One of my favorite days of the year has come and gone, the FUN show visit. As usual this was as good as anticipated. Got there at opening, and met one of Coinpeoples favorites, Art, at the exhibition area.
The exhibits are always great with the Peace dollar grade set , PO1 thru MS67. Also a Carson City Type set that I wanted to take home with me, it was fantastic.

Then I hit the floor in search of goods, looked like most of the good stuff was gone, leaving the dregs, but FUN is so huge that a bad row means nothing. After the first 2 rows turned up a few scratched, rim dented an cleaned coins, mind you this is just for what I was looking for, not a show as a whole. There are many great coins in the $500+ price, I was in the $250 and under area.

It was time for lunch and the NGC luncheon which Art and myself attended, food was great, door prizes a little lacking this year, a NGC modern price guide from the summer of 2006 & a NGC graded MS65 2006 Sacagawia. A ngc rep talked about upcoming changes for the company. The best part was meeting and talking to Art, and his great collection idea. Very fun putting a person to the screen name. Art is nicer in person than he is on here, which seems impossible , but is true.

Aferwards we went to table 321 to meet one of our own, Matt, aka Lostdutchman. Very nice and personable young man, whose lunch Art & I interrupted. To bad it wasn't as good as ours
He said he was having a good show, and his table was hopping so we left him to his sandwich & customers.

Art and I parted ways, and soon I was deep into some dealer stock. One of my goals was a CC Trade dollar, which I wanted slabbed to avoid a counterfeit. Couldn't find a one, so I went to plan B, a seated dollar.
Finally after looking at dozens of cleaned and scratched ones I came across a nice original 1846 VF which I picked up, quickly followed by a VF 1833 Bust Dime. 2 more down for the type set!

Onto the world & ancient section, I came across 3 Portuguese coins, 1737 5 Reis, 1916 20 Centavos UNC, first one I've seen at a show & another 1966 20 Escudos. The one with the bridge. It's my 3rd, but it's a nice design that I love and a BU coin for 5 bucks, why not! also grabbed an 1865 10 Reis from the Azore Islands, coins from the Azores I never come across so I buy em when I see em.

Pics I'll post in my Daily Deals tomorrow, I'm too sleepy now.
Overall the bourse was busy early, the usual tons of Morgans in all grades, and early dark copper was plentiful but I just cant pull the trigger on the dark brown disks, holding out for VF's in a lighter color. Yeah I know don't hold your breath.

Art made a good point, any coin you think is rare, it was there on the bourse in multiples. I saw more 93-S & 89-CC Morgans, and after I spent my wad I came across a 1874-CC Trade Dollar PCGS XF40
I shoulda asked if they took credit card and just bought the darn thing.

Sounds like one heck of a good time! Coins AND Coin People to chat with all day.

That Peace Dollar grading set would have been really cool to see.

Art more friendly than on here? Never would of thought that possible.

Nice report Dan. Humbling but nice.

I'll add my 2 cents here. For me meeting Dan was the height of the show. He's a great guy and I really enjoyed spending time with him at the luncheon and walking around the floor. I must say "Thank You" again to Dan for having me as his guest at the NGC luncheon. The food was great, the handouts great, and the company was sterling. Did I mention that the desserts were outstanding.

The exhibits were wonderful and well done. There were a lot of currency exhibits this year. One I particularly enjoyed was the Reprinted Confederate Money. I had never run into this before but it seems that the Confederacy printed some of their notes over the top notes.

My favorites on coins would have to be either the CC Type Set - a very well done exhibit. The coins were raised to about mid-case height to make viewing easier or the 1921 Peace Dollar grading sets. I talked to the owner of the 1921 exhibit for a while and he was disappointed that he had been disqualified because his family's name was on each of the NGC and PCGS slabs in the collection. He had a run of 1921s from AG3 to MS67 in NGC holders and in PCGS holders and in ANACs holders. That's a full grading set in each company's holders. He also had a display of all of the known VAMs for 1921. Very impressive set.

A wonderul collection of ancients was displayed as well. The exhibitor had the coins raised on glass platforms with tiltled mirrors beneath so both obverse and reverse could be seen at the same time. Nicely done.

The floor was pretty crowded with lots of dealers and a huge supply of wonderful coins. It never ceases to amaze me that on one hand we consider these things so rare and on the other hand they can be so plentiful at a show like FUN. There were coins on the floor that probably constituted half of the worlds available supply - my exaggeration. I'm always amazed at the dealers who will display hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gold or silver bullion coins at these shows.

My purchase for the show is a 1969-S Cent PF68 RD Cameo for my NGC Signature Anniversary Set. A very nice coin at a very good price. Of course, I also go a nice SAC from NGC at the luncheon. Pics sometime in the future.

Dan and I went to meet Matt at his booth. A very nice fellow. It was good to meet him. He had some great coins to offer and his booth was a bit busier than those surrounding him. That was a good thing. It's nice to see nice folks succeeding.

I saved some of my coin budget for the Ocala Coin Show which is the first weekend in February. Overall a great show. But above the coin show - great folks to meet and spend time with.

Terrific reports! Really makes me want to go to the FUN show one of these years. Sounds like Art and Dan had a great time and I hope you will post pictures of those acquisitions.

Well... guys.... it's wrapping up today. It has been a wild ride. It was very nice to meet some of the guys. If only for a few. It was really amazing to see all the money flying around here. I purchased some really great large cent errors today (pictures coming later tonight). I sold quite a few coins from my inventory. Over all it was a very fun (haha punny) show. after 5 days of it I am ready to go home. I recommend that if you have the ways and means to get down here at least once in your life you should do it. It's great!

That sounds like a blast. I'll have to try and come out next year for it. The exhibit with the ancients using the tilted mirrors sounds really cool. It'd be fun to make a type set display using that idea. Thanks for the reports.

I must meet this guy. Does he have an exhibit on a website?

Not that I'm aware of. I'll contact him and see if he has any pics that he's willing to share.

Great reports. Thanks.

Some of those oddball countries are hard to pass. Azores is one of my weaknesses as is Mongolia.

the problem with shows like this is that i end up spending much more than i had planned to spend.

Sounds like it was great!

I've seen longer coin show reports about shows consisting of 20 dealers.
I have a few questions. I've heard many things about the FUN shows but never having gone to one not aware of why so many talk about it. Now here is a great report but so much left out about the show.
I would want to know things like how many days did the show run? How much did it cost to get in? How big of a place was it? Was there enough room for a person that limps to easily walk. Important question would be how was the lighting to see the coins? Was their parking near by? Did it cost to park? About how many dealers were there? Was there vending machines or a restaurant near by or what for food and coffee and stuff? And how were the prices of the food? Where the dealers friendly as an average? What was the age group average of the colletors? Same with the dealers?
See I have more questions about shows because I go to about 3 or 4 a month around here and no one brags about them at all.

I would want to know things like how many days did the show run? 5 days

How much did it cost to get in? free

How big of a place was it? roughly the size of a football field

Was there enough room for a person that limps to easily walk. Rows were approx 8ft wide, with folding chairs at each table.

Important question would be how was the lighting to see the coins? Some tables provided excellent alternate lighting, some did not.

Was their parking near by? Did it cost to park? It cost $10 to park and the walk to the door was like being at any mall in America during the Christmas holiday.

About how many dealers were there? Hundreds, click here to read them allhttp://www.funtopics.com/coinshow_dealers.html


Was there vending machines or a restaurant near by or what for food and coffee and stuff? And how were the prices of the food? The was a resteraunt that served burgers & sandwiches etc, but I ate at the luncheon provided by NGC, so I cant tell you about quality, price, availibility

Where the dealers friendly as an average? What was the age group average of the colletors? Same with the dealers? Most dealers were friendly enough, you always come across a couple that won't give you the time of day. As for the ages of people, quite frankly I was looking at coins and don't care about the ages or sex of anyone there.

Hope that paints a better picture.

the food was great... but a little pricey..

Some day.........

Armed robbery in Fla. Heres a list of the stolen items.

http://bci13.com/StolenCoinList1.htm

I got an email from heritage about a fella that had his inventory stolen. A special email with the list of stolen coins sent to thousands and thousands of customers.

Oh wonderful!

Coincidentally I was in Orlando on Sunday, but for Disneyworld and not coins unfortunately. But the weather was wonderful, and sure beats cold windy and snowy home. Definately want to go back sometime. I think my next show will be the MSNS show in the Spring.