PART 1: Charmy's Extra Huge 2026 PITTSBURGH ANA WORLD'S FAIR OF MONEY SHOW REPORT w/Tons of Pics!
ThePennyLady
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Well the Pittsburgh ANA World's Fair of Money Show has come and gone, and it was one for the books, as they say! So go get that cup of coffee or glass of wine or cocktail, grab a snack, and get in a comfy chair since this is probably one of the longest photo intensive show reports I have ever done! Because there are so many pics, I split this report into two parts so it wouldn't take as long to load. This is Part 1.
It was a fantastic show, extremely busy, very fun, event-filled, packed with some amazing coins and displays, and as always, it was great to see so many friends! The weather was gorgeous most of the whole week, the food was always good, and the wine was wonderful. And I got to see some super beautiful coins, both on display and for sale, as well as some fantastic exhibits. I even acquired some very high-end pieces that I am very honored and thrilled to be able to offer my customers, including a stunning 1856 Flying Eagle S-3 (Mint State) in PCGS PF65+ with an Eagle Eye Photo Seal and a CAC, and a very rare 1969-S Doubled Die in PCGS MS64 RED - two of the most scarce and high grade coins I have had!
So I left sunny Orange County early Saturday morning for the show, again, so very happy to be going to another big huge ANA show!!
Arrived in Dallas, had time for a nice glass of wine before heading to Pittsburgh.
After I checked in and went to my room at the Westin, I was very pleasantly surprised to see they had upgraded me to a corner suite - I wondered what I did to deserve this! I had a beautiful view of the convention center and the river!
Here's a view from my room on Sunday morning, and later from the walkway to the convention center when I headed over there to put my bags in security, and around a deserted convention center (for now), as well as the beautiful river!
I did a little pre-show buying including these two hard-to-find Lincoln cents in red
After dropping off my bags at security, I headed over to the Rivers casino for a little fun, and a wonderful dinner at their steakhouse!
I got up early, grabbed some breakfast, and headed to the convention center to set up for Dealer Day, thinking registration would be a breeze with the new kiosk scanning system the ANA had in place. Wow, was I ever wrong on thinking it would be a breeze! As I'm sure you have all heard, there was a major glitch in the printing/processing of the badges, even though many of us had "all our ducks in a row" by registering all our booth personnel and paying ahead of time. We still had to stand in a 2-hour line because several people had various issues (adding booth personnel, making corrections, paying fees, etc.). It would have been so much more streamlined if there were separate lines for those of us who had already paid and had no changes, because when I finally got to the front of the line, it took literally ONE minute for them to hand my my badges.
Even though we had paid $300 to set up for and participate in Dealer Day which opened at 9am, I didn't get in until 10:30 am due to the badge glitches. It was very frustrating, but I know the ANA personnel working at the registration table were trying to get through that mess as quickly as possible and I'm sure they were even more frustrated about the mechanical problems that caused all the backlog.
Once I got in, I quickly began setting up my booth so I could "go shopping" - I had want lists for several customers, some with some "big" coins so I wanted to find as many coins as I could for them. Here is the group of coins I found throughout the show
One of my customers was looking for a quality 1856 Flying Eagle cent in the $20-$25,000 range - and I found this beautiful one (S-9) in PCGS AU58 that had a CAC and an Eagle Eye Photo Seal.
Also, this 1856 happened to come from a collection of a long time Flying Eagle/Indian cent collector customer/friend of mine, Bob Travis (former UC Davis Professor) who collected top quality PCGS AU58 FY/IHC's, several of which I found for him over the years. Sadly, Bob passed away last year, and his collection just came up for sale (through Eric Lindholm whom Bob had taken under his wing and mentored for the last few years). Eric even created a book with photos of each of the coins from this collection.
Any way, I was thrilled to be able to place this beautiful 1856 Flying Eagle cent with a very appreciative customer who was thrilled to add this beauty, and the provenance, to his own collection!
After my customer and I concluded the sale of this 1856, he told me if I found any other "interesting" coins to let him know. Well, shortly after I bought the AU58 1856, I found a beautiful 1877 Indian cent in PCGS MS64 CAC that also has a very interesting provenance. Noah Lehmann and his partner from Rarity7 had recently acquired a large collection of high-end RAW Indian cents from an old collection by John Gideon Laidacker (1867-1927) who was a prominent numismatist in Pennsylvania, and this 1877 Indian cent was one of the many pieces they had recently gotten back from PCGS for grading.
So I sent photos of this beauty to that same customer who had just bought the 1856, and he was again thrilled to add this 1877 Indian cent with a fascinating provenance to his collection as well!
I took a few minutes to check out some of the ANA's museum displays, and as usual, they have some amazing coins along with their history, including this UNIQUE 1820 Capped Head Left Half Eagle Proof!
The S.S. Central America had a table with some cool items from the shipwreck
After things settled down later in the afternoon, I finally opened one of the bottles of wine I brought. This delicious Rombauer Zinfandel is one of three bottles I was able to fit in my suitcase - it's one of my all time favorites, and it didn't last long once my friends found out it was opened!
After the Dealer Day was over, Christine Karstedt at Stacks Bowers held an invite-only cocktail reception at The Ritual House.
It was a very fun event, got to chat with lots of folks, the "heavy appetizers" were amazing, and the delicious wine and cocktails were flowing - thank you Stacks Bowers!
Tuesday morning arrived way too early! Got to the show around 9am, opened up my booth, and walked the floor to continue looking for more Pretty Pennies. By the way, Rick Snow didn't have as much room on his table at this show for his extra helper, Neil Ulrich (a retired FBI agent whom I've known for about 15 years), so I gladly put him on my table at this show. Let me tell you, I never knew how much I needed a helper at these large "fly-away" shows until Neil stepped in! My friend Rich helps me at my local shows like Long Beach and Buena Park, but I haven't had anyone work with me at the large fly-away shows like the ANA, FUN, CSNS, etc. Let me tell you, it was absolutely wonderful and so much less stressful having someone help me especially at a huge show like the ANA - and Neil was super fantastic! I showed him how I did things and he stepped right in, helped my customers, answered their questions, interacted with them, logged in sales, freed me up to talk to customers and others who stopped by to say hi, and just to be able to get away from the table now and then. And Neil was such a delight, fun, and entertaining to be around - I'm definitely keeping him if he can put up with me! I even offered him all the wine he can drink just to help insure he wants to return - so here's a big shout out to Neil who made my show that much more easy, productive, fun and entertaining!
Took some time to do more "shopping" around the bourse floor and to take more pics. Saw these two very adorable young pages bringing donuts to someone and just had to take their picture!
NGC was already busy. 
More pics of the fabulous ANA museum exhibits
So a dealer stopped by to say hi and happened to show me this double struck 1889 CC since he knows I like error coins. I don't know anything really about silver coins, but this one looked really cool, and I'm told it could be unique and worth a lot. However, it ended up being a "manmade" error.
The public was let in at 12:30 (ANA members) and 1:00 (non ANA members), and even at 12:30, there was a huge steady line of folks streaming in.
I was thrilled to pick up some more really neat pieces for my penny exonumia collection. My favorite piece is this adorable pig aluminum encasement with a 1925 tiny Austrian cent that says "I am your good luck." I don't usually collect foreign penny encasements, but this one was too cute to pass up!
I also don't collect encasements that aren't a penny, but I had never seen one like this with a Mercury dime in it - and I happen to have a 1930's dime slot machine that I only put Mercury dimes in, so I just thought this encasement was pretty cool.
I have several of these "button" celluloid encased pennies, but I didn't have this particular one and was thrilled to add it to my collection!
This 1901 aluminum encasement from the Pan Am Expo has an interesting shovel design on the obverse and a buffalo on the reverse - it is pristine and beautiful, and scarce!
And here are a couple penny pocket mirrors I didn't have - I was happy to add them my over 120 piece collection of these types of encasements (although the 1907 has a compromised mica over the penny, it's one I didn't have so I decided to go ahead and buy it until I find a better one).
As I mentioned in my "All is Well with the Penny Lady" thread, I was thrilled to receive a copy of Whitman's 5th edition of its Lincoln Cents book written by Q. David Bowers since I was honored to have been asked to write the foreword to this staple for any Lincoln cent collector! And seeing my name on the front of a book right underneath Q. David Bowers' name made me extra proud!
With the Rombauer gone, I opened the bottle of Caymus that I brought - another delicious, easy to drink, popular cab! I also brought a bottle of Justin Isosceles Reserve cab for the rest of the week!
That night I attended the ANA's fundraiser event at the Heinz History Center/Museum
We walked to the event and saw that the Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile was parked across the street from the museum - I hadn't seen that vehicle in years and didn't know it still existed!
I went to the event with Neil, Rick and Kenny Snow. It was a really nice evening, with more great "heavy" appetizers, cocktails, and a tour of all the fascinating exhibits at the museum. They even gave us this great Yeti cup as an event memento.
Wednesday was a super crazy busy day - I don't think I even left my table until the end of the day! Again, so grateful to have a booth helper! I apologize for neglecting to take more photos of forum members and others who stopped by to say hi. However, I did remember to ask Michael Marotta if he wanted to be in my show report, and he gladly obliged!
Fellow dealer Justin Waddell stopped by to show me a beautiful 1869-S Doubled Die in PCGS MS63 BN that he just picked up!
A dealer friend also stopped by and showed me this very rare and well-known Inverted Jenny stamp which I had never seen one in person.
My very dear friend Kathy Freeland (former WIN Board member) stopped by to get hugs and say hi.
I also saw got to see/hug other former WIN board members, Cindy Wibker, Dave Harper, and Louise Boling - I really adore these folks!!
As I mentioned, Wednesday was so busy that it flew by and I didn't get to take many photos. However, when things settled down late in the afternoon, of course, I made time for a glass of wine for me and Neil! So we opened the Justin, and it was delicious!
For dinner, we headed over to a new place that was recommended to us, the North Shore Tavern. It was a regular tavern that served great steak slightly seared, seasoned, and placed on an 800 degree platter in front of you so you could finish cooking it to your liking!
Comments
Wonderful write up. Love the flying eagle cents and the exhibit photos. Thank you for taking the time to post this.
thats a wonderful report. love the 1856 Indian head cent along with the 1969 s, wtg
Love the double struck 89 cc!
The court jester does not play, but gently pulls the strings…
Now that's news!!! (Don't I see Jeff Garret?)
A lot of people take time to keep up with the news but relatively few make it and have a lot of time to talk about it.
As always, thanks for the great report.
Believe Garrett can be seen early in the posting. Charmy! Thanks for all the photos.
Thanks for sharing your report.
5 Stars all the way Charmy.
Wayne
Kennedys are my quest...
Liked seeing the Heinz Museum collection and the new encasements.
Thanks for your contributions via these reports.
Nice to see that Mike Marotta made it to Pittsburgh!
That 1877 Indian head cent was beautiful and one of a kind. An excellent, scarce example with a great story and provenance behind it.
I am also quite impressed by the choice 1969 double die. A rare and pricey piece.
Congratulations on being included in the QDB Lincoln cent book. Certainly an honor. They couldn’t have chosen a more qualified person.
I really appreciate that you take the time to share these Coins and your experiences with us. Always a great read.
Thank you so much!!
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
The 1889-CC Morgan Dollar appears to be some sort of "vice job".
It may have started out as a genuine 1889 [P]. But then impressions were made from other coin(s) and then pressed into this coin. The "CC" is fuzzy and appears to be the small version circa 1878, not the larger CC style found on genuine 1889-CC coins.
I also collect non-cent encased coins.
The 1939 Virginia Mirror encasement is scarce. It also exists with a 5-cent nickel coin.
Putting a thread together like this is as much work as setting up/ breaking down at a show, it seems. Thanks for sharing it all.