Charmy's SAN JOSE COIN SHOW REPORT (plus a little extra) w/lots of Pics!

Before I head out on any road trip, I go to my favorite coffee house – Seattle’s Best – for 2 large lattes!





And those hot lattes tasted mighty good since it was a very foggy and rainy day the entire way up north.





I arrived at the Doubletree hotel in San Jose about 3:30 pm, checked in, then went over to the ballroom area where the show is held. Even though we were scheduled for set up at 5pm, unfortunately, there was another meeting going on in the room and it wouldn’t be ready for a while so all the dealers had to just sort of mingle around in the lobby near the ballroom with our carts until the room was emptied and then reset with the bourse tables. It was very frustrating!





We were finally let in around 7:30pm, and though it was pretty late, set up proceeded smoothly after that. Since we had dinner reservations at Spencer’s Steakhouse, I just set up my cases, then waited until morning to set out my inventory.

So a group of us met at Spencer’s with our delicious wine bottles in tow – everyone brought a bottle and then we do a wine tasting. And since we were bringing several bottles, we had negotiated a discounted corking fee.











This is just some of our group





We each have a separate glass so we could taste each type of wine



All of the wine was amazing!

However, after dinner, one of my friends was feeling faint and dizzy (no, not from the wine!), so we laid him on the floor. H soon said he felt better but when we set him back up, he got faint again. So they called the paramedics and took him to the local hospital which was just a couple miles away. I went there with his wife. When they couldn’t find anything wrong, they sent him home with instructions to see his own doctor when he got back home. It was about 2am by the time we got back to the hotel – what a long night!

 

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They opened the show to dealers at 7am the next morning to help make up some of the time we lost the night before for set up. So I arrived at 7am to set up my table.

I set out this counterfeit 1909-S vdb in a PCGS counterfeit holder that a customer lent me to help educate those who haven’t seen what a counterfeit holder looks like. It got a lot of attention throughout the show.







The coin is a pretty obvious counterfeit, but sadly the holder would fool many people. But if you look carefully, you can see the label is poorly made, the spacing is off, and the bar code is slightly different. Also, the holder itself is not as well made as a true PCGS holder. The scary part is that the certification number and bar code do match up with the PCGS website. I spoke to Don Willis, and he said that the counterfeiters are taking real certification numbers and creating fake labels. Everyone who examined the coin was shaking their heads in frustration at the idea of how many of these counterfeit coins are out in the market.

This is the lobby of outside the front door of the show


And some of the hard working San Jose Club show volunteers!


The show became very busy and crowded throughout the day. I did more buying than selling, mostly raw coins and a few certified coins. Here are some photos of the bourse floor on Friday.







Gene Bruder and his daughter-in-law Rachie (Gene’s wife Diane broke her arm and is recuperating)

My table!


After the show, we had reservations again at Spencer’s Steakhouse for dinner. While I was waiting for the rest of my party, I had a drink in the bar lobby and Wei stopped by to say hi!





We had a more intimate dinner party since we had planned ahead of time and each person brought some particularly wonderful wines, including this fabulous Opus One that I contributed!










We had a wonderful and relaxing time at dinner – it’s great to share good wine with very good friends!


On Saturday, the show became even more busy than the day before, with most dealers reporting much better sales than on Friday, including me!



I even bought another Wiener Cathedral medal for my collection – this one was in an original leather and velvet case!!







Here are some of the forum members who stopped by my table on Saturday

Stealer


Dennis88


Sean/Kookoox10


Wei/WTCG, Stealer, Original Dan


My favorite security guard – Boo!


I had heard about the new Matrix casino that just opened directly across the street from the hotel and planned to go there after the show on Saturday





However, I met up with a couple of my dealer friends and had an impromptu dinner with them in the bar area of the hotel. Then a couple other dealer friends joined us and we ended up just hanging out there for a couple hours.



Logan McKechnie of VAMS & More


Logan’s beautiful daughter Cindy


So after that, I just called it an early night, and went back to my room. I didn’t want to stay out too late since I knew I had a long drive home on Sunday.

Sunday was pretty slow, as expected, so I packed up around a little early to get a head start on my long drive home. Luckily, the weather was a lot better than the trip to the show. Actually, the weather on the way home was absolutely beautiful!!









Even aside from a couple glitches, the show was pretty good – I’d give it a B. I had decent sales for the size of the show, made some good buys, and had a great time with some good friends!

 

Now, this next part is somewhat OT, and I hope you don’t mind and will indulge me a little, but I’d like to continue my report one extra day. See, my hubby and I had hard-to-get tickets to The Who “Quadraphenia” concert last night at the Pond in Anaheim. The concert was, of course, fantastic! Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey played for over 2 hours with no break – and they never sounded better! I especially loved hearing them play some of my favorites - “Pinball Wizard,” “Teenage Wasteland,” Who Are You,” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Here are a few photos I took last night

We arrived a little early – our seats were just above the floor level - that’s my hubby waiving from our seats




























Pete Townshend is amazing on the guitar playing “Pinball Wizard”


Roger Daltrey - “We Don’t Get Fooled Again”


Pete Townshend – “Teenage Wasteland”

 

Thanks for the report. Crazy how good those counterfeit slabs are getting though.

 

Good report

 

Fantastic report, what a fun read! I was really surprised to see how legit that fake slab & coin looked though. Scary stuff, glad I can't afford an MS 09-S VDB or else I'd be in trouble. LOL!

 

Seriously - does anybody have more fun at coin shows than Charmy? Good food, good wine, good coins - I know who I wanna party with!

 

I always enjoy reading your reports and seeing the photos. I'm still trying to decide what you like better, coins or wine?

Lackluster

 

Thanks everyone, yes I definitely enjoy my coin shows, wine, etc., but the company I keep is what makes my show experiences the best!

 

What No JEFF GORDON OR RICHARD CHILDRESS Wines? You make a Coin Collector/ NASCAR guy CRY!!!