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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;princeofwaldo, post: 1428957, member: 24091&quot;]Took Medoraman&#039;s advice and took the MEGABUS(!) to Chicago for the CICF, saving approximately $400 on what I would have spent parking at the airport and flying from KC.&nbsp; Had the front row in the upper deck on the way there, so I could watch out in front of the bus.&nbsp; We picked-up passengers in St. Louis then headed up I-55 towards Chicago.&nbsp; About 75 miles south of Springfiled, Illinois at 2:45AM we got to watch about the most inebrieated driver I think I have ever seen weave from shoulder to shoulder before finally spinning out into the median.&nbsp; Was a miracle he didn&#039;t hit anyone before he wiped-out.&nbsp; He then got right back on the road, and he disappeared into the night.&nbsp; Not sure if he ended upside down in a ditch, or what happened.&nbsp; Was a moonless night and very dark outside.</p><p><br /></p><p>So anyway,,&nbsp; The bus dropped us off at the southeast corner of Jackson and Canal, next to the Amtrak station after a 10 hour journey that included one rest stop for 20 minutes.&nbsp; There isn&#039;t any kind of bus terminal in Chicago, they dump you right there on the street, and you have to walk half a block north if you need to use the restroom etc at the Amtrak station before continuing the journey.&nbsp; From there, I took what used to be the Chicago Northwestern 4 blocks away out to Wheaton to see my mom and take a shower and nap.&nbsp; This was all on Thursday, the day before I headed to the show.&nbsp; Assuming you don&#039;t have relatives in the Chicago area, getting a room might be the best option so you can be fresh and well rested before hitting the show the following day.&nbsp; (Given airfare these days, the cost of a room would still leave you way ahead of flying).</p><p><br /></p><p>In any case, spent the day with my mom, went out to a place called Bohemian Crystal Restaurant in Downers Grove on Thursday evening, not too far from Distinctive Coins if you are familiar with the area.&nbsp; On Friday morning, my brother drove me from my mom&#039;s place to the show and dropped me off.&nbsp; Had time to grab a coffee at the hotel, then registered before heading in to view auction lots at the Heritage table.&nbsp; Lot viewing opened at 9:00AM a full hour before the rest of the bourse, so it was the perfect time to look at some coins.&nbsp; I looked at a few boxes of coins, the Italian issues in particular, then began my visit from table to table at the show when it opened an hour later.&nbsp; I did the entire perimeter of the room before doing a lap around each island of tables occupying the central portion of the floor.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>All the usual dealers were there, though not all of them had tables.&nbsp; I spoke at length with Bob Steinberg as he and his wife spent most of the morning visiting with other dealers.&nbsp; That guy is timeless, I don&#039;t think he looks a day older today than he did the first time I met him 20 years ago.&nbsp; The dealer inventory was good overall.&nbsp; Northeast Numismatic had every world gold coin in their inventory out in cases, it was quite a site to behold.&nbsp; Spent 40 minutes visiting with Demitry Markoff chatting about Russian coins, and Russia in general.&nbsp; Stopped by Teller&#039;s table, and chatted with Gus Wing for half an hour.&nbsp; Mark Teller didn&#039;t make it to the show, at least on Friday.&nbsp; Teller had a 1926 Albanian 1 Franga that I was very interested in, but it was being sold as a set with three other coins for $8,000 so it wasn&#039;t too much of a struggle to surrender to the idea that I wasn&#039;t going to be headed home with that particular issue.&nbsp; No other dealer had one.&nbsp; Was one of the coins on my list to purchase if I could find a nice one priced right.</p><p><br /></p><p>I then found a dealer in modern coins to unload my 1993 Egypt gold 50 Pound coin with.&nbsp; He gave me melt, $409, on a coin I had $460 in from eBay.&nbsp; Had spots, and I probably should have sent it back when I got it, but the thought crossed my mind to send it to NCS but I ultimately decided that the coin wasn&#039;t worth enough to warrant the expense.&nbsp; So I took the loss with the knowledge that the funds would be redeployed on some other much nicer coin at the show.&nbsp; I had sold off a pair of other gold coins before heading to the show, both modern coins with almost zero numismatic value.&nbsp; One was from the Cayman Islands, a $50 piece in an NGC PF69 UCAM holder.&nbsp; Had a mintage of only 585, but sadly that was still about 575 more than anyone really wanted of the coin.&nbsp; Had bought it for spot last summer so I made out okay on it.&nbsp; Also sold a half ounce Peruvian gold commem from 1979 in an NGC MS64 holder.&nbsp; Was a 50,000 Soles coin if you are familiar with those issues.&nbsp; Received $1035 for the pair from a local dealer in KC on Tuesday.&nbsp; Also scrapped together some cash, so that altogether I had about $2,600 to spend on coins.&nbsp; I wrote a check for $700 more than that, so looks like I will need to sell off something else next week to keep cash-flow managable.&nbsp; Sounds like a lot of dough to be throwing around at a show, but since it was the first time I attended since 2002, I really wanted to bring home something memorable, a coin or two that would always remind me of the 2012 Chicago International Coin Fair.</p><p><br /></p><p>But back to the bourse floor...,,,&nbsp; Spent nearly an hour talking with David Harper, the editor of Numismatic News, along with George Cuhaj, the editor of the Standard Catalog of Wolrd Coins.&nbsp; Then chatted with Roxanna, the gal in charge of world coins at Harlan Berk.&nbsp; After spending the entire day looking at coins, I finally decided what I wanted, and purchased a grand total of 3 coins.&nbsp; One from Distinctive Coins (Downers Grove, Illinois), a fairly common Notgeld issue for all of $22 which was a great price, usually these are offered for two or three times that much.&nbsp; Has a couple tiny rim nicks hardly worth mention, otherwise grades around XF.&nbsp; The other two coins were from Jonathan Kern, a dealer out of Kentucky.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I had never bought anything from him before, but I have watched Kern&#039;s ads in Coin World and there were a couple of sensational coins advertised earlier this year that he still had in stock.&nbsp; We ended-up coming to agreement on an acceptable price for the pair late in the day.&nbsp; An 1911 Italy 5 Lire NGC MS64 and a 1923 Egypt (Fuad) 10 Piastres NGC MS63 with deep multicolored tone.&nbsp; They are both monster coins, easily the nicest examples I have ever seen of either coin.&nbsp; Heritage had the exact same 5 Lire in their auction in NGC MS64, but it wasn&#039;t white and really wasn&#039;t in the same class as Kern&#039;s coin, hence when it crossed the auction block for $500 less later in the evening, than what I had in my coin, I wasn&#039;t too surprised.&nbsp; Would have been nice to see it sell for more, but there&#039;s no question I left the show with nicer of 2 coins available.&nbsp; Pop 3, with 2 finer both in MS65.</p><p><br /></p><p>Speaking of the Heritage auction, it wasn&#039;t nearly the blow-out that some of their recent world coin auctions have been.&nbsp; To be sure, many coins exceeded estimate, but only if they were once in a lifetime opportunities to acquire a particular type of coin.&nbsp; As has been the case for over a year now, numismatic premiums on gold issues continued to decline on many coins.&nbsp; Which, at least to me, means that any drop in gold prices would further depress the price of these coins, hence for the first time EVER, I didn&#039;t buy a single gold coin at the show.&nbsp; The 5 Lire, while expensive, was priced close to what it would have been 10 years ago, which suggests to me much less downside risk than with many of the gold coins out there right now.</p><p><br /></p><p>Afterward, I took the &quot;L&quot; about 4 blocks away from the hotel, back downtown, -the Blue Line.&nbsp; Cost, $2.25.&nbsp; Only way to go since a cab would have been at least $60 and not any quicker.&nbsp; I got off at Lake and Clark, not too far from Harlan Berk&#039;s store, and waited for my friend Tom.&nbsp; We hadn&#039;t seen each other in over 30 years, and after hooking up on Facebook recently, we decided we HAD to get together next time I was in town.&nbsp; He lives up by Wrigley Field and made the drive downtown and took me to a very popular and trendy Spanish resturaunt called Iberico.&nbsp; Was quite the place to see and be seen, and while the food was good, it was a little noisy for my tastes.&nbsp; Afterward, Tom dropped me off by my bus for the ride home which departed at 11:55PM.&nbsp; I arrived back in KC about 10:30 this morning.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, a few pictures of the show for you...,,</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH]174463.vB[/ATTACH][ATTACH]174464.vB[/ATTACH][ATTACH]174465.vB[/ATTACH][ATTACH]174466.vB[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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