thoughts about my attendance at the Tallahassee Numismatic Club Two Day Coin Show, Aug-22/23 (long)

This is a lengthy show report since I am giving just about the full rundown here. This in turn will be part of my report back to our coin club's membership. I started writing this on Monday but have had so much to catch up on after the show, so my apologies for tardy.

The brief backstory for our weekend show is that in July 2025, we hosted our first ever two-day show (well, since the 1990s at least), manned by six coin dealers (I was one of them), and one supply dealer. We considered that show to have been rather decent based on the fact that every single one of those dealers asked to return in 2026. The Tallahassee area has been poorly represented by numismatics for decades, and multiple entities have made that statement to me (i.e. other area clubs, ANA, and FUN representatives), so a major goal is to fill that void.

This year, we substantially elevated from six to fifteen dealers (myself included, and no supply dealer), which still qualifies as a small show. Because of the limited space and number of physical tables and chairs available, we were actually at maximum capacity. In fact, technically we exceeded capacity as two dealers (one of them was me) had to be given undersized backup tables for their booths, and the smallest dealer ended up sharing one of my tables. So obviously, it was a "sold out" show. Our goal was always to measure "success" as how much we improve from year to year. So by increasing dealer participation by 150%, this would qualify as a significant improvement over last year.

Before I go any further, I want to mention special thanks to all the coin club member volunteers who helped set up the bourse on Friday evening. In addition to arranging the tables, we had to carefully set up electric cords and outlets such that dealers would not trip over them, and we had to do so without tape because the location that we use does not permit anything to be taped down to the floor. And we also had to avoid exceeding the reasonable capacity of any given outlet. We had to use cable safety protectors instead of tape while minimizing cable runs on top of everything else. There was much trial and error involved! A different group of volunteers helped on Sunday to take down the divorce floor. This is significantly easier than set up, but still requires a coordinated effort.

Security is always a foremost issue and the expense exceeded half our budget. We had someone present during dealer setup and takedown, as well as overnight - some 16 hours total. Next year, we need to extend the takedown security window by two hours to accommodate the couple of dealers who had to leave early. We had one dealer (our smallest) already pre-planned to be present only Saturday, one dealer left about 1pm Sunday, and nobody else left more than an hour early.

We signed up five new paid members, which is always terrific as we aggressively grow club membership. We also collected more than 100(!) emails for folks who want to be included on our contact list. This came as quite a shock, because it amounts to almost every attendee requesting addition to our contact list. I feel pretty certain that we will acquire new members from this list as well. Of course, I am sure that a few of them are not valid, or misspelled, or miss recorded, but it is a sign that Tallahassee is becoming aware that there actually is a coin club in town.

Last year, in terms of finances for the coin club, we lost approximately $400 overall. The vice president and I had to cover that out of our own pockets. This year, we ended up losing only $30. If the show continues to expand at a reasonable rate, we may be able to provide enough additional revenue to purchase raffle items. The six raffle items we had, all of them rather excellent, were donated, including four silver dollar commemorative, and a silver Eisenhower dollar. One raffle item ended up not being given out and will instead be raffled a coin club meeting.

Some of the more curious observations from the show follow:

For some reason, this is the most number of trades I remember having at a show. I always welcome trades, of course, but I think at least 10 of my transactions involved some sort of a trade!

I had fewer buying opportunities than last year, which is a surprise since we had at least 300% more attendance. But then again, as the president of the coin club, and the primary representative, I have the most advantageous table right in front of the entrance. However, I see it as my job to divert as much traffic as possible around my booth, to other dealers, in order to make this a more attractive venue for them.

Perhaps because of the lack of shows in recent decades, very few buyers quibble over prices. I had to proactively give discounts - not the usual situation at all.

I saw very little gold on the bourse - just a few random bullion items - but silver was abundant. One dealer had a pile of several hundred common silver dollars and another had at least a hundred AU and better Peace dollars, all these priced at fair retail bullion levels. If I get time later to photo some of my purchases, I'll post them to this thread.