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Charmy's BIG HUGE FUN SHOW REPORT with way too many photos!!!
ThePennyLady
Posts: 4,444 ✭✭✭✭✭
WOW!!! That is the best word I have to describe this year’s FUN show! It was by far the best show I have EVER had, and I haven’t found anyone else, collector or dealer, who had anything negative to say about this show. Even aside from the one huge sale I had, I sold more at this show than any other show. And from set up day to when I left, the bourse had a buzz and was filled with people. All the dealers I spoke with all said they had very strong sales and lots of new purchases. One dealer even said he couldn’t believe the amounts of money that were being exchanged at this show. If the FUN show is any indication, numismatically speaking, this year is off to a great start!
So let me just give you a bit of a warning - I took a TON of photos at this show. I couldn’t believe how many forum members stopped by my table to say hi and allowed me to include them in my show report. And there were so many great exhibits that I took a record number of photos of those too. So grab a glass of wine or beer or other favorite beverage, sit back, relax, and hopefully you’ll enjoy this photo-intensive FUN show report!
I arrived at the OC airport early Tuesday morning for my flight to Orlando. My flight had a brief layover in Houston and then would land in Orlando that evening.
I always enjoy having a seat near the front of the plane, and at one point the door to the cocxpit was left open and I was amazed at how many controls there are!
While in Houston, I took the opportunity to grab some lunch at Pappadeaux’s Seafood restaurant. While I was chatting with the guy next to me at the bar, his lunch order arrived and he told me he was having alligator. He offered me a taste, and while I was quite hesitant, I decided to try a bite – it tasted sort of like chicken and wasn’t bad at all.
Instead of a hotel room, I usually rent a condo since it costs a lot less than a hotel, and has a kitchen, etc. It’s only a mile or so away from the convention center and is very nice and comfy.
This is a view of the convention center area from my condo at night and in the morning.
On Wednesday I arrived at the convention center a little early, so I wondered around and took some photos before set up time.
I love this photo!
Set up started at 2pm on Thursday. The weather in Orlando this year was quite hot and humid, and the air conditioning didn’t kick in on the convention floor for a couple hours which made setting up our booths a little uncomfortable. But that didn’t deter any of the buying and selling activity on the floor, which there was plenty of! Several of the usual dealers brought me lots of pretty copper to look at (it’s nice to have a specialty because the dealers know that all I want to look at is copper and they often bring it to my table!).
One dealer brought me the most beautiful 1955/55 that I have seen, so I couldn’t resist buying it for my personal collection – now I’ll have to change my sig line!!
I also picked up some Conder tokens that I had in for grading. Todd took photos of these and the 1955/55 so when I get those, I’ll post them in a separate thread.
Set up went all the way until 8pm so it gave everyone plenty of time to set up and peruse the floor! After the show on Wednesday, a large group of us went over to my favorite restaurant in Orlando – Ming Court.
The koi had a feeding frenzy!!!
Here are some of the folks we dined with….
Bonnie and her daughter Fawn
Andy, Greg Bingham and Larry Shepherd
Ron and Karin (Rick’s assistant)
Rick Snow and me
Here’s the wine we enjoyed with dinner – it was wonderful!
We even had some of my most favorite appetizer – pan fried dumplings/pot stickers – mmmmmm!
This sign was on the sidewalk area down the street from the restaurant – I thought it was kind of amusing….
I arrived at the show a little early on Thursday morning and took a few photos of the registration area.
This is the escalator on the registration level that takes you down to the bourse floor
The bourse floor before it opened
From a business standpoint, I think it is better not to be set up right next to one’s competitor; however, I guess the FUN show coordinators don’t really pay attention to that when assigning tables. So when Todd found out our table number and looked to see where we were located, he called me and asked if I knew who we were going to be set up next to. I said no, and said, “Why, is it some grouchy unpleasant dealer?” Todd laughed and said it was Rick Snow! It actually worked out just fine since we often refer customers back and forth.
When the show opened on Thursday, the room filled up very quickly and soon forum members began stopping by my table. I took so many photos of forum members this time that I ran out of room on my little marker board! In no particular order, the following are all the people I took photos of throughout the show (please forgive me if I mess up anyone’s name!):
Wayne/AuroraBorialis
And some gorgeously toned coins Wayne showed me – check out the Oregon Trail Commem – WOW!!
Winston/Stone
Emily Silver/ANA Convention Assistant
Robert/RYK
Larry/Ldhair
Pat/WindyCity (didn’t get his wife’s name)
Greg/Keyman64
Greg/WalkerGuy21D
Take a guess!
Sam/SaltySam (CoinTalk)
Gary/TheHammer (member of the Walking Dead Battalion from Vietnam)
John Schuck, Jr./NGC
John/SilverBaron
Paul/FiveCents
Carl/GeorgeKellogg
John/DimeMan
Ben/HCumberdale
Bob/WaterSport
Jeff/JustMakesCents
Jesse/CBJesse and Josh/Englehardian
John Feigenbaum and John Brush of David Lawrence Rare Coins
Ian Russell of GreatCollections.com
Brian/HighRelief (forgot to get his wife’s name)
Matt/BillyGoat of Pinnacle Rarities
Al/Hardtimes
Jerry/YellowKid
Stuart Blay/StuartBlayNumis
Jesse LeBlanc and Steve Price (and me)
Shane/KriptoniteComics
Chris/Cpm9ball (CoinTalk)
Ron Guth/PCGS
Mel/Bolivarshagnasty
Doug/GDJMSP (CoinTalk)
PCGS folks!
Almost forgot to mention that Wei stopped by too. Of course he is at every show so I see him quite a bit, so he prefers not to be photoed for every show. Also, I forgot to take a picture of DennisH - he stepped in and was a huge help at my table when I had to leave for one of my meetings - thank you Dennis!!!
The bourse floor
And this young lady with the stunning shoes is a friend of one of the dealers we went to dinner with, so I just had to take a photo of her glittery shoes. She wore them all day at the show – I can’t imagine how sore her feet were after being on the hard concrete of the bourse floor all day!
This is the only wine I could find to bring to the show for our afternoon wine time. It wasn’t too bad in a pinch!
Thursday after the show we went to Vito’s Chop House for dinner.
This was a stack of wine crates that were across from our table. These are some amazing wines!!!
Their lobster bisque was a bit salty but very tasty.
Their sesame crusted tuna came on a marble slab
Their veal brunello
Our table had two bottles of this delicious wine!
I snapped this famous crooked house we drove by on International Drive
And here’s a nighttime view of the convention center
Friday morning was the forum breakfast at Denny’s. We had a great time chatting with and getting to know each other! Please forgive me but I can’t find my notes on the names of all the attendees so if any of you know the names of the people I missed, please let me know! A big thanks to Karin (Rick Snow’s assistant) who is taking the photo!
Left: Jerry (YellowKid), Me, Glenn Holsonbake (PonyExpress), Mike (MFH), Lenny
Right: Rick Snow (EagleEye), Winston (Stone), John (Dimeman), Can’t remember name of gentleman on the end but his user name on the Paper Money forum is 2ndCharter
Before the public was let in on Friday, I took a few minutes to view the exhibits. The big stand out for me was Al Weinberg’s non-competitive Chain Cent exhibit!
There were so many very interesting and well done exhibits that I couldn’t photograph all of them. Here are some I personally enjoyed…
At 10am on Friday morning, the folks who originally authenticated the finally discovered 5th 1913 nickel “recreated” the event.
This is an absolutely amazing Large Cent collection on display at the PCGS table!
At 1:30pm on Friday, I attended the meeting of the Fly-In Club. Chris Pilliod gave a very interesting presentation on Indian Cent Exonumatica, showing examples of elongates, encasements, love tokens, punchouts, counterstamps, contemporary counterfeits, restrikes, and more!
If you happen to stop by my table late Friday afternoon, you might have seen me dancing around my table with a big grin on my face! A new customer who was putting together a +/- PCGS MS64 RB Indian cent collection was referred to me and told I might be able to help him. He ended up buying enough coins to complete about 90% of his collection in one swoop! OMG! Of course I was ecstatic with such a huge sale, and very thrilled to have been able to help him almost complete his set, and VERY VERY grateful for the referral! I’ve never had a customer try to put together a set in one day! Needless to say, drinks were on me that night!!!
So after dinner on Friday night, guess where we ended up? Yep, my favorite dueling piano bar – Howl at the Moon!!! Of course, we had a great time!!!
Next to wine, I love a nice gold Guinness! (No Irish car bombs this time around!)
When we got there, the place was completely packed! Even the “anything goes” message boards already had high $$ if you wanted to post a new message (you have to pay at least $1 more than the last person to post a new message)
They did a little shake your booty contest to the song “I love big butts”!
These were a couple of the piano players dancing on the pianos – they were a hoot!!!
This is Mark, one of the guys in our group, getting a whipped cream jello shot squirt! I even had one – they were very yummy (and didn’t contain much alcohol)!
This is me after my jello squirt!
This is another guy getting a squirt!
The very adorable jello squirt girl
Saturday – since I am now on the board of WIN (Women in Numismatics), I woke up very early on Saturday morning to attend our board meeting at 8am, followed by a general meeting at 9am – and even being out Friday night, I wasn’t even late to my meeting! Let me give a big public thanks to our wonderful hardworking, very passionate president, Lorraine, who was retiring from the board, for all of her years of service!!!
Saturday was as busy as every other day at the show. I was quite surprised to see a full bourse floor at noon on Saturday since it seems at most shows these days that a lot of dealers are gone by noon on Saturday. But that wasn’t the case for this show – business was still booming! However, having a flight back home Saturday evening, I unfortunately had to leave by 3pm. I would have liked to stay through Sunday so I think next year I will see if I can make that work.
The FUN show was so very busy and an extremely successful show for me, and Orlando was very beautiful, warm and sunny, but I was really looking forward to getting back home!
Here are some pretty photos I took from my plane as the sun was setting above the clouds
That’s finally it for this show report – I’m headed to a show in Tucson (Arizona) later this week, then back to San Jose (Northern California), then Long Beach! Love it!!!
So let me just give you a bit of a warning - I took a TON of photos at this show. I couldn’t believe how many forum members stopped by my table to say hi and allowed me to include them in my show report. And there were so many great exhibits that I took a record number of photos of those too. So grab a glass of wine or beer or other favorite beverage, sit back, relax, and hopefully you’ll enjoy this photo-intensive FUN show report!
I arrived at the OC airport early Tuesday morning for my flight to Orlando. My flight had a brief layover in Houston and then would land in Orlando that evening.
I always enjoy having a seat near the front of the plane, and at one point the door to the cocxpit was left open and I was amazed at how many controls there are!
While in Houston, I took the opportunity to grab some lunch at Pappadeaux’s Seafood restaurant. While I was chatting with the guy next to me at the bar, his lunch order arrived and he told me he was having alligator. He offered me a taste, and while I was quite hesitant, I decided to try a bite – it tasted sort of like chicken and wasn’t bad at all.
Instead of a hotel room, I usually rent a condo since it costs a lot less than a hotel, and has a kitchen, etc. It’s only a mile or so away from the convention center and is very nice and comfy.
This is a view of the convention center area from my condo at night and in the morning.
On Wednesday I arrived at the convention center a little early, so I wondered around and took some photos before set up time.
I love this photo!
Set up started at 2pm on Thursday. The weather in Orlando this year was quite hot and humid, and the air conditioning didn’t kick in on the convention floor for a couple hours which made setting up our booths a little uncomfortable. But that didn’t deter any of the buying and selling activity on the floor, which there was plenty of! Several of the usual dealers brought me lots of pretty copper to look at (it’s nice to have a specialty because the dealers know that all I want to look at is copper and they often bring it to my table!).
One dealer brought me the most beautiful 1955/55 that I have seen, so I couldn’t resist buying it for my personal collection – now I’ll have to change my sig line!!
I also picked up some Conder tokens that I had in for grading. Todd took photos of these and the 1955/55 so when I get those, I’ll post them in a separate thread.
Set up went all the way until 8pm so it gave everyone plenty of time to set up and peruse the floor! After the show on Wednesday, a large group of us went over to my favorite restaurant in Orlando – Ming Court.
The koi had a feeding frenzy!!!
Here are some of the folks we dined with….
Bonnie and her daughter Fawn
Andy, Greg Bingham and Larry Shepherd
Ron and Karin (Rick’s assistant)
Rick Snow and me
Here’s the wine we enjoyed with dinner – it was wonderful!
We even had some of my most favorite appetizer – pan fried dumplings/pot stickers – mmmmmm!
This sign was on the sidewalk area down the street from the restaurant – I thought it was kind of amusing….
I arrived at the show a little early on Thursday morning and took a few photos of the registration area.
This is the escalator on the registration level that takes you down to the bourse floor
The bourse floor before it opened
From a business standpoint, I think it is better not to be set up right next to one’s competitor; however, I guess the FUN show coordinators don’t really pay attention to that when assigning tables. So when Todd found out our table number and looked to see where we were located, he called me and asked if I knew who we were going to be set up next to. I said no, and said, “Why, is it some grouchy unpleasant dealer?” Todd laughed and said it was Rick Snow! It actually worked out just fine since we often refer customers back and forth.
When the show opened on Thursday, the room filled up very quickly and soon forum members began stopping by my table. I took so many photos of forum members this time that I ran out of room on my little marker board! In no particular order, the following are all the people I took photos of throughout the show (please forgive me if I mess up anyone’s name!):
Wayne/AuroraBorialis
And some gorgeously toned coins Wayne showed me – check out the Oregon Trail Commem – WOW!!
Winston/Stone
Emily Silver/ANA Convention Assistant
Robert/RYK
Larry/Ldhair
Pat/WindyCity (didn’t get his wife’s name)
Greg/Keyman64
Greg/WalkerGuy21D
Take a guess!
Sam/SaltySam (CoinTalk)
Gary/TheHammer (member of the Walking Dead Battalion from Vietnam)
John Schuck, Jr./NGC
John/SilverBaron
Paul/FiveCents
Carl/GeorgeKellogg
John/DimeMan
Ben/HCumberdale
Bob/WaterSport
Jeff/JustMakesCents
Jesse/CBJesse and Josh/Englehardian
John Feigenbaum and John Brush of David Lawrence Rare Coins
Ian Russell of GreatCollections.com
Brian/HighRelief (forgot to get his wife’s name)
Matt/BillyGoat of Pinnacle Rarities
Al/Hardtimes
Jerry/YellowKid
Stuart Blay/StuartBlayNumis
Jesse LeBlanc and Steve Price (and me)
Shane/KriptoniteComics
Chris/Cpm9ball (CoinTalk)
Ron Guth/PCGS
Mel/Bolivarshagnasty
Doug/GDJMSP (CoinTalk)
PCGS folks!
Almost forgot to mention that Wei stopped by too. Of course he is at every show so I see him quite a bit, so he prefers not to be photoed for every show. Also, I forgot to take a picture of DennisH - he stepped in and was a huge help at my table when I had to leave for one of my meetings - thank you Dennis!!!
The bourse floor
And this young lady with the stunning shoes is a friend of one of the dealers we went to dinner with, so I just had to take a photo of her glittery shoes. She wore them all day at the show – I can’t imagine how sore her feet were after being on the hard concrete of the bourse floor all day!
This is the only wine I could find to bring to the show for our afternoon wine time. It wasn’t too bad in a pinch!
Thursday after the show we went to Vito’s Chop House for dinner.
This was a stack of wine crates that were across from our table. These are some amazing wines!!!
Their lobster bisque was a bit salty but very tasty.
Their sesame crusted tuna came on a marble slab
Their veal brunello
Our table had two bottles of this delicious wine!
I snapped this famous crooked house we drove by on International Drive
And here’s a nighttime view of the convention center
Friday morning was the forum breakfast at Denny’s. We had a great time chatting with and getting to know each other! Please forgive me but I can’t find my notes on the names of all the attendees so if any of you know the names of the people I missed, please let me know! A big thanks to Karin (Rick Snow’s assistant) who is taking the photo!
Left: Jerry (YellowKid), Me, Glenn Holsonbake (PonyExpress), Mike (MFH), Lenny
Right: Rick Snow (EagleEye), Winston (Stone), John (Dimeman), Can’t remember name of gentleman on the end but his user name on the Paper Money forum is 2ndCharter
Before the public was let in on Friday, I took a few minutes to view the exhibits. The big stand out for me was Al Weinberg’s non-competitive Chain Cent exhibit!
There were so many very interesting and well done exhibits that I couldn’t photograph all of them. Here are some I personally enjoyed…
At 10am on Friday morning, the folks who originally authenticated the finally discovered 5th 1913 nickel “recreated” the event.
This is an absolutely amazing Large Cent collection on display at the PCGS table!
At 1:30pm on Friday, I attended the meeting of the Fly-In Club. Chris Pilliod gave a very interesting presentation on Indian Cent Exonumatica, showing examples of elongates, encasements, love tokens, punchouts, counterstamps, contemporary counterfeits, restrikes, and more!
If you happen to stop by my table late Friday afternoon, you might have seen me dancing around my table with a big grin on my face! A new customer who was putting together a +/- PCGS MS64 RB Indian cent collection was referred to me and told I might be able to help him. He ended up buying enough coins to complete about 90% of his collection in one swoop! OMG! Of course I was ecstatic with such a huge sale, and very thrilled to have been able to help him almost complete his set, and VERY VERY grateful for the referral! I’ve never had a customer try to put together a set in one day! Needless to say, drinks were on me that night!!!
So after dinner on Friday night, guess where we ended up? Yep, my favorite dueling piano bar – Howl at the Moon!!! Of course, we had a great time!!!
Next to wine, I love a nice gold Guinness! (No Irish car bombs this time around!)
When we got there, the place was completely packed! Even the “anything goes” message boards already had high $$ if you wanted to post a new message (you have to pay at least $1 more than the last person to post a new message)
They did a little shake your booty contest to the song “I love big butts”!
These were a couple of the piano players dancing on the pianos – they were a hoot!!!
This is Mark, one of the guys in our group, getting a whipped cream jello shot squirt! I even had one – they were very yummy (and didn’t contain much alcohol)!
This is me after my jello squirt!
This is another guy getting a squirt!
The very adorable jello squirt girl
Saturday – since I am now on the board of WIN (Women in Numismatics), I woke up very early on Saturday morning to attend our board meeting at 8am, followed by a general meeting at 9am – and even being out Friday night, I wasn’t even late to my meeting! Let me give a big public thanks to our wonderful hardworking, very passionate president, Lorraine, who was retiring from the board, for all of her years of service!!!
Saturday was as busy as every other day at the show. I was quite surprised to see a full bourse floor at noon on Saturday since it seems at most shows these days that a lot of dealers are gone by noon on Saturday. But that wasn’t the case for this show – business was still booming! However, having a flight back home Saturday evening, I unfortunately had to leave by 3pm. I would have liked to stay through Sunday so I think next year I will see if I can make that work.
The FUN show was so very busy and an extremely successful show for me, and Orlando was very beautiful, warm and sunny, but I was really looking forward to getting back home!
Here are some pretty photos I took from my plane as the sun was setting above the clouds
That’s finally it for this show report – I’m headed to a show in Tucson (Arizona) later this week, then back to San Jose (Northern California), then Long Beach! Love it!!!
Charmy HarkerThe Penny Lady®
0
Comments
Dave
John
HOF SIGNED FOOTBALL RCS
Great report, as always.
EAC 6024
“I may not believe in myself but I believe in what I’m doing” ~Jimmy Page~
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947)
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
I never knew there was so much heavy drinking and partying at these shows.
I love the:
people....nice to put a face to the forum name
koi pond....love the fish
55 ddo....absolutely stunning
conder tokens.....a few look like the ones I have
Guess who......have tell us who it is
the bourse floor
Heck I love it all and I say this every year.........but I will make it there one day!
Ohhhhh forgot the Chain Cents!!!! drool
.
CoinsAreFun Toned Silver Eagle Proof Album
.
Gallery Mint Museum, Ron Landis& Joe Rust, The beginnings of the Golden Dollar
.
More CoinsAreFun Pictorials NGC
Looking for Top Pop Mercury Dime Varieties & High Grade Mercury Dime Toners.
And pleassseee don't forget:
<< <i>Todd took photos of these and the 1955/55 so when I get those, I’ll post them in a separate thread. >>
I'm drooling over that DDO and can't wait!
Awesome report. Glad to hear people were spending and there was a buzz in the air. Can't believe the door to the cocpit was left open. Thought it was SOP to always have it closed? Thanks for sharing all the pics, it's like one big party. I wanna job like that
Another great image of Mr. Feld was taken I see.
Mike
And if you can't tell a coin geek by his shirt, just look at what hangs around our neck. It's not a tie, but it's a tie.
Many thanks. I see you had fun! I can't handle big shows like that anymore - crowds etc. I used to love them - early in at setup, man a table or two for a friend needing a break for this or that, wander the floor, find the goods or die trying and enjoying myself. Now, I can barely handle the transport shows and ocean liner bazaars anymore. I can think straight, asses merchandise, conditions and prices - but I am a nervous wreck all the while and get ill. I was not always like this - something happened.
So, this was a nice way to see the show! THANKS for all the neat pictures! Love the crescent moon in that one out-the-plane-window shot.
Best wishes,
Eric
The best "Show Report" I have ever seen...........well done
Coin Club Benefit auctions ..... View the Lots
I wanna know what vitamins you take to do these lengthy show reports right after a major show
Jim
<< <i>
I wanna know what vitamins you take to do these lengthy show reports right after a major show >>
I don't know ThePennyLady personally but from the report she made, I can safely say that her secret is......
A glass of red table wine contains 12 mg of calcium, 18 mg of magnesium and 8.4 mg of choline.
I use the same method to take my vitamins
<< <i>
I wanna know what vitamins you take to do these lengthy show reports right after a major show >>
LOL! I really love taking the photos and doing these reports, and I especially enjoy all the comments I receive. But if I don't do it right after a show, then I start forgetting things and especially names.
And it's funny, because (after sleeping in a bit), I did nothing else on Sunday but put this together - didn't even take a break for dinner (which is a good thing following a show like this!). FYI, preparing these reports involves:
- downloading the photos from my phone to the computer,
- editing some of them (deleting duplicates, rotating, cropping, etc.),
- uploading to Photobucket (took forever!)
- pasting them in a Word document while writing descriptive commentary
- referring to my notes of who was who (including tearing my house apart looking for one of my people's names notes and trying to read my scribbles!)
- another review for typos
- a (hopefully) final edit of the thread after I post it because of duplicate photos and more typos
- then once I think it's ok, I also post it on a couple other coin forums!
And by the way, yes, that hand shot is definitely another Mark Feld pose!
https://thepennylady.com/
On the Chain cent display, didn't the "Lord St. Oswald" story get debunked as a made up marketing piece?
Wish you dealt in dimes also.....I'm sure I would be one of your customers.
Thank you.
Freddie
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.
AB
Larry L.
Great pic - Awesome coins - WOW WOW
5$ bills are WOW with the numbers - wanted:
02121809
04151865
Wanted - Flipper notes with the numbers 6-9 or 0-6-9 ON 1$ 2$ 5$ 10$ 20$
Wanted - 10$ Sereis 2013 - fancy Serial Numbers
Good to see some new faces instead of the same set of mugs.
Authorized dealer for PCGS, PCGS Currency, NGC, NCS, PMG, CAC. Member of the PNG, ANA. Member dealer of CoinPlex and CCE/FACTS as "CH5"
<< <i>Great shots. No Tootawl? >>
I saw tootawl walking around but not sure if he stopped in.
Was a great show, the worst I heard from any dealer was their show was ok. Most said it was great.
Thanks Charmy!
---------
Vern
l
It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got.
<< <i>I'm sure there are people all across the country who appreciate you taking the time, and going through the effort, to post your show reports!
Thanks Charmy! >>