How much do you start off "in the hole" when you go to coin shows?

Back to the original topic I'm hoping this is the year I can make it to a major show. Likely candidates spring central states November Baltimore (not much expense there as I'm doing an antique show the same time an hour away just got to get someone to cover for me for a day. Or jan 2016 FUN. Can't go to August Chicago ANA ever as it conflicts with the biggest show I do a year. Too bad as after my show I got plenty to spend on coins

 

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I lived in the NYC area when I was in my mid-20's. I loved it! I was also happy knowing I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life there. I moved from California to NYC. Two completely different styles of living and I enjoyed them both.

 

I've lived in NYC, Upstate, New England, the Mid-west, traveled to more than half the States in America so far and spent significant periods of time living in the UK, Italy and Japan, and I've been to a handful of other countries in the Americas, Caribbean and throughout Western Europe. There's no one place necessarily better than another, each has a character all its own, things to love and things to hate. It's all what you choose to make of the place and your time in or away from it.

It's interesting how people's strong reaction to NYC comes to the fore instantly when this place is mentioned. That's because NYC has a major influence on many people's lives, near and far, whether they've lived in it, just visited it, never considered it or dismissed it entirely. I've met that reaction several times on this forum alone. While most complain of spatial issues, traffic and costs of life, they are quick to overlook the intense amount of things the city has to offer-- which I'd suggest are a return on one's investment for the cost of living or for coming here to play.

There's so much to take from life in an urban center such as NYC, which is why I mentioned so many of the purely numismatic pursuits alone available in the city due to what may interest forum members. If you need any other visitor advice I have that as well.

Plenty of people who live in NYC have second homes in neighboring States or down in Florida, and relish their chances to go hike, ski, hunt, boat, and enjoy nature and wide open spaces. Others take day trips or vacations to other areas, and many of those living in the city are actually not native born here and so can't readily be dismissed as city-folk who would be lost in the woods. Not only NYC, but at no other time in history have so many people been moving towards, not away from cities. Urban populations continue to show growth and concentration of human activity.

I love to hike, drive in the desert, scuba dive in clear warm waters, see different shores, enjoy utter silence in remote places, but I never feel lost in the world when I travel. Sometimes getting lost and coming out of your element is the whole purpose of learning, in finding adventure and having something other than a theme-park experience in life.

The original context for why I mentioned NYC in this thread was @Mainebill mentioned "there's nothing closer than Baltimore", having bypassed two other major urban centers (Boston and NYC) offering nearer (to him) major coin shows on the east coast.

If one can find their way out of a forest, a desert, rolling plains or mountain ranges, then they can find their way in-and-around and out of NYC, too. Manhattan, after all, is where most visitors end up and it's only about 3 miles by 14 miles in size and surrounded by water.

And remember, if you're lost, someone can always tell you where to go!

 

Typically, the only coin shows I regularly attend are local (withing 100 miles), so my expenses aren't much. Vegas is where most local shows occur. I'll make a weekend out of it, so say $50 for gas up and back. I like staying off strip, so perhaps $200-300 per night for a hotel room. $200 for dinner each night (if the wife is along, otherwise about $20 as I'm not as picky), and a few nights out with friends, so $50 for beer nightly (yeah, it's not Coors or Bud we drink). For Vegas, thats a pretty cheap weekend. Of course, thats not including any coin damage and wife shopping money.

 

If Boston had a yearly destination show I'd go last one was 5 years ago. When I really got serious about coins in a big way if there was one every year ivwoyldnt miss it unless I got a conflict or was broke

 

Lived in New England nearly all my life with a few years in upstate ny finger lakes area Always in the country. Reason I last went to nyc believe it or not was a job interview. Decided when I went there was no amount of money they coulda paid me to be there. And was a ton more then I was making self employed.

 

I've lived or gone to school in a number of places that folks have mentioned in this thread. Of course, not all of those mentions were complimentary. I did my undergraduate work in Newark, NJ when the area was really bad and even came out to get into my car one afternoon only to find police with weapons drawn using it as a shield. Later, I went to Columbia for my PhD and lived in Harlem right next to Morningside Park. On the day I moved into my apartment, my neighbor told me that if I heard what sounded like gunshots at night coming from the park to stay in my apartment because they would assuredly be gunshots.

I grew up in northern NJ, right outside of NYC, and lived there for decades. However, I would never move back.

 

@Tom B Wow! Those are some experiences and gave you a great story to tell. I watched a drug bust in broad daylight in the middle of the street the other day. Guy was screaming and hollering like you see in a movie take down, shoved up against his car and tossed into an unmarked and taken off the street.

 

Closest I seen to that was the cops raid a house been turned into a grow house. Whole upstairs couple rooms full of pot plants

 

Sounds like you saw one end of the supply chain, and I the other. Both coming to abrupt ends

 

Gosh @krispy now you're really selling the place to us. Makes me want to pack up and move there right away. hahahaha....

 

At first I thought it WAS a movie shoot... there have been fliers up on the street for upcoming parking restrictions due to a TV / Movie shoot that will soon be in the area.

Stuff like this is a daily event. For example, news helicopters have been hovering over the area all morning for a fire that broke out in the wee hours of the AM along a busy Brooklyn street. Just a slice of life, as they say, in a NY minute.