Darkside gang back from ANA in Charlotte

Aethelred

Looks like I am the first of the Darksiders back home from the ANA. I had a great time with Ajaan, Lordmarcovan, Mongoose, Rhound and Spinaker. We also met Chris from Sentry Box Coins, Mrpaseo and I am told there was a Madmarty sighting, but I missed that (bummer, I wanted a weenee coin).

In a nutshell quality Darkside coins were in very short supply. I really can't recall a major show with less darkside material to choose from. I was able to pick up a few ancient Roman coins and add a few Pennies and Farthings to my sets, but even that took a lot of searching!

We should see Spinaker soon, LordM, Rhound and Mongoose may not make it home until later tonight and Ajaan is at the mercy of the airlines so who knows when we'll hear from him again.

I'll post some photos when I get unpacked.

ajaan

Just got back home. Will have a report later.

TwoKopeiki

Aethelred

Here is the Charlotte Hilton, the place most of the Darkside called home during the show.



We had dinner Friday and Saturday nights at Fujo, a great little Chinese place in the Hilton Plaza.



If you wanted to find us and we were not at the show, this would have been the place to check first, the bar in the Hilton (I bet they will need to restock now).



Here is most of the crew:



From left: Lordmarcovan, Mrs. Marcovan, Victoria, Rhound, Mrs. Ajaan, Ajaan, Spinaker, Aethelred, Queenie (also known as Mrs. Aethelred, Chris from Sentry Box Coins, Mongoose

My wife and I could not have asked for a better group of people to hang out with this weekend! While I enjoyed looking at and buying coins, the highlight of the trip was spending time with our old friends from the Darkside and making new ones.

trozau

Looks like everybody had a great time!

1jester

Welcome back home. It looks like y'all haven't aged a bit!

ajaan

My partial report.

It was one hell of a trip on Friday. Or, should I say the trip from hell.

Got to the Buffalo Airport at 9:30 for our 10:41 AM flight. Was told it is delayed because United screwed up and didn't have a crew to fly the plane from ORD-BUF. Finally left BUF 1 1/2 hours late. Missed out connecting flight in Washington, DC Dulles Airport. In Buffalo a very nice but incompetent agent gave us a slip of paper for a USAIR flight in case we missed out connecting UA flight, which we did. Went to USAIR at 1:30 for their 1:35 PM flight. Gave the paper to the USAIR ticketing agent, he looked at it and said, 'this isn't a ticket, only a confirmed reservation. Go back to UA and tell them to issue a ticket'. Went back to UA and customer service line was a good 2 hour wait long. Missed USAIR flight. Other flights to Charlotte from Dulles were 3:30pm and 5 PM. 3:30 pm flight was sold out. So was the 5PM flight, so UA said USAIR flight at 7:35pm was the best they could do. They did put us on standby for the 5 PM flight. At about 4 PM Dulles shut down for weather. At 6:45 we went back to USAIR to try to get on the 7:35pm flight. Got to USAIR and was told that flight was cancelled. Hurried back to UA to see if we could get on their 5 pm flight (standbye). At 7:40 PM we finally got on the 5pm flight, about 7 standby passengers got on the flight.

The 5PM flight backs awau from the gate at about 8:35PM to go get de-iced which took a long time after waiting. FINALLY, the UA 5pm flight took off at 9:15 PM. Arrived in Charlotte. Got to the hotel at 11:30 PM

So, we originally was scheduled to get to Charlotte at 2:14 PM and arrive 9 hours later.

Return flights today were great. Every flight on time.

TwoKopeiki

<< <i>So, we originally was scheduled to get to Charlotte at 2:14 PM and arrive 9 hours later. >>



Ouch, sorry to hear that I hope you at least picked-up some cool NEWPs.

ajaan

Now on to the show. Went to the show when it first opened on Saturday. Nice show, like the dead one said, a little slow for World Coins and the table that did have this type of material were very crowded. Some purchases:

1904 Maundy Set. Wonderful toning bought from Steve Dameron



Monaco 1879 20F for Mrs. ajaan's pre-1930 European Gold Set. Bought from Julian Lieberman



Thailand 1917 one Baht BU (also bought a 1916 of the same type) bought from Chris from Sentry Box



And a coin I bought from rhound, not at the show. 1944 Curacao 2.5 G with wonderful gold toning



I also bought a few other minor denomination Thai coins.

P.S. I got to meet 'THE CHICKEN' and madmarty too.

wybrit

It was one hell of a trip on Friday. Or, should I say the trip from hell.

Nice maundy set. Too bad Arsenal lost today.

cosmicdebris

That quite a group, I'll bet you guys had a blast. One of these days I am gonna get to party with you guys.

bidask

Nice pics! What is interesting is the comment that quality darkside coins were hard to be found, especially at an ANA show!?

coinpictures

Love the color on the Maundy!! Sorry about the flight fiascos... I haven't flown since the day of 9/11 (literally)... kinda glad for that actually...

ajaan

Here's another photo from the show. MadMarty's photo, hope he doesn't mind me showing it here. Please don't ask what the Chicken is doing.

SYRACUSIAN

Always nice to see a photo of the clan. Looks like you had fun. Good, because coinwise, you knew it would suck compared to NYINC or CICF.



Nice reports and photos, terrific maundy set, keep on that one Don, they get very hard like this.

JZrarities

Sweet Photo of the group !

Ajaan - sorry about the flight buit the Maundy set is nice.

The MM Chicken is back....

spinaker2000

I did OK coinwise, found some old copper. 1793 Bermuda 1d, three 1773 Virgina halfpennys (1 fine, 2 goods), some Canadian ship tokens, a nice Condor token (also with ship), oh! and 1781 Irish halfpenny NGC AU-55 just for St. Patricks Day!! Plus a few more.

Pics to be posted tomorrow.

Was a great time and plenty of Guiness consumed.

Tootawl

Sorry I didn't get the call about the group get-together.

Aethelred

Hate that we didn't get to see you Cliff!

Aethelred

I will post pics of the coins I bought in seperate threads.

spinaker2000

<< <i>Hate that we didn't get to see you Cliff! >>

rhound1977

I too had a great time, Mongoose and I got into town around 1530 Sunday, spent but relaxed and enjoyed the rendevous with the gang and new folks we met.

Edit to add: Some more pictures, we had drinks and dinner on Friday night that included; MrPaseo (green sweater) and a long time friend a former local
club member Gill ( grey beard)




left to right Chris, Gill, Terry, Joe, Marcie, Michael


right to left Ray and us.....


once again the gang

rhound1977

Just for the heck of it, here are some older events pictures:

#1 ANA Charlotte 2003


#2- 4 FUN 2004

1jester

One picture from 2004 is still conspicuous by its absence....yes, that one........Names will be withheld to protect the guilty....

rhound1977

<< <i>One picture from 2004 is still conspicuous by its absence....yes, that one........Names will be withheld to protect the guilty....

>>



I don't have that one, Don?

ajaan

Yes, I have it.

TwoKopeiki

<< <i>Yes, I have it. >>



And what are you planning to do about it?

mrpaseo

Well I have to tell you I had a GREAT time, thank you all for the hospatality (I bet I spelled that wrong, you have to thank public education for that)... I hope to do it again sometime soon, next time I'll bring along mrspaseo.

For the record, Mongoose made it happen for me, he was generous enough to invite me as his guest to my first ever major coin show (I went to one other that ended up in someones basement... don't ask). I have not met a more inviting group of people that took me right in as one of their own, sure there was some name calling and a few drinks (First time ever for Sa-ke' BTW) I have a wonderful time, I just hope to be invited again. Thanks Mongoose for not giving up on me, for those of you that don't know, he has kept his offer open to every coin show he has attended for a few years now. Thanks to me being in school (In Georgia) I was only a few hours away and I jumped on the opportunity to attend the show and meet some old friends... ironically that I never met before.

I believe over all I met about 12-15 forum members, a few light siders, a few that moved on to work for some grading companies (Tracy and Cammie.... that boy is tall I tell you) I walked around for a bit with Mad Marty (And yes I had my time with the chicken ) I spent some time with Coppercoins as well, he's a great guy and boy can he draw!

Glenn thanks for the awsome purple coin, and Joe for the Slabbed Britt coin, I think I might use that as a kick off for my next darkside set... Hopefully I will not spend a year in the desert but you know as well as I do it's inevitable.

Thank you all,
Ray

spinaker2000

Anytime Ray, it was our pleasure!!

Stork

Sounds like everyone had a great time! I tried to talk the family unit into going, but the conversation went something like this...

"How would everyone like to drive down to Charlotte for a coin show?"
"Don't you mean Charlottesville?"
"Nope, Charlotte"

Strangely enough, that was the end of the conversation. Suffice it to say, the 9 year old has learned how to roll his eyes with skill.

I was looking at Another Board (I lurk there occasionally while installing software...) and found this:

"My oldest daughter ran into Lord Marcovan from the PCGS Boards who was wearing a vest and top hat covered with holed coins pinned to the fabric. She stopped him and let him know how cool she thought his vest was, she has this thing for holed coins and coin related jewelry... and he gave her a New Prez Dollar in a 2x2! It was the highlight of the show for her."

Aethelred

<< <i> Well I have to tell you I had a GREAT time, thank you all for the hospatality (I bet I spelled that wrong, you have to thank public education for that)... I hope to do it again sometime soon, next time I'll bring along mrspaseo. >>



Ray, is was great to meet you and if you spelled "hospatality" wrong I'll never know.

coinkat

Its good to read that a great time was had by all

mongoose

I'll echo the dead one in saying that Dark material was tough at the show. I added an Austrian Netherlands coin and a handful of older Swiss Canton coins to my "One per" set. I only saw a few coins that stopped me in my tracks (Wm IIII British India - gold 2 mohurs with lion). I bought a few gem silvers from Mexico and Great Britain, and I did get to cherrypick a bag full of UNC to BU, already flipped, British India 1/4 Annas (selected 2 BU with rosy colors). I sold some better British coppers and the offers for quality material were decent.

The best part of the weekend was spending time again with the gang. There are always lots of laughs, dark beers, good food, and sweet coins from personal collections to view. The company, as always, was fantastic.

It was great to get mrpaseo at a show, given his situation we weren't sure if we would ever get to meet in person. I sure hope we get the chance to do it again, Ray...we need to further develop that Darkness in you.

Hopefully soon, we can all converge on NYINC or CICF.

Aethelred

<< <i>

The best part of the weekend was spending time again with the gang. There are always lots of laughs, dark beers, good food, and sweet coins from personal collections to view. The company, as always, was fantastic. >>



I agree, for me the highlight of these shows is getting together with the old timers of the Darkside over a drink (or several) and talking coins until the wee hours! I would have had a great time even if there was not a show going on.

ajaan

<< <i>is getting together with the old timers of the Darkside >>


geez! always bring up the age thing aren't you.

Aethelred

<< <i>

<< <i>is getting together with the old timers of the Darkside >>


geez! always bring up the age thing aren't you. >>



When I said "old timers" I was thinking of you (but not Kelly)!

lordmarcovan

Man, that Chinese restaurant was good. I wish the ones we have here were half as good.

Goober

That's it I'm taking a man trip next year! Wonder if there's a plane that will take me out of the mountains?