GACC Rosemont Show Report (better late than never...)

rarity7

Sorry for not sharing here sooner! Got our GACC Rosemont show report live and I'd love to hear any thoughts / feedback:

https://www.rarity7.com/blog/2025-10-gacc-rosemont-show-report

Overall summary: I was pleasantly surprised at the show! Tampa was kind of a bust last year so I (and others) had somewhat...tempered...expectations, but a few things really made Rosemont work -- great location (both city and venue in city), PCGS doing on-site grading, and good dealer attendance. Frankly it would have been surprising to me if the show had NOT been good - hard to screw things up when so many strong tailwinds are blowing.

Off to PAN tomorrow....(see you all there?)

Catbert

Nice report. I like the uncluttered layout, the short comments underscored by nice pictures; just well done, Noah!

pcgsregistrycollector

Very great report. Stunning photos! I always like the food pictures too...makes me hungry!

pcgscacgold

Thanks for the report. So far I have heard a lot of good comments from dealers. All the way to Epic show. Only one dealer has said it was not a good show. That was Laura at Legend.

lermish

Great report as always!

@pcgscacgold said:
Only one dealer has said it was not a good show. That was Laura at Legend.

If anything coin business related is not exactly to her liking, Laura's feathers seem easily ruffled.

DDR

Nice report, interesting and informative.

usararecoins

Excellent report and thanks for including photos. See you in January.

VKurtB

I took some hits here for stating my own unique reasons for not doing the Rosemont show, AND I STAND BY THEM! They will likely keep me away from the ANA show in 2027. I just got home from PAN where I was the noon Friday speaker. On the way up to LeMont on Thursday night, I asked several COLLECTORS about the Rosemont CACS show. The opinion was that Nashville IMEX was better than Rosemont. These were friends of friends and 100% COLLECTORS. Not a dealer among them.

Catbert

@VKurtB said:
I took some hits here for stating my own unique reasons for not doing the Rosemont show, AND I STAND BY THEM! They will likely keep me away from the ANA show in 2027. I just got home from PAN where I was the noon Friday speaker. On the way up to LeMont on Thursday night, I asked several COLLECTORS about the Rosemont CACS show. The opinion was that Nashville IMEX was better than Rosemont. These were friends of friends and 100% COLLECTORS. Not a dealer among them.

Did they give you a medal for the drive up from Alabama? 😉

lermish

@Catbert said:

@VKurtB said:
I took some hits here for stating my own unique reasons for not doing the Rosemont show, AND I STAND BY THEM! They will likely keep me away from the ANA show in 2027. I just got home from PAN where I was the noon Friday speaker. On the way up to LeMont on Thursday night, I asked several COLLECTORS about the Rosemont CACS show. The opinion was that Nashville IMEX was better than Rosemont. These were friends of friends and 100% COLLECTORS. Not a dealer among them.

Did they give you a medal for the drive up from Alabama? 😉

He didn't FLY he DROVE. Traffic was ACCEPTABLE and he was able to make it TO the show in LESS time than it would HAVE taken to fly.

VKurtB

@lermish said:

@Catbert said:

@VKurtB said:
I took some hits here for stating my own unique reasons for not doing the Rosemont show, AND I STAND BY THEM! They will likely keep me away from the ANA show in 2027. I just got home from PAN where I was the noon Friday speaker. On the way up to LeMont on Thursday night, I asked several COLLECTORS about the Rosemont CACS show. The opinion was that Nashville IMEX was better than Rosemont. These were friends of friends and 100% COLLECTORS. Not a dealer among them.

Did they give you a medal for the drive up from Alabama? 😉

He didn't FLY he DROVE. Traffic was ACCEPTABLE and he was able to make it TO the show in LESS time than it would HAVE taken to fly.

It’s close, given the need to suffer really bad airport connections and a far out of town airport at BOTH ends. Yes, I did drive, 700 miles each way. I left Monroeville at 1:30 PM on Saturday, and rolled into Arab, Alabama at 12:30AM Sunday morning. 12 hours on the road and a 1 hour time zone pickup. What makes 700 miles each way more palatable for Monroeville is NOT having to deal with Chicagoland traffic at the destination end. I didn’t pay a dime to park either. Economically, ONLY driving makes sense. Tom Uram asked me to tease my Friday noon talk at the Thursday night banquet. I went slightly more upscale for my hotel, but still waaaaaay lower than in Rosemont.

VKurtB

I drive to Orlando (700 miles), Pittsburgh (700 miles), Oklahoma City (700 miles), and Rosemont is also 700 miles. The difference is that after 700 miles at Chicagoland, there are more hassles than could ever be worth it.

I did get some advice from a friend. See what kind of connection I can find into Milwaukee and take the train to Rosemont. John Wilson, former Milwaukee resident.

VKurtB

@Catbert said:

@VKurtB said:
I took some hits here for stating my own unique reasons for not doing the Rosemont show, AND I STAND BY THEM! They will likely keep me away from the ANA show in 2027. I just got home from PAN where I was the noon Friday speaker. On the way up to LeMont on Thursday night, I asked several COLLECTORS about the Rosemont CACS show. The opinion was that Nashville IMEX was better than Rosemont. These were friends of friends and 100% COLLECTORS. Not a dealer among them.

Did they give you a medal for the drive up from Alabama? 😉

@Catbert said:

@VKurtB said:
I took some hits here for stating my own unique reasons for not doing the Rosemont show, AND I STAND BY THEM! They will likely keep me away from the ANA show in 2027. I just got home from PAN where I was the noon Friday speaker. On the way up to LeMont on Thursday night, I asked several COLLECTORS about the Rosemont CACS show. The opinion was that Nashville IMEX was better than Rosemont. These were friends of friends and 100% COLLECTORS. Not a dealer among them.

Did they give you a medal for the drive up from Alabama? 😉

@Catbert said:

@VKurtB said:
I took some hits here for stating my own unique reasons for not doing the Rosemont show, AND I STAND BY THEM! They will likely keep me away from the ANA show in 2027. I just got home from PAN where I was the noon Friday speaker. On the way up to LeMont on Thursday night, I asked several COLLECTORS about the Rosemont CACS show. The opinion was that Nashville IMEX was better than Rosemont. These were friends of friends and 100% COLLECTORS. Not a dealer among them.

Did they give you a medal for the drive up from Alabama? 😉

Well, it was mentioned at the LeMont banquet. I go because Pennsylvania is my original home.

lermish

@VKurtB said:

@Catbert said:

@VKurtB said:
I took some hits here for stating my own unique reasons for not doing the Rosemont show, AND I STAND BY THEM! They will likely keep me away from the ANA show in 2027. I just got home from PAN where I was the noon Friday speaker. On the way up to LeMont on Thursday night, I asked several COLLECTORS about the Rosemont CACS show. The opinion was that Nashville IMEX was better than Rosemont. These were friends of friends and 100% COLLECTORS. Not a dealer among them.

Did they give you a medal for the drive up from Alabama? 😉

@Catbert said:

@VKurtB said:
I took some hits here for stating my own unique reasons for not doing the Rosemont show, AND I STAND BY THEM! They will likely keep me away from the ANA show in 2027. I just got home from PAN where I was the noon Friday speaker. On the way up to LeMont on Thursday night, I asked several COLLECTORS about the Rosemont CACS show. The opinion was that Nashville IMEX was better than Rosemont. These were friends of friends and 100% COLLECTORS. Not a dealer among them.

Did they give you a medal for the drive up from Alabama? 😉

@Catbert said:

@VKurtB said:
I took some hits here for stating my own unique reasons for not doing the Rosemont show, AND I STAND BY THEM! They will likely keep me away from the ANA show in 2027. I just got home from PAN where I was the noon Friday speaker. On the way up to LeMont on Thursday night, I asked several COLLECTORS about the Rosemont CACS show. The opinion was that Nashville IMEX was better than Rosemont. These were friends of friends and 100% COLLECTORS. Not a dealer among them.

Did they give you a medal for the drive up from Alabama? 😉

Well, it was mentioned at the LeMont banquet. I go because Pennsylvania is my original home.

I was going to let it go but since you made three posts in a row about it and clearly missed the jokes...we are teasing you because an inordinately high percentage of your posts are about how you drive to shows, why you drive to shows, the various routes you take, distances from airports, etc etc ad nauseam.

We get it. From an earlier post of yours, you have a "leather ass".

You have a distinctive viewpoint and a lot of history to share. We would love to hear it. Pretty much the least interesting thing you can go on about is your driving habits.

SeattleSlammer

Sweet report and pics! Did JA suffer a concussion just before beaning that ‘95 Morgan proof?

VKurtB

Well, it was mentioned at the LeMont banquet. I go because Pennsylvania is my original home.

I was going to let it go but since you made three posts in a row about it and clearly missed the jokes...we are teasing you because an inordinately high percentage of your posts are about how you drive to shows, why you drive to shows, the various routes you take, distances from airports, etc etc ad nauseam.

We get it. From an earlier post of yours, you have a "leather ass".

You have a distinctive viewpoint and a lot of history to share. We would love to hear it. Pretty much the least interesting thing you can go on about is your driving habits.

It’s not due to one thing, it’s two. Yes, I was literally trained to be a long distance driver by my dad, whose first career was, ironically, as a pilot. But he was also an Airstream travel trailer nut dating back to 1960. So yah, I’m genetically inclined to drive distances. My old man truly hated commercial passenger air travel. But the other side of the coin, to turn a phrase, is that my wife tells me that Huntsville, Alabama in most years has THE HIGHEST AVERAGE AIRLINE FARES in the entire USA. I haven’t checked, but it sure sounds plausible based on what I’ve seen.

We have the American era of Werner von Braun’s career located here, and I’ve decided to take a day this coming January to visit his umm, err, prior place of employment at Peenemunde, Deutschland before the Berlin World Money Fair opens. I have always been a rocketry fan.

Yup, I’ll be flying for that trip, out of Atlanta. And my airfare to Berlin will be cheaper than trying to fly to O’Hare from Huntsville. Now you may not find that remarkable or interesting, but I find it both ironic AND annoying. Perhaps some airline has a sweet fare into Milwaukee that makes flying to get to the general Chicagoland area plausible. I sure hope so. It’ll have to be non-direct, for sure.

The point is, details matter. And our commercial aviation assets are neither fairly, nor even reasonably distributed geographically. Just like there are great Amtrak service towns (fairly few) and really crummy passenger rail towns (most of them). We don’t often ascribe that bizarre distribution of service to air travel, but it exists just the same. It frankly “urines” me off.