I was able to spend a couple of days at the recent ANA World's Fair of Money in Chicago. I have family and friends in the Chicago area that I try to visit every year so I made sure to plan my trip so I could spend a day or two at the big coin show as well. Had a great time at the show. I was only there for two days (Tuesday and Thursday), but to me it seemed a little busier than it was last year. Of course it was hard to tell because of all of the action and craziness of the gold Kennedy coins at last year's show. At the show I was able to buy several coins and I sold several too. Won't get into the details of that as this isn't the place on the forum for postings coins which will be for sale soon. I'll update my website and do a post in the For Sale section of the forum sometime this week for those interested. Also enjoyed seeing all of the neat items brought for display. The various World Mints that attend the show are also fun as you get to see many interesting pieces and I was able to get lots of new inventory for the local coin clubs to give out as raffle prizes over the next few months. It is a really great show and if you've never been to an ANA World's Fair of Money before, I certainly recommend that you try to attend. Next year it'll be in Anaheim so start making your plans! Here are some photos I took this week... Shot of the Sears Tower out my car window on the way to the show The Convention Center Crowd waiting to get in on opening day President Walt Ostromecki opening up the show just before the ribbon cutting Display @ PCGS table Display @ PCGS table ANA display of 1804 dollar and 1913 nickel Amazing 1792 half dime The next several shots are of some of the collectors exhibits at the show... these are certainly one of the highlights of the big ANA shows and I only took pics of a few of them. There were dozens of others and all were very interesting. You could spend hours just looking at the collectors exhibits at these shows.
Some high end pieces in a dealer's case 1947 Philippines MacArthur in plaster Awesome 1792 copper cent, dime and quarter Unique 1870-S half dime at the Legend table $4.50 of silver coins melted together during the 1906 SF Earthquake & Fire on display at the Barber Coin Collectors Society table Finally, I had a few hours to kill one afternoon so I went to the Museum of Science of Industry which I hadn't been to since I was a kid. Definitely one of the best spots to visit in Chicago if you have time. The museum is in one of few surviving structures from the 1893 Columbian Exposition. Here's the building on one of the So-Called Dollars from the Expo. Here's the building today So much to see in the museum and this isn't really the place to show you everything, but I thought you'd like to see at least a few of the highlights. Here's one of the Mercury space capsules on display, the Aurora 7 Here is the Apollo 8 capsule from the first manned mission around the Moon And the U-505 submarine which has been restored and on display, the only German U-Boat on display in the U.S. and you can go inside too Thanks for looking
I got to go last year, but only for the first day, and it spent entirely in line for the gold kennedy. I made a quick profit, but hated to miss the show. I was really looking forward to seeing some of the coins displayed. Maybe I will get another chance one day.
There was a lot of awesome stuff there - some not for sale. For example they had the original plasters for the 1938 New Rochelle Commem on display at (I think) Numismatic Americana. But a lot of very unusual - albeit not RARE - stuff was for sale too. Let's see... Plenty of Seated Liberty material from the 1850s... something you don't see a lot of at smaller shows There was an 1852 $5 Gold in PCGS VG8 CAC... And ANACS small white holder PO1 no-date Morgan (probably 1921). Also have to give a shout-out to the National Silver Dollar Round TableTM which was running an hourly drawing for a BU silver dollar. Since their booth was off in the boondocks, it wasn't THAT hard to win. One for the slab collection - oh, and since NGC's color label printer was almost out of yellow ink, it's an "error" slab too! NSDRT is an organization of coin dealers who promote collecting silver dollars - all the big names - http://www.nationalsilverdollarroundtable.org/
Living in Chicago , I tend to take so many things for granted . It's why I love this city , politicians and all . Some really great coins there this year like every year .I sat at Stacks table eyeing several 1794 and 95 Bust halves and Dollars the '94 was a 65 and only 5 million , while a 66+ 1795 was a steal at only 1 mill . Next case over had a row of Bust facing right gold small eagle and Heraldic eagle coins all in MS . Great pics Illini !!!!!
Thank you for the nice comments. So many cool exhibits and coins at the show, wish I could have taken pics of everything!
