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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Parthicus, post: 24801616, member: 81887&quot;]Here, as usual, is my brief, highly personal and biased, recap of my day at the Whitman Baltimore Coin Expo.&nbsp; This year I attended on the first day of the show, Thursday November 9.&nbsp; However, my day did not start out well.&nbsp; Around 10 PM the previous night, I started feeling dizziness and... let&#039;s just call it nausea (three times).&nbsp; I only managed a little sleep, and while the nausea abated the dizziness didn&#039;t seem to be getting any better. I had given up all thoughts of going to the show (I couldn&#039;t walk even a few feet without holding onto a support) and was starting to plan how to get to a medical office.&nbsp; Around 7 AM, I drank a glass of water, and almost immediately started to feel better.&nbsp; I drank another glass, rested in bed a bit more, and by 10 AM was completely better.&nbsp; It turns out I was just dehydrated, and the treatment is the obvious one.&nbsp; Dehydration is no joke, people, stay hydrated out there.</p><p><br /></p><p>I made it to teh show at 1 PM (doors opened to the public at noon).&nbsp; The show seemed overall busy, many tables had multiple visitors at a time.&nbsp; There were also some booths where the dealers had not yet set up, which I don&#039;t usually see on the second or third days of a show.&nbsp; I had a good talk with Michael Bezayiff, a dealer whom I hadn&#039;t met before but who proved very knowledgeable, even about some obscure Eastern series.&nbsp; Allen Berman was very engaging as always, though I had a scare at his table.&nbsp; I was examining a coin that was in an older, damaged plastic flip, and the flip had cracked at the bottom.&nbsp; Well, the coin fell out of the flip and onto the hard Convention Center floor with a loud &quot;plink&quot;.&nbsp; Fortunately the coin was undamaged and Allen wasn&#039;t too upset, though he did suggest that I should always hold coins above the table.&nbsp; (I did end up buying the coin, see below.)&nbsp; I said that I almost had a heart attack, to which he replied &quot;Please don&#039;t have a heart attack at my table, it would give me a bad reputation.&quot; <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie101" alt=":woot:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />&nbsp; One other interaction of note was at Harlan J. Berk&#039;s table, where they had two specimens of Colosseum sestertius on display, with a list price of $375,000 for the pair.&nbsp; (I am sure [USER=82616]@David Atherton[/USER] could tell us more about them.)&nbsp; They said I could photograph the coins, and even took them out of the cabinet so I could get better pics.&nbsp; (Though, remembering what happened at Allen Berman&#039;s table, I did not ask to hold the coins.<img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie2" alt=";)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> ) Here are the beauties:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1587035[/ATTACH] </p><p>I did notice that the hoard of tetradrachms of Tigranes II of Armenia is still being dispersed, but the prices are still too high for me to justify buying one.&nbsp; As usual, I spent most of my time (and money) with the ancients dealers, and towards the end wandered about in the world and US sections making a few small purchases.&nbsp; I left about 4:30 PM, taking just one short break around 3 for a quick snack and rehydration.&nbsp; Overall it was a good day, I spent most of my allotted budget and got some nice coins.&nbsp; And now, here is my haul for the day.&nbsp; First, my coins from Allen Berman.&nbsp; Top:&nbsp; A Parthian tetradrachm of Vologases IV (this is the coin I dropped on the floor) and small Parthian bronze of Phraates IV, and Sasanian drachms of Hormazd II and Kavad I (though Hormazd has a major head wound, he was cheerfully cheap). Bottom row is 4 &quot;Kushan&quot; coins Allen sold as a lot for $20- I am confident the three coppery-colored coins are in fact from Yaudheya, the darker is either late Kushan or one of the many Kushan-imitatives and requires further research:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1587038[/ATTACH] </p><p>Some more ancients: Top row starts with two coins from Tamco Numismatics (bought as usual from minimally-ID&#039;d &quot;you pick&quot; groups), trilingual drachm in the name of the Turco-Hephthalite king Vasu Deva, and an AE drachm of the Kushan king Wima Kadphises (I already had the far more common tetradrachm of his).&nbsp; Next is a silver hemidrachm of the Abbasid governors of Tabaristan, anonymous type, nicely rainbow-tomes, bought from Michael Bezayiff.&nbsp; Bottom row is four coins bought from a $10 junk box of Tiber Numismatics: AE in the style of Alexander the Great (either lifetime or shortly afterwards), Byzantine 20 nummi probably pre-reform of Justinian the Great, Roman provincial from Zeugma of some emperor who I&#039;ll have to figure out, and a Crusader coin of the famous Tancred.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1587042[/ATTACH] </p><p>Finally, some modern coins.&nbsp; Top row is 4 Canadian large cents that are part of the Super Secret Side Project.&nbsp; Bottom row cost a total of $20: $6 each for the Barber quarters, and $1 each for the worn George V penny and the Hungarian 2 forint.&nbsp; I like the use of just the crown, and not the monarch&#039;s portrait, on the Hungarian coin as a tacit acknowledgement that it is only the symbols of monarchy that matter, not the actual person wielding them.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1587043[/ATTACH] </p><p>So, I had a good day at the show.&nbsp; I ended up with just $2 of my allotted budget unspent and got some nice coins, including many that will require lots of fun attribution.&nbsp; Hope you enjoyed my recap, please let me know your experiences at the show.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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