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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kevin McGonigal, post: 3163314, member: 72790&quot;]I came back from the Philly show today. I spent six plus hours at the show and just watching the goings on was a treat. I was able to get an ancient authenticated, or not as it turned out. I watched a gentleman submit a 1944&nbsp; steel cent for authentication. The people at the association table seemed genuinely excited by this and several came over to look at it. Of course the coin will have to go back to their lab for further work. I also discovered what happens to the value of ancients when a new hoard find shows up. I purchased a nice Lycian tetrobol from a pile (take your pick) for $45 each in XF condition. The same kind of coin sold at auction in 1971 for $300 and was only marginally better than ones from the pile. Another pile one could pick through was a recent find from Britain of antoniniani from Gallienus to Claudius Gothicus, all of them toned to a smooth. light chocolate, patina. Even common coins can look superb in this kind of a find. I also noted something that reminded me of when I first started collecting coins some many, many years ago, dealers trusting their customers to handle the coins without being watched or hovered over. Time and again when I asked to see a coin from a tray the dealer would hand me the whole tray and turn his attention to other customers only coming back when I needed a price for one or two pieces. They did this to all the other collectors too, not just a few. It was refreshing to see such trust from the vendors. To those not living in the immediate Philly area, the Pennsylvania convention Center is easy to get to by public transportation. The Greyhound Bus terminal is a couple blocks away as is the SEPTA&nbsp; regional train line and PATCO and NJ Transit from New Jersey. Amtrak will drop about a mile from the convention center. Also, the show is free to the public on Saturday. I had not been to such a big show in decades and as you can probably gather it was worth many times the modest admission price of $8 (six with the online coupon).PS Thanks to my dear wife who help fund this adventure and had for me a nice Philly hoagie, a Tastykake&nbsp; and root beer waiting for me when I got home.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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