CoinPeople come from all over the world, of course. However, of all the places in the world that CoinPeople come from, Michigan leads in numismatic involvement.

No other American state and few nations come close to our numismatic demographics. Much of the impetus comes from the fact that the ANA was founded by Dr. George M. Heath of Monroe, Michigan. The earliest ANA conventions were as likely to have been held in Chicago as Philadelphia. Former ANA President Florence Shook is a native Michigander. Among the other ANA presidents who have been MSNS members are Ken Bressett and John Wilson. Bill Horton has been an MSNS member for a few years, at least.

The same sort of census applies to ANA board members, ANS members, and "name" numismatists (dealers, authors, collectors) who belong to MSNS, either because they are Michiganders or because the MSNS conventions are important to them.

The MSNS quarterly, MichMatist carries ads from almost 100 dealers. While that tally includes Heritage and Krause, as well as Gary Adkins, Jack Beymer, Jim McGuigan, David Nazzarro, Kent Froseth, among others from around the United States, the greatest number 80 or 85, are vest pocket dealers who make the coin show circuit, on the road 10 to 50 weeks a years.

You will find leading dealers in paper money (Lee and Falater and TNA) and ancients (Pegasi, Basok, Beach) and exonumia (Cunningham).

If you live in metro Detroit where the freeways make every point equitemporal (45 minutes across town or around the block), you can go to at least one and often two coin club meetings every week. You can make a different show -- sometimes two -- every weekend.

Yes, you can find this kind of action in the Bos-Wash metroplex megalopolis. A Eurail pass will deliver the same opportunities. Nonetheless, for its size, shape, location, and population, no place on Earth matches Michigan for numismatics.

Check out the website at
Michigan State Numismatic Society

I was born in Michigan, so I love it!! I have relatives there and go back to visit often.

mmarotta,

Could you tell us what your avatar picture is from?
Is is from a stock certificate?

She looks to me a little like Anne Francis, a movie star of the 1950's who appeared in "Forbidden Planet", among other films.

With Dearborn only being about a hour away (more like 40-45 minutes), I may have to go to the Spring Convention. Never been to a large show. Maybe I'll get to see some CP folks!

What you say is (empirically speaking) true.

It's strange. I live thousands of miles from Michigan, yet one of the people who has strongly influenced my collecting interests has come from that state. South Haven to be slightly more precise. The individual concerned has a wealth of knowledge concerning german talers and world coinage in general and was responsible for getting me started on collecting French silver jetons. I'll never forgive him.

Another Michigan based (although originally from Texas) numismatist I know of and sometimes correspond with knows more about Scottish coins and banknotes than I am ever likely to. He has the added aplomb of having appeared in that most notorious of Scottish Newspapers `The Sunday Post' for his website on these two collecting areas.

The only other numismatist I know of in Michagan I can communicate with on first name terms is a certain writer for both the Numismatist and the `Michmatist'.

Who knows, maybe one of these days i'll take the plunge and sign up as a member of MSNS. It's not so daft as it sounds given that I know more numismatists in Michigan than I do in Scotland.

I met him too

It is a fairly good show, the Autumn show was vedy vedy good, the stuff I purchased there did rather well since then.

Should have a "peep" meeting there.

Someday, I'll have to take a tour of all the major national and regional shows. Kind of like people do with baseball stadiums. How's the Non-US section at this show?

It's not exactly a summer vacation, when you consider that coin shows are held when the weather is the worst possible since the glaciers melted. However, if you are a road warrior, it can be done... and people do it... You know how I feel about this. It is worth the price of travel to be able to buy at your price -- and to buy the things that are just not offered elsewhere --- at any price...

"Veddy veddy good," he said.

It's like most shows. You have 250 dealers, 150 of whom are selling Slabbed Morgan Dollars, except the ones selling raw Morgan Dollars. Then you have the paper rmoney -- big in Michigan -- and the tokens -- VERY big in Michigan -- and about 10 or so foreign, and 10 or so ancient. Where the collector comes away happy is when you ask the guy with the Morgans, "Do you have any foreign" and he says, "I don't know why I brought these. Do you know what they are?" And you are looking at something you never dreamed of finding...

Yes, it is from a Detroit Edison Electric certificate.

Hubba hubba. Yes, but for the clothing, the neo-classical art of stock certificates would make the Nekkid Coin Thread. The women are well-develeped, indeed, but, so, too, are the men: big chests, powerful arms and legs; Greek gods, to be sure.

I just love the '35/'37 series Canadian notes.

At least Aleksandr Basok comes to these shows, he always has stuff I like, and we can yack in the old country language.

Hi,
I drove through Michigan once :-)
Bill

Over the weekend I took a wrong turn and ended up in Michigan. Not like that's hard to do around here or anything

I have set that weekend aside to go to the show. Later in April I'll be going to the big show in Columbus, OH as well.

That is about all I can say ; except that I drove through the state 5-6 times on my way to/from Canada; once through Detroit/Windsor the rest through Sault Ste. Marie/Soo. Must say, except for the Mackinac Bridge, the Michigan stretch of I-75 was long and dull. Like Florida's I-95.

I do have a reservation at my library for this cd:
Greetings from Michigan : the great lake state / Sufjan Stevens

Curious to hear what it is about.

You missed your chance: a real Finlander would be treated like a prodigal son come home. We have a lot of Scandanavians up there -- they find the weather balmy -- and I work here in Ann Arbor with a Finn from the Upper Peninsula, which is pretty typical.

I even know some "dumb Norwegian" jokes.