ANA Convention in Irving March 8-10

I also treated myself to a PDS of Sacagawea 2016 "Code Talkers." The S is proof, of course. They tie in with my interest in cryptography and computer security. The Code Talkers are beyond merely being famous now. But for many years, they were a little-known aspect of the American army in combat in two world wars.

 

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Quiet... unfortunately a number of dealers have left. And I've picked over the cases pretty extensively. Only one thing I really wanted and can't justify a DMPL Morgan for an INS photo holder...

 

I went Friday after lunch. Everybody looked busy.
Met lots of dealers from all around the country.
So much more to see than our local shows.

 

Well... Here's My Experience at the ANA Show this year:

I showed up Friday afternoon, and had a pretty good time exploring all the tables, as there was a lot to see! LOTS of Large Cents about, which I planned on taking advantage of on Saturday. It was good UNTIL I went by a table with a guy that had two Boxes marked "Foreign" in front of him. I politely asked if I could look through the box that he was not looking through, and he proceeded to tell me it was "DEALER ONLY". Now, I'm not going to say that this didn't infuriate me, because it did... But I just walked away. For one thing, HOW would they know that I am not a Dealer??? Technically, I AM, as I sell on EBay and work at Dallas Rare Coins on Saturdays for the past 3 years. Anyway... I'll get back to this and move on to Saturday.

Saturday, I went in the Morning, and only about 2/3 of the tables were occupied. This was very disappointing, as the Table I was wanting to go back to for Large Cents was EMPTY.

Here's what I take away from this (this is JUST my opinion, so you can yell at me if you want, and I'll take it with a grain of salt.):

Coin Dealers are Stupid, and the ANA really needs to pull their heads out of their butts about how to run a Coin Show. First Off, they shouldn't run the show from Thursday to Saturday... it should run through Sunday. Thursday and Friday, only Dealers are there, and they get TIRED of being there. The way to get people INTERESTED in coins is to be AVAILABLE on the Weekend, when the General Public has the time to come to the Show and Buy Coins!!! Secondly, Dealers should not be allowed to say "Dealers Only" OR put up "Dealers Only" signs (of which I did see one.) If you want to just deal with other dealers, then you are an Idiot. Why sell only to other people who need to make a profit on an item, when you can sell to a Collector, who will generally pay more money??? Thirdly, the ANA should require the Dealers to be open to All for the ENTIRE time that the show is open. It is very disappointing to show up and see a bunch of tables listed with Dealers' names, and the tables be empty.

In Conclusion, Coin Collecting is NOT a Growing Sport. We need every chance we have to get more people Interested, give people Access, and, in general, be Friendlier to the Public who may be interested in Coin Collecting. Be Nice! Give people Information! Don't be rude, and don't treat people as though they are beneath you because they don't have as much Knowledge about Coins as you do!!! I try to Educate people in a friendly manner every chance I get!

Oh Well... that is my Rant for the Day.

 

It used to be that most shows were open Friday Saturday and Sunday. The problem is what happened was most the dealers left on Saturday, and the few that were remaining came in early Sunday morning and packed up and the show was empty by noon. So eventually most shows dropped the Sunday hours. It was just too expensive to rent the show hall for that last day with nobody in it. Now some dealers left on Friday evening, but the shows typically still had some dealers through Saturday afternoon. (For a while there was even some discussion of droppings Saturdays.)

Reason a dealer will decide to deal with other dealers only, is because dealers are a whole lot easier to work with. They go through your stock quickly, they buy more, and they typically don't dither that much on the price. Plus they can drop a lot more money. Yes you can make more per coin selling to a collector than you can to a dealer, but it takes longer. So the wholesale only dealer makes a little less per coin but he makes up the difference in volume.

Nice idea but now how do you make the dealer stay? The ANA has fought with this problem for years. They tried requiring them to stay, and that didn't work. The dealers would still leave early and they just leave one employee behind to sit at the table with a couple of boxes of coins while 99% of the inventory went back home. They tried imposing fines, the big dealers refused to pay and only the little dealers had to pay the fines. They tried threatening to move those who left early to the back of the hall for the next year, the big dealers, who are the main drawing card for the show, said that's fine we just won't take tables at all and will just come and work the show doing wholesale with the other dealers. Trying to have the show without your main drawing cards was going to work either, so we are stuck with what we have now

 

I agree that wholesale dealers should mark themselves, "To the trade Only" or some such. Usually it's a good clue when there is nothing being displayed, but a sign is appropriate

The rest of your rant?

It's legit, but it's also silly because it's just caning a deceased equine.

Pretty much everything has been tried to get dealers to stay for the entire show. Fines. Discounts. Preferred table selection at the next show. Separate sections so you can draw a curtain and cut off part of the room.

Nothing works. PO enough dealers and nobody comes back and the show dies.

But you miss the point as to the audience that the ANA is serving. This is not a local 20 table show aimed at retail buyers.

1300 or 1500 people paid their $8. We'll know when we see the attendance numbers in a couple weeks. Top end, that's maybe $12,000 in revenue. Another 2,000 (including a lot of dealers) got in free as ANA members.

200+ dealers paid $1,000 / table. That's $200,000 in revenue.

Who is the audience?

You also miss that many dealers are part-time and have to be back on Monday morning to go to work. Even full time dealers have time constraints that don't let them stay to Sunday... I talked with one dealer who had an 800 mile trip home to restock and run some laundry and needing to be on the road Tuesday morning for a 1,000 mile trip to the next weekend's show.