My sole coin purchase from my first day at the FUN show

… was an ancient, albeit a rather modestly priced one. I liked the patina on it, and had been feeling the lack of any Judaean coinage in my collection for a while. I got this one at a slight discount from the marked price.





I don’t foresee myself getting heavily into Judaean coins, but the Bar Kochba and Jewish War coinages (and the siege of Masada and all that), have piqued my interest for a little while.

The dealer, Tom Wood, is a new friend I hit it off with immediately. I even had dinner Friday night with him and some some of his friends. I thought I might run into some of my old friends but that didn’t happen so much on Friday- so I just made some new ones.

I’m using Tom’s table as my base of operations while at the show. I might buy another coin from him today (Saturday), but the one in his additional inventory that I have my eye on is a US colonial and not an ancient.

PS- my ongoing semi-live walkabout report from the show is here: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/fun-show-orlando-2023.402155/

 

FUN is one of the biggest national shows. Hundreds of dealers, thousands of attendees. Since this was only the first one I’d attended since 2006, I can’t comment much on how this year’s attendance compares to recent years, pre- and post-pandemic, but compared with my memories of FUN 2006, FUN 2023 seemed plenty well-attended to me. It was often elbow-to-elbow in the aisles.

 

Florida in January is perfect.

I’m a native Floridiot, born n’ raised, though I live in the Golden Isles of Georgia now.

I do not care for the humid summers, but January here, as mentioned, is ideal. Smart of ‘em to hold the big show then. I’m sure it’s a nice break for all the folks up in snowbird country.

 

That turned out to be my only ancient purchase at the show, but I did bring along ten of my other ancients to submit to NGC, as I also did with this piece.

(Yep, I’m an unrepentant slabber. Don’t hate me for it, y’all.)

 

We had some European dealers at FUN.

No, New York is too far away for me. I stay within 6-7 hours driving distance at most, which for me means Georgia, Florida, or the Carolinas.

 

So I guess this coin in the OP is my first coin for 2023.

 

Good question, and since I’m a total newb when it comes to Judaean coinage, I don’t know.

 

Not in regards to this coin, as far as I know.