LordM 2025 FUN show report (live updates from the floor)

Sunday, January 12, 2025.

It is a somewhat brisk day by Florida standards, being in the low 50s Fahrenheit. But sunny and cloudless. Quite lovely, in fact.




Attendance is much lower. No line for registration when we picked up our name badges.




Going down the escalator, one gets a glimpse of the bourse, which is much sparser. It looks as though perhaps half of the dealers packed up and left Saturday.




Randy and I have just a few bits of business to wrap up. Mainly to do my NGC submission, and perhaps to check off one or two more of the Twelve Caesars for Randy’s rapidly expanding 12C collection.

 

A nice early Walker for the giveaway stash. Cost me 22 bucks. Lower grade but wholesome.

 

I wanted a gold cob and a $3 gold piece on this trip. Got the cob yesterday (Saturday), as previously posted.

My second of two goals for the show was accomplished this morning, with the purchase of this NGC AU58 1854 $3 in an older pre-prong holder that is perhaps twenty-plus years old.

The dealer let me have it for $1,950, which they said was $25 over their cost.

It upgrades my sold-and-lamented former XF40 coin by 18 grade points.

 

Next stop was the NGC table. Three of my recently purchased coins went off there. Since all three were from different categories, I was required to fill out three separate submission forms (each with a separate $10 invoice fee and different tier fees). Oh well. So it goes.




The first is this little Akragas “crab” hemidrachm I won in a German auction and received in the mail just prior to the show. An Akragas crab was on my numismatic goals list last year, and I checked that off just in time for the end of the year (bought it in December 2024 and just received it in January 2025).



Here’s the auction description, Google-translated to English:

The second submission was the AU 1797 British Cartwheel twopence that was my first purchase from this show, on Friday. I was pleased to learn that while it will require an extra-thick NGC holder, it will not need one of the oversized holders. Those will not fit in the boxes I use inside my safe deposit drawers.




The third submission was the NGC AU58 USA 1854 $3 gold piece I had just bought a few minutes earlier. I’m submitting it not for regrading, but rather for Photovision imaging and reholdering. This will cost me $30-something all told.

Had @messydesk not left the show yesterday afternoon, I’d have had him shoot it for me, and kept it in the old holder. At ten bucks, that would’ve been the much better option. But Doug Plascencia at NGC does very good photography, so the extra expense and time involved is not all bad, as far as I’m concerned.





While there at the NGC booth, I had the helpful young fella investigate the submission of mine that’s been stuck in limbo for 4-1/2 months. The upshot of that is, that coin is ready- and has been, for a while. But there’s some kind of shipping hold on it for some unknown reason. The guy suggested I call Customer Service (which I’ve been planning to do anyway). So still no answer on that one, but at least he tried, and I gained a little information.

 

At the next stop, I saw a dealer selling NGC slabbed Widow’s Mites at a reasonable price. I forget now- they might have been 30 bucks apiece- but I think I got them for 50 bucks the pair.

Since I had one in NGC plastic in my giveaway stash not long ago, and it proved popular, these are also going to be giveaway coins. They’re a tad better than the one I had before, with nice special labels.





NGC cert page links and images below:

https://www.ngccoin.com/certlookup/6156673-476/NGCAncients/




https://www.ngccoin.com/certlookup/6156673-372/NGCAncients/

 

So I only bought some cheap biblical Widow’s Mites at that last table, but boy howdy, there was some real eyecandy there, too!




The one that really leapt out at me was this Judaea Capta… aureus! The Judaea Capta coinage was struck by the Romans for propaganda purposes after their conquest of the Holy Land (Judaea) in the Jewish Wars. The silver denarii with that reverse are impressive enough (I had one, once), but in gold? I repeat: holy cow!

The dealer mentioned a figure of $30K. I think that was his cost, not his asking price.

Here’s the NGC cert page and pics therefrom:



Here is the far more modest Judaea Capta denarius I once had, as part of my first 12 Caesars collection.

 

At the next table (Time Machine), they had some non-coin antiquities and a fun 3/$50 pick bin of interesting artifacts.

I couldn’t resist picking out three artifacts to add some variety to my future giveaway offerings.

First, a medieval pendant with three dangles, circa 12th to 15th century AD.




Next, a Roman bronze bracelet from the first few centuries AD. Simple and a bit plain, but sturdier made than the others I saw in the bin.




And finally, an Anglo-Saxon casket hinge, circa 5th to 10th century AD. The word “casket” in this context refers to a small hinged box, not the thing you bury dead people in.




I just couldn’t pass this stuff up at fifty bucks for all three. Some of these items were originally priced as much as $25-45 individually. I just thought they were cool.

The dealer, whose name now eludes me, was a distinguished older gentleman who mentioned he’d been one of the founding dealers on the VCoins mall, but now that he’s 81 years old, he doesn’t sell there anymore. (He looked quite good for an octogenarian.)

 

At another table, this necklace made of 1804 Bank of Ireland dollars was pretty impressive, I thought.

 

Our last stop on the way out the door was a revisit to the Wayne Herndon table, where we said hi to @Evan Saltis and ogled the 1792 half disme again, along with some other amazing stuff in their “trophy case”.




This very handsome 1794 S-54 Liberty Cap cent caught my eye. It had terrific surfaces and color. I had a beastly time photographing it through two layers of plastic, however. Wish I could’ve taken it home with me, but at $6K, it is out of my reach.

 

Back home, now. (My home turf, at least.) Took Randy to dinner at Sunrise Grille on Jekyll Island, just a few hundred yards from the ocean. We both had the local Wild Georgia Shrimp, blackened. Randy had never had remoulade before this trip, and likes it. (Happily, news from home established the fact that Mrs. Randy knows how to make it.)





Then a quickie driving tour of the Jekyll Island Historic District with its gigantic Victorian “cottages” built by robber barons and banker types in the late 1800s/early 1900s, and the much earlier Horton House ruins from the 1740s.

Then home for me, and one more hotel night for Randy, at my workplace.

Whew! We’re both exhausted, but in a good way. It was a great trip. Thanks for sharing it along with us.

 

Amazingly, in just about a month, @Randy Abercrombie has completed 75% of his Roman Twelve Caesars collection, with nine of the twelve. Many (most) of which were purchased at the show.

With the late-breaking addition of Caligula and Claudius asses right before we left the show, he now lacks only Julius Caesar, Otho, and Titus to complete the Twelve.

I won’t steal his thunder anymore and will let him post his additions later, as he chooses.

 

Oh, believe me, I’d have drawers full of it.

I only detected for a week over there, in 2013, and found all sorts of interesting doodads. If I lived there full time, look out!

Coins were always my primary detecting goal, but relics are great, too!