Hello All, I went to the Central States Numismatic Society show here near Chicago yesterday with a friend who wanted to go. Normally CSNS is a very heavy US show with a smattering of world thrown in by dealers that normally carry both in their stores. I figured if I could add some British copper (1/4, 1/2 and 1p are a lackadaisical side collection) then yay for me. Imagine my surprise when I saw several ancient dealers there! Allan Berman, Pegasi and some others. Allan told me that the convention chair realized that the show has always been light on ancients and world so with CICF down the tubes he thought he would make an effort to flesh out the offerings. I was able to spend a few hours digging through denarii at Allan and Pegasi's tables. I ended up with six denarii which is about six denarii more than I thought I would be seeing much less buying. Nothing earth shattering of course but some scarcer reverses which made me very happy. There were a lot of people especially for the opening. I am not on my laptop so I don't have individual pictures to post here. But here is a link to my Forvm. Check out Septimius Severus and Julia Domna. I just added some really fun stuff. http://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/index.php?cat=41431&page=2 Have a good weekend all! Nick
For a reason I find hard to explain, some of my greatest fun in coins came going through bags of denarii at shows offered by Jonathan Kern (before he converted to slabs). He always had bags sorted by price ($20, $50 etc.) loose with no flips that you could go through seeking treasure. Even if many were not worth the price, it all averaged out. I'll never forget the bags of owls and Tribute Pennies (at much higher prices) even though I did not collect them at that time. Denarii are meant for 'digging'.
@dougsmit: Actually Jon Kern was there as well. As you know he has been slimming down his operations recently. Still doing a lot of shows but I believe he told me that he closed his brick and mortar store and stopped all advertising and what not. Now he is basically selling what he feels like and doing the shows he wants. So at the show he only had one box of mixed ancients to dig through versus his usual six. He had some nicer stuff in his cases though. I did find an ANNONAE AVGG Sept. Sev in that little box which made me happy. The coin in question is posted. All of the other denarii came from Pegasi. I am very much a fan of sorting through a fixed price bag.
