A 2018 BRNA show report
tommy44
Posts: 2,319 ✭✭✭✭✭
Headed out Saturday morning about 8:30 AM and after a stop for breakfast arrived at the convention center in Dalton about 10:30.
Looked at the program and noticed that Tom Wood of Ephesus Numismatics was about half way into a presentation on “Coins of the Bible” so my wife and I rushed to the conference room and sat in for the last half of his presentation. Tom talked about eight different coins with Christian themes and was in the middle of discussion of coin number 4, the Shekel of Tyre which scholars believe was the coin mentioned in Matt 26:14-15 where Jesus was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver. The talk ended with discussion of images of Christ on Byzantine coins. Folks seemed glued to their seats and what made it even more interesting, Tom passed around examples of the coins to be viewed and held by the audience. We noticed that he was giving the talk again at 1:00 PM for Young Numismatists so we came back and stayed for the entire presentation.
At 11:00 AM in the same conference room Deborah Millikan showed a half-hour video, “Gold Fever & the Bechtler Mint”, that presented the beginnings of the North Carolina gold rush in Rutherford County in the Southwest corner of the state, the role of the Christopher Bechtler family and their mint, the establishment of a branch mint in Charlotte and the eventual establishment of the Bechtler House and the Bechtler Mint Site as historic sites. The Bechtler House had a display set up at the back of the bourse selling books and had a full case of Bechtler gold coins on display. The display was AMAZING.
At 11:30 we headed for the bourse, which was huge. There were over 175 dealers listed in the program with over 250 tables and some tables were shared with more than one dealer.
We had an hour and a half to browse before we had to head back to Tom Wood’s presentation. I brought a bunch of dark side stuff to sell so I headed over to the far right 1000 aisle and worked my way back to somewhere in the 700 or 800 aisle before I had to return to the conference room. At 2:00 PM after Tom’s presentation we headed back to the bourse. I was on a mission to sell so didn’t look for things to buy with my limited time so unless I stopped to talk to a friend I basically looked for dealers selling foreign and showed them what I had for sale. I brought 30 coins with me and only took 8 home so all-in-all a great show for me.
By 3:00 I hadn’t even made it down to aisle 600 and a few dealers started packing up so I had to make sure I stopped at @Yorkshireman 409,@giorgio11 L6 and @ZipCoin 221? tables to say hello and introduce myself before it was time to head for home. All three were a pleasure to talk to and whoever said @giorgio11 was one of the friendliest dealers around hit the nail on the head. When I arrived at his table he was just finishing up a transaction with a young man who looked like he might have been with his dad. He mentioned it was his birthday and George stopped everything he was doing, searched through one of his cases, pulled out a coin and said “let me give you something for your birthday”.
Before leaving around 4:00 PM I managed to say hello and shake hands with Mike at MK Precious Metals, Bruce at Southern Precious Metal Exchange, John a GNA member and fellow collector I have been friends with since moving to Atlanta in the mid 1970s and a couple of others whose names I can’t remember.
This is always a great show and if you have the opportunity to attend in the future don’t pass it up.
it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide
Comments
Thanks for taking the time to give us a report. Nice work.
Thanks for the report. I noticed several dealers with foreign coins at their tables. Seems like there is a lot of collector interest in that area at the moment.
thanks for the nice report
Great report....You mentioned you sold 22 coins... Did you purchase any?? Cheers, RickO
Thanks for posting your report.
Did you receive decent prices for the material that you sold?
Didn't purchase a thing, didn't even look. That was the plan for this show.
it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide
I got what I asked, which was low but reasonable. Made money on every one so I was happy.
it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide