I managed to spend three full days at FUN this year. Good times reconnecting with other VAM collectors over dinners. On Friday, David McCarthy (Kagin's) summoned me to his table, which usually means I get to see something really cool. After all, his collecting tastes are to buy things that are "too cool for anyone else to be allowed to own," to paraphrase his words. This time didn't disappoint, as I got to meet Don Revis and see and photograph his monster coins, including two slabbed 1878 Rev. of 79 proof Morgans, one of which was the correct die pair. Stupid rare coin with only a few known. Saturday, I had a chat with @Insider which ended with us congenially disagreeing about a coin he was showing me. Chatted with Ian Russell for a while about varieties on GC and MyCollect. My first purchase was this Columbian Expo award medal from John Kraljevich. He had 3 in his case, and I got the nicest one, complete with original case and advertising card. I had no plans to buy this going into the show, but it's a darn cool medal and I figured it would be a shame to go home regretting not buying one given the opportunity to have a selection. I may do a stereoscopic picture of this sometime, but I have others' pictures to finish up, first. The 20th VAM Thing included an interesting presentation by John Roberts about the development of the Morgan dollar pattern series and how design elements with minor changes were swapped in and out Mr. Potato Head-style to make a full die. Coinciding with VAM Thing was a celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Society of Silver Dollar Collectors (SSDC), for which commemorative medals were commissioned from Dan Carr, thanks largely to the up-front work (and funding) of two SSDC members. Overstruck on Morgan and Peace dollars, they feature "1988" Morgan and Peace obverses with various features of well-known VAMs piled into them, such as a Hot Lips with Scarface with 8/7 on the Morgan. Reverses are a club medal design. I had to buy one of each of these (you can, too). One coin that I hope many people got to see was the 1860-O 50c struck through a half dime planchet. You had to go a bit off the beaten path to see it, but I knew it was there as a friend of mine who had a table had it with him. No pictures of food and drink, breakfast was some combination of waffles, oatmeal, eggite, and sausage formations, lunch a Kind bar, dinner Thai food one night, meat the next, more meat the next, a cabernet with the meats, beer with the Thai food. Flight home Sunday was at 6 blessed o'clock in the morning, so no breakfast until I got home, but I was still full from the night before.
Fun experience, I was wondering though where is the coin that you argued with @Insider over? Fantastic coins as always Messy.
I'll post an image one day but I only have the small part of the revers. @messydesk I forgot to tell you that I met @Married2coins at the show! I enjoyed reading your discussions.
