Made it to the show and it was a pleasure meeting National Dealer and TraderRick. Always good to put faces with the names. I was talking with TraderRick when some guy came back with a bunch of cash to make a purchase, so I just got out of the way. He threw it out the table and I offered my hand. TraderRick's buyer gave me that what the ___ look. I excused myself and continued browsing. National Dealer did have his computer going, but there was no signal in the exhibit hall to make sure we were behaving. He has a pretty cool screen saver. Many of his coins were beautiful and let's say...a wee out of my budget. Frankly, I was surprised at the vast number of tables. Also got to meet with Jim Taylor, President if ICG. I sent him an email awhile back complaining about his print quality and font of the ICG labels since a 63 looked like a 68 and vice versa. He told he was glad that this was pointed out and ICG has recently upgraded their printer so that their fonts and numbers are nice and clean. Told him that my eyes appreciate this. Found some nice red early lincolns to brighten up the collection. Came home with just enough gas money. I wasn't going to go with work and all, but it is all National Dealers fault that I made it. Good luck with Saturday guys...
I WISH more collectors would blame me for making them attend a show and buying choice coins to add to their collection. Of course Ed came by the table to show off the bright red Lincolns. A few of which made me immediatley recommend the slabbing companies. Nick and I are both hoping for a good retail day. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and the show will be brisk.
In my infinate wisdom, I brought the camera but not the battery charger. I did however make a valuable contact with the dealer, so many good photos will follow in the future. The show was brisk was today. Not a lot of retail, but still got a few coins sold. Overall the show was a small success. The next Palm Beach Show will be held in late March. Kind of a busy time with some other major shows in the same time frame. The next show will be Baltimore in Dec.
It was really nice meeting Ed Zak. That was some pretty good banter we had there with that other dealer. He was selling me a stack of silver certificates, by the way....at first I thought he was just throwing money around, which I'm always willing to catch lol. I bought a NICE GSA CC dollar set today, 1880 through 1885...6 coins in all. And a LOT of gold, mostly foreign but some u.s. too. I also bought 17 old Japanese ivory Netsuke pieces...anyone else here like those? And another deal of the show was a huge box overrunning with old costume jewelry. There must be 15 pounds of it. Just fun stuff for the shop.
Thanks for the updates. We have a lot of folks in the Ocala area who are hoping this show is a great success. Please keep us informed and best of luck on all of your purchase/sales.
Hi Art. Ocala, eh? Just so you know, there's FL shows coming up in Panama City in dec, of course FUN in Jan in Ft Lauderdale, your own Ocala show is in Feb I think, the Palm Beach show repeats itself in March, then there's the Orlando local show in April....lots of FL shows happening! Hope to see you at some of them. Nick
Nandesuka? Its a small carving (toggle) specifically made to be tied to the cord that went through the belts (obi?) that the folks of old Japan wore. It's purpose was to prevent the cord from slipping. The cords held containers for everyday items like tobacco etc. The serious netsuke collector/expert agree that all traditional netsuke of artistic merit are from the Tokugawa period (1615-1868). Netsuke in Japanese means no more than "root attached". You can find this info in a book called "An introduction to Netsuke" by Joe Earle.
Obviously my feeble attempt at humor was unsuccessful. Actually my ivory collection consists primarily of chess sets and Shichi Fuku Jin (7 gods) carvings, but does include a couple of low grade netsuke.