931-S, I casually mentioned to him that in my experience, he should be patient and wait until he finds one that he really likes in the price range he can afford, that another one would come along. So, fortunately, he hadn’t brought enough money to pay cash for the other 1931-S so he decided to think about it overnight since he would be returning the next day.

The next day, Kyle and Natasha stop by my table, and Kyle was grinning ear to ear. He said he couldn’t believe the ruse we had pulled off, especially pretending I didn’t know Natasha, Natasha sneaking back to my table to pick up the coin (she had snuck me the money in one of my information cards when Kyle wasn’t looking), and then my discouraging him from buying another 1931-S. You could tell from the look in both of their eyes how much they loved each other and it really warmed my heart to be part of such a thoughtful wife’s surprise for her sweet husband!



Saturday afternoon, it began raining pretty hard. I was so excited to see a good downpour since we haven’t seen much rain in California this past year.



Not far from my table they had a penny press machine where they were handing out PNNA pressed pennies.







The PNNA held their general meeting Saturday after the show closed and since I had an exhibit on display, they invited me to attend. At the meeting, they installed their new officers and gave out several awards, including the exhibit awards. Some of these recipients liked to ham it up a did a little jig when I took their photo. Here are the new board members and award recipients – I hope I didn’t mess up anyone’s name!!

Kevin Charboneau



Dennis Reed (ANA President’s award)





Rick Schulz (ANA Points of Numismatics Light award)







Dan Vornbrock



Galvin O’Connor



James Reinders (Scout Chair) and Galvin O’Connor



Bill McKiever (Bob Everett Memorial award)

 

Lisa Loos



Dick Billings (Lifetime Achievement award)



Mark Gruner (ANA President’s award) and his wife Wendy



John Brown (Literary award)



ANA President Walter Ostromecki and PNNA President Danny Bisgaard presenting the PNNA 2015 Portland ANA medals





And my exhibit won First in Class, the C.E. “Hep” Heppner Award for the best exhibit of tokens, medals and decorations, and the Byron F. Johnson Jr. Memorial Award for Best in Show – yahoo!


That night, a group of us had dinner at B.J.’s – we had so much fun, we lingered there for almost three hours, eating, chatting, drinking, laughing, etc.!

Cindi and I started a tradition last year of splitting B.J.’s beer samples since she likes light beer and I like dark beer.







My brother Paul and his longtime girlfriend Vicki



Glenn Holsonbake/PonyExpress



Longtime dealer friends Shelley and Larry Hirsch



I had their parmesan crusted chicken which was extremely yummy!



B.J.’s is also known for their scrumptious pizza!




It was still raining on our way to the show, so when Cindi and I were walking into the community center on Sunday morning, we commented to each other how much we loved the rain. The security guard overheard us, stopped us, and with a curious expression on his face, asked us if we would repeat what we had just said. When we did, he looked very confused and asked us where we were from. We said “California.” He laughed and finally understood why we were enjoying the rain. He said he didn’t know many people in Seattle who really loved the rain, and knew we had to be from another state!

The show started out slowly on Sunday but eventually picked up. Forum member John/Eng had told me he would be at the show and wanted to bring me a bottle of wine from a family member’s winery – which he did! Since it was Sunday and I didn’t want to transport an open bottle of wine in my checked bag, I haven’t had a chance to drink it yet, but I plan to this week! So thank you so much John!!!





Throughout the day, I can’t tell you how many people stopped by my table to talk about my exhibit. It was so heartwarming and wonderful to have people really appreciate and enjoy seeing the different penny pieces that I had been collecting for so many years that were displayed in my exhibit. They said they had never seen most of the pieces and especially enjoyed learning the history behind them, especially the prison art teapots. It felt so good to hear such positive comments, especially after the not so good experience I had at the Central States show! So a big fat thank you from all us exhibitors to all of you who take the time to express your appreciation to us – it means more than you know!!!

Soon it was time to pack up and head out. Once again, my brother transported me and Cindi with all our bags and paraphernalia (not in the Corvette!) to the airport. Once through security, we had enough time to catch a quick bite to eat and a beverage. It was still raining and the cloudy view through the windows out towards the tarmac was beautiful.





Bye-bye beautiful rainy Seattle!



Me so happy to be going home!



Sometimes this show is a gangbuster for me, but overall, this time it was only an average show. I did buy some nice Conder tokens, as well as several slabbed and raw coins, so that helped make my show. I sent the slabbed coins and Conder tokens with Glenn to take to Todd for photographing, so I’ll post photos of the Conder tokens shortly.

Next up – the Denver Coin Expo later this week, then I have a break for a couple weeks so I can catch up!!

 

I made the report... does that make me famous now . BTW thanks for helping me pick out my first 2 cent coin.

 

Anyone else remember Burl Ives? Rick Schulz sure looks like him to me.

 

Uh-oh, that was close. Great that the surprise still "worked out". Very nice report, Charmy! More peeps, less food this time (photo wise), that was fine too. Not that I know many of them, but there were some good, even fun shots.

Just don't tell me anything about the weather, hehe. I was in the US about a month ago (CA, HI), and Southern California was ... mostly wet. See the attached shot.



Also, congratulations to winning these awards! It sure is nice to not only see the visitors appreciate your exhibit, but also jury members.

Christian

 

Great writeup and pics, thanks Charmy

 

Awesome write up Charmy, love all those pictures, looks like home..
just like to add, $2 gets you in and they give you a very cool metal and a free elongated cent.

Washington 100 years of Statehood..

 

Great report as always, Charmy! I like all the "new faces"!

 

Great report. Love the pics. TC