FUN Report and Newps

messydesk · January 15, 2026 8:58AM

I've never seen a show this packed. Doomists and gloomists of yore lamenting being able to roll a bowling ball down the aisles are a faint memory of the past, although I'm not sure that was ever really the case for the FUN show. Supposedly there was a 1 hour wait to get in at one time and over 10,000 in attendance on Thursday alone. Still my favorite show of the year, despite the fact that Central States is a mere 15-minute drive from home. Got to see a lot of cool coins and chat and reconnect with a lot of people from this forum and others, but not enough time to visit with everyone as much as I'd have liked to. I was slammed almost all of Thursday doing photos, some from forum members here, some of which will show up in my 2027 calendar. My table benefactor (James Sego) had me shoot an 1855 Type 2 $1 Gold in PR65. 12 made. He said, "I'll bet this is the lowest mintage thing you've shot at this show," to which I responded, "You mean besides the 1827 proof quarters?"

On Friday afternoon, one of my lamps broke a few minutes before I headed to John Robert's 12 VAMs for 2026 presentation and VAM Thing XXII. A wire had gotten twisted once too often over the past 20+ years and broke. At VAM Thing, John Dannreuther did a presentation about 1895 Morgan dollars, John Roberts discussed the early vs. late die stages of the 1882-O/S dollars, and John Frost passed around an amazing board of 20 1888-O VAM 9 Morgans, all with different die rotations 0 - 180 degrees, and shared how it was pulled from an original bag in the 80s. I have pictures of this that I'll post later. I was later able to find a table lamp at an abandoned table got me through Saturday.

CACG had a grading contest this time, which I did Friday afternoon. The other services didn't. 25 coins in 20 minutes. They even had a "portable grading room," which was a table, chair, and small lamp in a black cube tent. Nice getaway from the show for 20 minutes. Not so nice if the person before you was a breakfast burrito afficionado, I guess, but that wasn't the case. They'll have results this week, since the internet was too spotty to use anything by paper test sheets for the contest.

I came home with a cool 1877-S Trade Dollar with a partial collar that I bought from Jon Sullivan. Not all that easy to see in a slab, but I cropped the picture so that you can see the fat rim on the obverse and the reeds in front of the rim on the reverse.

I got a couple bust halves from David Kahn to complete the basic date set with the exception of 1815. These are both graded AU55.

The last coin is a 1645 Lion Dollar from the Utrecht mint

Food and drink I had looked like one would imagine and the airports looked like they always do.

And then yesterday I went looking for a replacement lamp. It needed to be a gooseneck lamp that I could contort into my carry-on like I did the other one. Menards -- no luck. Home Depot -- no lamps (?). On my way to Walmart, I stopped in at Goodwill and found a nearly exact match for what had broken. Best $7 I spent yesterday.