Charmy's 2011 Portland PNNA Show Report w/Lots of Pics!
ThePennyLady
Posts: 4,473 ✭✭✭✭✭
Friday: I love visiting Portland, it’s always so green and lush, full of beautiful trees – it makes you feel like you’re in the mountains. When I arrived, I enjoyed seeing all the pretty colors of the trees – last year it rained quite a bit and the trees had already lost most of their leaves, so it was nice to see such beautiful fall colors.
The show is held at the DoubleTree hotel in Portland. Set up was from 3-6pm, then opened to the public on Saturday and Sunday.
After I was finished setting up my booth, we opened up a very nice bottle of Merlot (we shared it with a couple other dealers, so it didn’t last long!)
I then took a tour around the show, and checked out some of the exhibits.
And here are our wonderful, hardworking show promoters, Lisa and Scott Loos
This is Walter Ostromecki, the ANA VP – he does an amazing job putting together and running the kids’ treasure hunt program and the scout’s merit coin collecting merit badge class at the ANA shows and several other coin shows.
My table was on the kids’ treasure hunt – this time, they had to look for a lady bug sticker at the participating dealers’ tables – can you find the one at my table in this picture?
Then Friday night we went to one of my favorite restaurants – PF Changs. Since it’s always so crowded (especially on a Friday night), we usually eat (and drink) at the bar. This is a neat horse statute outside PF Changs
Me and my Portland buddy Ron
Glenn/PonyExpress also joined us.
Our hard-working cutie-pie bartenders!
This is the fortune cookie I got at PF Changs and fortune that was inside – seriously!
Saturday: Before the show, we went to breakfast at this wonderful place out in Lake Oswego – it has old fashioned décor and delicious eggs benedict!
When the show opened, there were quite a few people waiting to come in. Several forum members made it to the show and stopped by my table (of course, they are holding their new “The Penny Lady” copper coin cards!
Brian/Meltdown
David/SeattleSlammer
Realone (he wanted to remain incognito)
Matt/BillyGoatsGruff
Rob/Lostsisler
Jeff Shevlin and his grandson Toby
Karl/Kove
Me!
There was a definite “buzz” to the show for a good part of the day on Saturday; however, several dealers, including me, found that many customers were not looking to spend a lot of money, so sales in general were low. I heard that Portland has a very high unemployment rate, and they have been among the hardest hit states for home foreclosures, so I think many people were wanting to keep their money in their wallets in Portland.
Here’s the bottle of wine we had on Saturday – it was very yummy!
I was able to visit a couple of my favorite dealers, especially my wonderful Conder token dealer (Gary Groll) who recently moved to the Pacific Northwest.
Gary always has some wonderful Conder tokens! I picked out several that I fell in love with, then narrowed it down to three tokens: one is in an almost terminal die state (Middlesex 746), another is extremely rare (Middlesex 298), and the third one is not rare, but fun and pretty (Middlesex 1017) – I can’t wait to have Todd properly photograph them for me.
Gary also had on display in his case a very cool print, and two extremely rare books worth 6 figures.
This “Pig’s Meat” poster is an original hand-painted artwork relating to the “pig” Conder tokens
This issue of the Coin Collectors Companion was printed especially for Thomas Spence and includes some of Spence’s handwritten notes.
Rob/Lostsisler showed me a couple nice Lincolns that I bought, but then he pulled out this really beautiful 1877-S Seated Liberty Half LoveToken. As everyone knows, I am a copper lover and, other than some Native American silver rounds, I don’t own ANY silver coins. However, this piece just caught my eye, especially since it is the same date as the key date to the Indian cent series, so I decided to pull the trigger and buy it (shhhhh, don’t tell Todd or I’ll never hear the end of it!!!). It has beautiful engraving on the obverse in the fields on both sides of Liberty, and is in at least AU55-AU58 condition – all original.
On Saturday night, Ron and I went to another very good chain restaurant – the Claim Jumper. Again, it was packed (it happened to be Homecoming night for the local high school!), so we at the bar. I really like how decorative the draft beer pull handles are so I took another photo of them at the Claim Jumper (I also had taken a photo of the one at the German pub in Pittsburgh)!
I decided to have their house special Mai Tai – and boy was it yummy! They even added an extra orange slice and cherry for me!
Though their chicken tortilla soup was very tasty, I’m a spice wimp and it was a little too spicy for me, so I gave it to Ron
Sunday: When the show opened on Sunday, about a dozen or so people were waiting to come in. More trickled in but the show remained sparse throughout the day. Most people just wanted to stop by and chat which is fine, especially when the show is slow – and Sunday was very slow. I made a couple sales, then it was time to pack up and head to the airport for home!
Before I end my report, I wanted to relay a couple interesting events that occurred at this show, one good and one bad. I’ll start with the bad one. I didn’t get all the details but a dealer had put his inventory in his car after the show Saturday night (I’m not sure for how long or why he left it there), but someone apparently had watched him leave the show and then broke into his car and took the inventory (again, I’m not sure how much was taken but I heard it was significant). To me, this is sickening and heartbreaking. Security reminded all the dealers on Sunday morning to be extremely careful and diligent when leaving the show.
Now the good thing. On Saturday, an elderly couple who have been my customers for quite a while, were looking at some coins in my case when a dealer came over to speak with them. After the dealer left, the couple told me that they had just bought a beautiful 1916-D Mercury dime in PCGS AU58FB from this dealer for over $5,000, and that the dealer came over to tell them that he had made a mistake. Apparently, the dealer also had a 1916-D Mercury dime in PCGS XF45 and when he looked at his price list, he quoted the couple the price for the XF45 rather than the AU58 (for which he had paid over $10,000).
However, the dealer didn’t ask the couple for the coin back, nor any more money, he just wanted to make sure the couple knew that the 1916-D dime they bought was worth a lot more in case they intended to resell it.
So after the dealer left, the couple told me the story and asked what I thought they should do. I said if it were me, I wouldn’t feel comfortable keeping the coin under those circumstances, and that I would probably go back to the dealer and try to work something out that was more fair to both parties. The couple said they felt the same way. So when they were finished with our transaction, the couple went back over to the dealer and offered to “undo” the deal, either giving him more money or returning the coin. However, they were even more surprised when the dealer refused both and said it was his mistake and that he wanted the couple to keep the coin, and didn’t want any additional money either. Of course, the couple was quite surprised – and told me that, even though the dealer refused to take any additional money for the coin, they still intended to send him more money when they got home.
When the couple told me this, I too was very surprised because losing more than $5,000 on a deal due to a simple mistake would cause any dealer severe heart palpitations. So when I thought about including this story in my show report, I went over to the dealer to ask if he minded me using his name. I told him it was a very heartwarming story, and that it would really show the coin community that there are truly some honest and honorable dealers amongst us. However, the dealer said he really didn’t want any notoriety, and that yes, it was a “costly” mistake, but it was his mistake and he felt good about handling it this way.
So on that note, see you all in Baltimore!!
The show is held at the DoubleTree hotel in Portland. Set up was from 3-6pm, then opened to the public on Saturday and Sunday.
After I was finished setting up my booth, we opened up a very nice bottle of Merlot (we shared it with a couple other dealers, so it didn’t last long!)
I then took a tour around the show, and checked out some of the exhibits.
And here are our wonderful, hardworking show promoters, Lisa and Scott Loos
This is Walter Ostromecki, the ANA VP – he does an amazing job putting together and running the kids’ treasure hunt program and the scout’s merit coin collecting merit badge class at the ANA shows and several other coin shows.
My table was on the kids’ treasure hunt – this time, they had to look for a lady bug sticker at the participating dealers’ tables – can you find the one at my table in this picture?
Then Friday night we went to one of my favorite restaurants – PF Changs. Since it’s always so crowded (especially on a Friday night), we usually eat (and drink) at the bar. This is a neat horse statute outside PF Changs
Me and my Portland buddy Ron
Glenn/PonyExpress also joined us.
Our hard-working cutie-pie bartenders!
This is the fortune cookie I got at PF Changs and fortune that was inside – seriously!
Saturday: Before the show, we went to breakfast at this wonderful place out in Lake Oswego – it has old fashioned décor and delicious eggs benedict!
When the show opened, there were quite a few people waiting to come in. Several forum members made it to the show and stopped by my table (of course, they are holding their new “The Penny Lady” copper coin cards!
Brian/Meltdown
David/SeattleSlammer
Realone (he wanted to remain incognito)
Matt/BillyGoatsGruff
Rob/Lostsisler
Jeff Shevlin and his grandson Toby
Karl/Kove
Me!
There was a definite “buzz” to the show for a good part of the day on Saturday; however, several dealers, including me, found that many customers were not looking to spend a lot of money, so sales in general were low. I heard that Portland has a very high unemployment rate, and they have been among the hardest hit states for home foreclosures, so I think many people were wanting to keep their money in their wallets in Portland.
Here’s the bottle of wine we had on Saturday – it was very yummy!
I was able to visit a couple of my favorite dealers, especially my wonderful Conder token dealer (Gary Groll) who recently moved to the Pacific Northwest.
Gary always has some wonderful Conder tokens! I picked out several that I fell in love with, then narrowed it down to three tokens: one is in an almost terminal die state (Middlesex 746), another is extremely rare (Middlesex 298), and the third one is not rare, but fun and pretty (Middlesex 1017) – I can’t wait to have Todd properly photograph them for me.
Gary also had on display in his case a very cool print, and two extremely rare books worth 6 figures.
This “Pig’s Meat” poster is an original hand-painted artwork relating to the “pig” Conder tokens
This issue of the Coin Collectors Companion was printed especially for Thomas Spence and includes some of Spence’s handwritten notes.
Rob/Lostsisler showed me a couple nice Lincolns that I bought, but then he pulled out this really beautiful 1877-S Seated Liberty Half LoveToken. As everyone knows, I am a copper lover and, other than some Native American silver rounds, I don’t own ANY silver coins. However, this piece just caught my eye, especially since it is the same date as the key date to the Indian cent series, so I decided to pull the trigger and buy it (shhhhh, don’t tell Todd or I’ll never hear the end of it!!!). It has beautiful engraving on the obverse in the fields on both sides of Liberty, and is in at least AU55-AU58 condition – all original.
On Saturday night, Ron and I went to another very good chain restaurant – the Claim Jumper. Again, it was packed (it happened to be Homecoming night for the local high school!), so we at the bar. I really like how decorative the draft beer pull handles are so I took another photo of them at the Claim Jumper (I also had taken a photo of the one at the German pub in Pittsburgh)!
I decided to have their house special Mai Tai – and boy was it yummy! They even added an extra orange slice and cherry for me!
Though their chicken tortilla soup was very tasty, I’m a spice wimp and it was a little too spicy for me, so I gave it to Ron
Sunday: When the show opened on Sunday, about a dozen or so people were waiting to come in. More trickled in but the show remained sparse throughout the day. Most people just wanted to stop by and chat which is fine, especially when the show is slow – and Sunday was very slow. I made a couple sales, then it was time to pack up and head to the airport for home!
Before I end my report, I wanted to relay a couple interesting events that occurred at this show, one good and one bad. I’ll start with the bad one. I didn’t get all the details but a dealer had put his inventory in his car after the show Saturday night (I’m not sure for how long or why he left it there), but someone apparently had watched him leave the show and then broke into his car and took the inventory (again, I’m not sure how much was taken but I heard it was significant). To me, this is sickening and heartbreaking. Security reminded all the dealers on Sunday morning to be extremely careful and diligent when leaving the show.
Now the good thing. On Saturday, an elderly couple who have been my customers for quite a while, were looking at some coins in my case when a dealer came over to speak with them. After the dealer left, the couple told me that they had just bought a beautiful 1916-D Mercury dime in PCGS AU58FB from this dealer for over $5,000, and that the dealer came over to tell them that he had made a mistake. Apparently, the dealer also had a 1916-D Mercury dime in PCGS XF45 and when he looked at his price list, he quoted the couple the price for the XF45 rather than the AU58 (for which he had paid over $10,000).
However, the dealer didn’t ask the couple for the coin back, nor any more money, he just wanted to make sure the couple knew that the 1916-D dime they bought was worth a lot more in case they intended to resell it.
So after the dealer left, the couple told me the story and asked what I thought they should do. I said if it were me, I wouldn’t feel comfortable keeping the coin under those circumstances, and that I would probably go back to the dealer and try to work something out that was more fair to both parties. The couple said they felt the same way. So when they were finished with our transaction, the couple went back over to the dealer and offered to “undo” the deal, either giving him more money or returning the coin. However, they were even more surprised when the dealer refused both and said it was his mistake and that he wanted the couple to keep the coin, and didn’t want any additional money either. Of course, the couple was quite surprised – and told me that, even though the dealer refused to take any additional money for the coin, they still intended to send him more money when they got home.
When the couple told me this, I too was very surprised because losing more than $5,000 on a deal due to a simple mistake would cause any dealer severe heart palpitations. So when I thought about including this story in my show report, I went over to the dealer to ask if he minded me using his name. I told him it was a very heartwarming story, and that it would really show the coin community that there are truly some honest and honorable dealers amongst us. However, the dealer said he really didn’t want any notoriety, and that yes, it was a “costly” mistake, but it was his mistake and he felt good about handling it this way.
So on that note, see you all in Baltimore!!
0
Comments
Authorized dealer for PCGS, PCGS Currency, NGC, NCS, PMG, CAC. Member of the PNG, ANA. Member dealer of CoinPlex and CCE/FACTS as "CH5"
Thank you Charmy, for another wonderful trip report. That was some story about the '16-D. Amazing. Too bad about the theft though.
By the way, I found your lady bug.
Mike
Cheers, RickO
Is that Todd in the first pic setting up? I swear he looks almost EXACTLY like my best friend of 30 years.
And, is Realone giving his version of "talk to the hand"?
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
<< <i>Thank you so much for posting these
Is that Todd in the first pic setting up? I swear he looks almost EXACTLY like my best friend of 30 years.
And Realone giving his version of "talk to the hand"? >>
I am scared to think which one you think is me....
I'll try and see if I can find a recent ( within the last 10 years ) of my friend and send it to you. You'll see
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
<< <i>
I'll try and see if I can find a recent ( within the last 10 years ) of my friend and send it to you. You'll see
I hope you met him when you were 5......
The next show that comes around, I'm taking the weekend off and hanging out after the show with you all.
By the way, I think something might be wrong with your iphone...
Somehow I came out looking like a complete goofball in your photo.
Click on this link to see my ebay listings.
Now, if I don't get one of those "Penny Lady" tokens, I'm gonna bust!
Matt
Empty Nest Collection
Matt’s Mattes
Saturday was a good day for business, Sunday was awful.
Both days were great for chatting with some great folks at my table. I spent an hour Saturday with Mozin talking prooflike commems, and he came back for more punishment on Sunday (I don't think Mozin knew there was wine at Charmy's table!). Spent a great couple hours with folks like Jerry Bobbe, Doug Winter, and others, as well. I would like to have spent more time with SeattleSlammer and his cool crusty coins.
Lots of great coin people in the Northwest who made it to this show!
Hope everyone enjoys their newps.
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
GrandAm
I used to be famous now I just collect coins.
Link to My Registry Set.
https://pcgs.com/setregistry/quarters/washington-quarters-specialty-sets/washington-quarters-complete-variety-set-circulation-strikes-1932-1964/publishedset/78469
Varieties Are The Spice Of LIFE and Thanks to Those who teach us what to search For.
Proud recipient of Y.S. Award on 07/26/08.
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Michael Kittle Rare Coins --- 1908-S Indian Head Cent Grading Set --- No. 1 1909 Mint Set --- Kittlecoins on Facebook --- Long Beach Table 448
Kudos to the dealer who took the beating on the 16-D but honored his word - I know only good Karma will come to him. The buyers were wonderful to go back and try to work it out with him. Beautiful coin!
Thanks for sharing!
Kove and I had a great time talking Classic Commemoratives, and Jerry Bobbe joining in was an extra special treat. Jerry has been a friend for some time, but he usually spends his time talking tokens. These two gentlemen made this Portland Show the best in memory for me.
Those looking for Bust coins had little to view, as is usual for this show.
There are some areas of Portland where one best not be alone at night, but I am very surprised about the coin theft mentioned by Charmy.
Thanks for the report. D
thanks for sharing
Wow, that's an amazing and somewhat odd story about the 16-D. I don't really understand why the dealer didn't correct the deal given that it happened the same day and the buyers were so eager to make it right. Of course it's obviously an honest, good-guy seller, but perhaps also a glutton for punishment?
I enjoyed the show and picked this up for my gold type set from Revick at West Coast Coins. It's got really nice luster and orange peel toning in the devices--though you'd never guess it from my amateur pic.
As usual thanks for your great report!
AB
BGG
And that Middlesex is one wild hog.
The couple contacted me after I got home about something else and mentioned again that they couldn't sleep at night until they "made the 1916-D right." I think this story really shows some extraordinary selfless humanity on both sides of the table.
We all read a lot of stories on the message boards about someone getting slighted by a deal gone bad and people lashing out against the other party, or someone bragging about what a great deal they got by taking advantage of someone else's mistake, neglect, or simple naivety. But I think this 1916-D story reminds us that we are all human, we all make mistakes (some more costly than others), and reacting with professionalism, thoughtfulness and honor (instead of anger and defensiveness) can help us all sleep better at night!
The Penny Lady®
President, Racine Numismatic Society 2013-2014; Variety Resource Dimes; See 6/8/12 CDN for my article on Winged Liberty Dimes; Ebay
<< <i>Excellent! Is there any way for readers here to order the “The Penny Lady” copper coin cards? >>
I hope she will take the time to answer this. I want one too!!!!
<< <i>Excellent! Is there any way for readers here to order the “The Penny Lady” copper coin cards? >>
All you have to do is stop by my table at a show and sing "Red Red Wine,"
The Penny Lady®
<< <i>
<< <i>Excellent! Is there any way for readers here to order the “The Penny Lady” copper coin cards? >>
All you have to do is stop by my table at a show and sing "Red Red Wine,"
Warmin' up the vocal chords ...