ANA Day 1
Desert Moon
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Live in Oklahoma City - it's ANA! (snappy western music begins..........).
OK, day 1 is done and gone. I arrived Monday nite in OKC at 9 pm after leaving our house at 9 am. The first set back was the drive to the airport. We took our usual way which goes around a mtn range to get to the big city then down to the 'International' (LOL) airport of our area. Got through the pass and arrived at the right turn to the south that would carry us along said mtn range and to the jetway. And a police car was blocking the road. Everyone had to turn north. So great, but my wife had the map out and said no worries the detour will only be a couple miles where we connect to the trunk road we end up at when normally going south. So we headed north with everyone else, hung a right, and then, the detour was like a maze to get to that connecting road, lots of stop signs, bit semis going slow. 20 minutes later, we finally hit the connecting road that would lead us to the trunk road south. But wait there's more. Half way across this connecting road, it was fully closed for construction! Yup, another detour north, traffic building even more. Finally 45 minutes later, we hit our trunk road going south and smoothly sailed to the airport. As I always plan to arrive 2 hours before boarding, still had about 1 hour (whew), and I was the only one in TSA Pre, the staff were so bored it was a relief to them to see a passenger coming in. Sometimes at this airport I get flagged at security for having a backpack full of coins. Then I need a private screening, where I pop out each box and it becomes a pop-up coin show. The security officers seem to enjoy looking at my offerings and then the stories come out about 'yeah my grandma has this old coin'........... But hey, no coin search this time, I breezed through TSA Pre and off to my gate. Just like that.
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Since it is a classic satellite destination we live near, it means of course I get to go through a hub before heading to OKC, or, anywhere else. For this, we have 3 choices, Denver, Houston, and Chicago. Since we lived in H-Town for 21 years prior to retiring in the great SW, I like to go through Bush. The choice in August is between delays from thunderstorms in Bronco or Bear land, or hurricanes in H-Town - Harvey hit us in 2017 for a week in late August and it was beyond epic. So of course I chose H-town, who wouldn't? But no hurricane, Erin is heading towards the east coast. So connections made after the arrival detours and here we are in OKC.
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Day 1 was pretty much dealer set up/Early Birds until noon-ish then 'public' and ANA members start arriving at different entry time slots. From 8 am on there were up to 3 or 4 people at my table constantly and multi-tasking away. Got to chat with many folks. Mark Feld came by to say hi and we chatted for 20 minutes. Later in the day, @ldhair connected with Mark at my table, so I got 2 rounds with the sage of all things coins. It was really good to see him and we all had a great time. But while these chats were going on I was showing coins and selling as well. I have an expanded inventory with 10 tokens and 29 VF-XF barber quarters all CACed. 13 of 29 of those lovely quarters are already gone baby gone.
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For the tokens, I brought a selection of my Hard Times and 1850's store card tokens because when I filled out the ANA bourse form, I listed 'tokens' as one of my 'areas'. Then 2 days ago I saw in the ANA Program Guide, Desert Moon was listed as a token dealer. Uh-oh I said, better add some. So one gentleman came by and said where are your tokens? I said 'see that little corner over there in my case'? He had a look and said 'hey, I collect HTT's!' He saw my Am I Not a Sister, HT-81 in N58 and said, wow those are pricey and hard to find. I said, 'well yes they are and this is the best 58 I have ever seen' (which is true). It is gorgeously blue and brown toned with cartwheel luster, no hits, just a touch of rub. I had it priced 20% over what I paid for it in 2007. He said he had to stretch abit, I knocked a few percent off, and deal was done. My first token transaction behind the table and one happy collector, what could be better.
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I ended up selling a few other coins including 2 I bought in the morning, and 1 last week, none of which ever had the chance to visit my photography stand at home, alas. But hey, thems the breaks. In either case a very good start to an intro Tuesday at ANA with the peak of activity still to likely come. I would say the buzz level was good, but not vibrant. There were alot of people in the aisles but not packed like I have seen at FUN or hopefully later in this ANA. But for a Tuesday it was I think pretty darned good and as forementioned, activity at my table was just fine. Thanks go out to the PCGS board members who came by, including @sedulous who scooped up some of the barbers q's sold. I recommend going to the Barber thread here on the boards to see what he collects, his barber sets are spectacular and I was lucky to sell him some to add.
More tomorrow, Best, DM
Comments
Glad to hear that all (eventually) worked out for you.
Let s know what is hot and in demand.
Thanks for your day 1 report.
Wayne
Kennedys are my quest...
I met Desert Moon at the January FUN show. Nice person with great coins.
Thank you for the show report. It helps those of us who couldn't get to the show!
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
Al, it was a pleasure to finally meet and get to visit with you and I wish you a great remainder of the show.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Yesterday I attended the WFOM show, which is the first large show I've attended, and only the second show (the first being in Grapevine TX) that I've ever attended. I still consider myself a novice collector, so take my comments with a grain of salt.
I was really impressed with the show. From my perspective, it looked well-attended with lots of buzz. It was great fun wandering among all the tables and talking with selected dealers. I got to meet Dan Carr (I have his 2022 Morgan dollar coins - I know I'm supposed to call them "tokens", but I call them coins), as well as some international dealers that I wanted to meet.
With previous advice from members on this forum, I decided to be a 2x20 collector (2 boxes with a maximum of 20 coins each). For my Morgan box, I was looking for a 1878-CC and found a great one. So success on that front. The focus of my second box is French 20-franc coins, and I was looking for a specific coin from 1803. I was unsuccessful on this front, but I learned something that will be obvious to most of you but was new to me.
Several international dealers had reduced or no inventory at show. In talking with them, I learned that some of these dealers carry their inventory with them when they travel to the show. Others ship at least part of their inventory. The dealers I spoke to said that, in their experience, US customs staff and shipping services staff (eg, Fedex) are unclear about how to implement the new US tariff laws. So even though coins are exempt from the tariffs, there's still the risk that someone will try to apply a tariff when the coins enter the country. Rather than take this risk or deal with the hassle, they chose to bring less or no inventory to the show. So collectors of non-US coins who have attended previous shows might find less inventory at this show. That's unfortunate, but it is what it is.
Despite the preceding, I will repeat that I really enjoyed the show, and I hope all the dealers have a successful week!
It was a great day for me. I ran into several old friends that I never see at the FUN show in January. The highlight was getting to chat with Mark Feld after all these years.
I spent the day just walking and learning the show and the area. I was impressed with all the security officers in place. It looked to me that there was a steady pace of collectors walking the isles.
Great Collections had a large table at the show. I was able to chat with Ian for a few. GC has been a great help to me in my mission to reduce the size of my collection.