I sincerely hope you're not suggesting that this OR ANY OTHER WEBSITE is an adequate substitute for such interactions with the titans of the hobby, 'cuz you might wanna to put that bottle down. Did you SEE the talk rundown at Denver?!??! It was better than any I've ever seen.
So is it really a "coin show" without talks and exhibits? Or is it just another crummy work-a-day bourse? I mean, geez, anything I can get at a crummy bourse, I can pay lots less for at local auctions.
blah blah blah... see ya at the... NASC Golden State Coin Show Arcadia, CA tomorrow and, if Doug is there, we'll be chatting it up big time. If he shows!
At our Indiana PA show on the second Saturday in September (the 16th), we offer a "Coins for Kids" program where we have an educational program with a Q&A afterwards combined with a faux auction where the children are provided with play money and bid on coins, books and supplies donated by club members and dealers. All of them are given a grab bag of coins when the program is over.
I don't think I have ever been to a show I didn't like. The best are shows where you run into old friends.
I guess I'm harder to impress. I've been to more shows that were "dogs" than I care to recall. Too many dealers who think they're God's gift to collectors, I guess. The gross margin expectation (buy /sell spread) of the typical dealer surely is the one metric that seems to go only one way - up. Lately, if I see a coin at a bourse, UNLESS THE DEALER IS GETTING OUT, and he's asking $200, the most he likely paid is $80. It never used to be that large a spread.
If you want to encourage young people to be interested in coins, be nice to them on the forums! You may have noticed the younger generation spend a lot of time online. Young people who will never go to a show spend time here. The person you are being rude to on CoinTalk or other forum could easily be a YN who gets turned off the hobby.
You're completely missing my point Kurt. When you said - I said I could get all 3 of those things - interaction, learning, and social aspects - at a coin show, without my attending the presentations, talks, roundtables, courses, classes, and the occasional symposium put on at the coin show. What I'm saying is it doesn't matter to me if the coin show offers all those things or not. For me they are and were completely unnecessary. I can, and always did, experience all of those things without attending any of those things put on by the coins show. And I did it on both an individual and group basis - at every show both small and large. For me, doing all those things, that was the important part of the coin show - not the coins I could buy there. I quite buying coins, completely, in 2006. But I still attend coin shows when I able to do so - specifically so I can experience the interaction, learning, and social aspects.
I went to a couple Whitman Shows when I was a YN and honestly I had a very nice time. Dealers were nice and friendly. Wherever I bought I was given a discount or free items and they always listened to me. Just figured I'd throw in my experience.
In my humble (yeah, right) opinion, that sort of ad hoc, informal, one on one, flavor of such is an "incumbency perpetuating", "old boy network favoring" poor and/or lame substitute for a show's institutional commitment to open non-exclusionary fora for such things. Of course, I AM aware that for many, the entire appeal of numismatics is its easily accomplished exclusionary aspects. I don't get along well with those personality types.
Hmmmm - it strikes me that what you just described, is what attending all those functions put on at coins shows is what perpetuates - what you just described. And that meeting in small groups of 2 or 3 or 15-20 and having your own informal roundtable discussions, asking questions of each other, learning from each other, interacting with each other - is what does away with what you just described.
It strikes me that you may not have witnessed Q. David Bowers packing a room to the point of SRO lately, as I have. Here's the best part - you don't even NEED a badge or wristband to attend the talks at all. You only need one for the bourse. Even Rick Snow's talk at Anaheim filled the seats to the point of needing to drag a few more from an adjoining room. Buuuuut if you're all wrapped up in some anti-ANA place, you ARE going to miss a thing or two.
Lets face it. We all love children. What i find fascinating is when the little cubbys are quite and really listen when their there.
Yup, dey gotz dey own meetuns, n dey own A-wards n everthang! (I figured if grammar, spelling, and usage are going to be unimportant, in for a penny, in for a pound, right?)
