Today (Thursday) was Day One of the ANA National Money Show in Denver. Before I got inside the building I ran into The Penny Lady™. Before the doors were opened to the public there was an opening ceremony. In attendance at the opening ceremony was US Treasurer Rosie Rios; she spoke for a few minutes before the ceremonial "cutting of the ribbon" to open the show. I made a bee-line to the US Mint booth and secured my ticket for the Denver Mint tour at the end of the day. (More about the tour later.) Attendance this first day of the show appeared to be somewhat light. I expect attendance to increase the next two days. I went to the show with my Want List but (as often happens) I ran across other items that caught my eye and my Want List went back in my pocket. I will post more details about some of my purchases later but my purchases today include a cool counterfeit coin; a bowtie and five defaced dies (from Fred Weinberg); and my first Conder Token. I went by The Penny Lady™'s table and the best way to describe it is "a sea of brilliant copper". Lots and lots of high-grade copper. And her next-door neighbor is none other than Todd (blu62vette). I visited Rick Snow's table and, as usual, he has a large selection of very high-grade IHCs. He brought along three 1870 Shield Nickels where the obverse has a clash with the obverse of an IHC. (I know, you don't expect an obverse die to clash with the obverse of another denomination but that is what happened.) Treaurer Rios signed notes for attendees and I was fortunate enough to have her sign four notes for me. (They had a ready supply of brand new, crisp $1 notes that you could get in exchange for your beat-up $1 bill.) At 5:00 I took a tour of the Denver Mint. (The Denver Mint is only about three blocks from the location of the show.) This tour was only for coin show attendees and we got a somewhat enhanced tour. Treasurer Rios was there to greet us and she explained her duties as US Treasurer which include overseeing all operations at the four mints as well as the gold depository at Fort Knox. The highlight of the tour was three gold bars (valued at about $2 million) on display in a vault. Our tour group was the first to view gold bullion at a US Mint since before 9/11.
