I have spent the bulk of my collecting career online, selling, buying, etc. With the exception of one LCS and a couple pawn shops, the only "show" I had ever attended was a local gun show that had coins listed which turned out to be nothing but overly priced culls! So, to my delight, at 38 years old, I attended my first real show and I am extraordinarily glad I did! The show had about 40 tables and was held in Gallatin, TN, just outside of Nashville, a 2.5 hr drive from my home. I met all kinds of people. Seasoned collectors, new collectors, friends from Instagram, multiple dealers, the works. My tactic was to first walk the bourse once, keeping an eye out for things that piqued my interest, then take second lap to really study the offerings. Well, I spent 3+ hours at the show, so my two laps became about 10! I skipped over tables with lots of people looking and returned at less busy times, but I'm still sure I missed something! One table had two cases full of highly graded CWTs, one had tons of currency, former ANA president Ellsworth had more large cents than I had ever seen in one place by hundreds! And others had a hodgepodge of everything. As a world collector, the offerings were a bit slimmer, but I was still able to find a few things in my collecting interests. All in all, I was able to add 11 new items to my collection. A nice rarer coin from Lippe-Detmold, a couple notgeld coins from new cities I didn't have, a couple pieces of bullion, a beautifully violet-gray toned buffalo nickel and a few others! I had a great first show experience, the dealers were attentive and kind, the inventory impressive and the connection to people I had only met online was a blessing. If you'll indulge me, a few of my terrible photos of my acquisitions!
Sounds like you enjoyed yourself, Josh. You brought home some really nice stuff. Your strategy for walking the floor is similar to mine. Next time (future) you gotta hit one of the big shows like FUN, but you actually need more than one day to see the whole show.
There's so much more to see at a large show than at the LCS. Pushing yourself to do more of the same will doubtless reward you well.
I've only been to a handful of shows, but like you said, I'm a world coins guy and those are usually scarce at most shows, so I just walk around looking for anyone who has some visible, ideally in bulk to pick through. I feel like 95% of the tables are graded Morgan dollars and things like that so I skip right past them. If you're lucky there's one or two dealers with a decent supply of world coins, and hopefully someone hasn't camped out in front of them who clearly looks to be spending the whole day there.
Glad to hear you went to a show and your experiences and newps. Didn't know you like notgeld. I recently got a Notgeld book and have yet to read it, because it sounds interesting to find out about these. The book is "A Guide and Checklist of World Notgeld 1914-1947 And other local issue emergency monies" by Courtney L. Coffing. Looks to me like perhaps not the first type of Notgeld book to get to find out, but it was only a dollar at my coin club, as it had been donated to be auctioned off one meeting day to help benefit the club, and no one else there was interested in purchasing it. And when you go to coin shows, doing a write up and sharing that is really nice, too. We can all then just enjoy the day you had.
Did you happen to get around to Kaylie's Coin's while in Gallatin? They're easily one of my favorite vendors that set up there and have a wide variety of foreign and ancient coins available, including some of the more obscure German States.
I think I hit every table and asked each if they had anything German. Some did, but it was later stuff. There were about four that had an extensive world inventory and as a general world collector as well, I picked up some other stuff. Does Kaylies coins have a website or eBay store?
I had attended some local shows with about 40-50 dealers/tables and some really small shows with 10-12 tables (a waste). When I went to my first big show -- FUN 2020 -- I was blown away. Spent a few days down in Orlando...had a great time meeting up with some CT people.....just great. Not sure about FUN 2023 because of personal circumstances but definitely wanna go back.
I forgot they make silver Nobles now. Thought that was a platinum! Nice LT, a perennially popular Irish type, and another octagonal German piece! Didn’t you get one from me, before?
