I will be updating my blog following coin shows and significant new purchases, or if there is something else I find of interest. Feel free to add your comments as well! Charmy - The Penny Lady
By The Penny Lady | June 07, 2011 at 11:07 AM EDT | No Comments
Charmy's LONG BEACH SHOW Report (June 2011)!
Setup was on Wednesday and everyone noticed that there were a lot more empty tables especially up front, but that the back of the show had more occupied tables than ever! Some of the dealers who had left the show due to high table fees came back because they had the option to set up at one of the much less expensive tables in the back of the room. It looks like PCGS/Collectors Universe is really trying to do what they can to appease both the dealers and still put on a good show.
So the show opened to the public on Thursday and soon the aisles got very crowded. I actually forgot my cell phone/camera at home (I left it on the charger!) so I wasn't able to take any photos on Thursday but I made up for it on Friday and took photos of several familiar people, exhibits, etc. However, due to the florescent lighting in the show, all my photos have these shadow stripes that I couldn't get rid of so I apologize for that.
Mike/Illini put together a wonderful exhibit on San Francisco Copper Coinage of 1909.
I also stopped by Mike Byer's table to view the amazing Indian cents struck on gold planchet errors but he wasn't there, so I just took a photo of this sign he had on display...
Here's Darryl the Pirate's booth - he does the kids' treasure hunt on Saturday, and he also sells some amazing artifacts and gorgeous pieces from China
And I have to give credit to the supply folks since they do a heck of a job setting up tons of wares which makes it quite convenient to find all the coin supplies we need!
I had several people stop by to sell some very nice coins that I just couldn't resist, some were trading/upgrading, others were "vest pocket" dealers who know I love nice copper. So I purchased and took on consignment some wonderful coins and, of course, quickly took them over to Todd to photograph! Here's an idea of how many newps I've acquired so far, including a beautiful 1877 PCGS MS64 RB and a rare 1856 Flying Eagle PCGS PF63....
Here are photos of some of the folks I've seen at the show, many of whom will be quite familiar!
Our great PCGS folks!
Cute Matt/Renomedphys who joined us for dinner last night and has some of the most beautiful coins Matte Proof Lincolns, not to mention many other gem copper pieces!
Bob/Watersport who I haven't seen in quite a while and is always charming
Jeff who works really hard for the ANA!
Scott who is a consignor expert at Stacks Bowers
Rick Snow who is always busy
And of course, Todd/Blu62Vette!
Rick and I both picked up some pretty toned proofs, which coincidentally was discussed in the last issue of the Fly-In Club's Longacre's Ledger.
I met up with Stephanie/Coinsarefun and bought some of her beautiful Conder tokens (Todd was photographing them so I didn't get a chance to take a picture of them with my cell phone). Also found some FANTASTIC and AMAZING Conders from Kyle Knapp
Of course, we had some very yummy wine! Thanks to Wei for bringing me a wonderful bottle of 2005 Heitz Cellars cab that we quickly consumed (I'm sorry I forgot to take a photo of the bottle). But here are a couple other bottles several of us managed to consume over the past few days!
It seemed like this show came and went pretty fast! Even though Thursday and Friday were quite busy, Saturday was surprisingly slow. In the past Saturdays seemed to have more public, especially more kids. But today looked more sparse than usual. However, my table is in the middle/back of the room, but our area seemed more full and crowded with public than the rest of the room for most of the show probably due to the new lower cost tables. I think our hosts need to do something about the high price of tables in order to keep this Long Beach show going. It is still a great show for us west coasters, and I always seem to have a pretty decent show no matter what time of year. And as I mentioned, I did quite a bit of buying at this show but I also did a lot of selling. I can't speak to gold and silver, dollars, halves, dimes and nickels, or paper money, but I think quality copper will always be in demand, especially Indian and Lincoln cents as they seem to be a staple that collectors continue to be drawn to.
Here are some more photos I took today (Saturday) at the show:
Me and my little "team" who like to help me out at the Long Beach shows (Rich, Roger and Ron)
The bourse on Saturday
Logan of VAMS & More and his beautiful daughters!
Logan and me
Dennis88
My favorite Italian friend Frank who also loves a good glass of wine!
Darryl the Pirate in his "uniform" and his sidekick!
Darryl was helping out the kiddos after the treasure hunt
The Long Beach Coin Club kids' table
So that's about it for this show report. I really enjoy this show and will continue to support it as long as we both are around! My next show report will most likely be from the ANA Summer Seminar next month - stay tuned!
By The Penny Lady | May 25, 2011 at 01:00 AM EDT | No Comments
Charmy's PCGS LAS VEGAS Show Report (May 2011)
Well, what could be better than a coin show IN LAS VEGAS! Gambling in Las Vegas + Coin Show with pretty copper + beautiful sunny weather = NIRVANA! I usually drive to Las Vegas since it's only about a 4-hour drive but since I didn't have to haul my coins (I was only walking this show), I decided to check out flights and found one for $109 roundtrip on Delta! That was less than what it would have cost in gas to drive. And on top of that, I get free rooms at any Harrah's casino so I stayed at Paris casino for free! All this savings on expenses meant I had more money to buy pretty coins and/or play poker with!
I arrived on Wednesday evening and took some photos from my plane as we were descending. You can see Highway 15 and some of the outskirts of Las Vegas and then some of the famous casinos just before we land.
After I checked in, I grabbed a bite to eat then went downtown to play some poker at Binions. I prefer limit games and the only one they had was 2/4. The table eventually decided to make it a "kill" game (meaning if someone wins two pots in a row, the betting is doubled for the next hand). It helps make the game more interesting and creates bigger pots. By the end of the night when I finally cashed in, I was down $9 - not bad for several hours of play!
These were taken from my room at night.
And the view from my room in the morning - the weather here has been fantastic!
In the morning I took a cab over to the Venetian where the show was. It is one of the most beautiful casinos, with gorgeous marble, statues, murals, etc.
In case you haven't been to a PCGS show here in Las Vegas, it is very intimate, casual, and low key. It's a show where you can browse easily and spend time with each dealer. There are tables of dealers along the two outer side walls and then a group of dealers in the middle, maybe about 20 dealers in all, but there is certainly plenty of room between the middle section and the dealers along the walls. There is also a group of round tables and chairs at the back of the room where I was taking photos.
Also, PCGS has a couple people (usually Don Willis and David Hall) who give interesting and informative talks each day. Oh, and I almost forgot, they also set out a nice food and beverage spread for all attendees.
Here are some pics of the show.
Diana at PCGS
And here are some pretty newps I bought!
After the show on Thursday, Greg (another dealer), Rick Snow and I played in a poker tournament at the Venetian. There were over 100 participants, and after playing for about 5 hours and going all-in and winning against 5-6 people, I finally lost all my chips. The top 13 players were paid, but when it got to 14 players with Greg being No. 14, they all agreed to split the pot evenly so Greg actually got paid as well. I then played in a 4/8 limit game for a while but ended up back at the Paris casino playing 3 card poker where I got a 3 of a kind, as well as half a dozen straights, so now I'm quite a bit ahead gambling-wise - so that will certainly help pay for my pretty newps!
It was a fun weekend, and the PCGS show seemed like a huge success, at least it was worthwhile for me. It was nice to see several other familiar dealer faces, though I didn't see very many forum members, but like I said, it's an intimate show and I was only around for a couple hours.
Any way, here are some photos I took at the airport - McCarren has a couple interesting "exhibits" that I have walked by many times and this time for some reason they caught my eye, so I stopped and looked a little more closely.
And of course, here's me at the airport bar having my customary pre-flight beverage (this time it was a refreshing margarita)!
By The Penny Lady | May 25, 2011 at 12:36 AM EDT | No Comments
Charmy's Portland EAC Convention Show Report w/Pics!
Even though I've been an EAC member for a few years, this is the first EAC Convention I've attended. I really love the Portland area, it's so green and beautiful, and this show is in the same facility as the PNNA Portland show, and I happen to have my exact same table as that show.
I arrived Thursday afternoon and my buddy Ron picked me up at the airport and we drove straight to the show. We arrived a little early so we had lunch at the Doubletree, then set up my table. My nighbor brought some local wine and was gracious enough to share it with us. Then the EAC had a wonderful reception following set up, so we enjoyed a few snacks and more tasty wine.
Quarternut was also at the reception
This is my buddy Ron
This is my other buddy Mark
Following the reception they held some programs called "Happenings" that I understand to be a sort of show and tell for specific coins, but not being familiar with this event, I had already made other plans so I wasn't able to attend.
Friday morning I took a few photos from the car on the way in (can't understand why photos taken with my cell phone from a car come out more clearly than photos taken of someone standing still right in from of me!).
Portland has this tram that goes over the freeway connecting a parking lot with the medical college.
My buddy Ron had a large group of beautiful Indian cents he was selling from his personal collection, which of course I couldn't pass up. I ended up buying this whole pile of Indian cents, many of which were in rattler and old green holders. All were pristine MS64/MS65 RB and RED! This alone made the trip up here welll worth it!
A few forum members stopped by, some of whom were gracious enough to let me take their photo and post it here!:
Moldnut
ColoradoCoinGuy
Tomorrow night is the big much-anticipated EAC auction - heres a photo of auction lot viewing:
Here are some photos of the bourse taken on Friday:
Doug Byrd's table right across from me:
And ......me......
Friday was pretty busy at the show. They had several seminars throughout the day, so people were in and out, with the crowd ebbing and flowing. I sold a beautiful PCGS AU55 1877 Indian cent that I had bought raw in Tukwila and sent to PCGS for grading. I also sold several neat cuds, retained cuts, shattered dies and clipped planchet Indian cents to a customer who has an amazing collection of these types of Indian cents.
We went to dinner at PF Changs, one of my favorite restaurants on the planet, then headed home early so I could work up all my nep Indian cents to ship off to Todd for photographing.
Saturday morning was another pretty nice day here in Oregon, sun shining, no rain, a little cool, but very nice - I sincerely do appreciate having mild climate during my time here in Oregon! Here are a few shots I took on the way to the show.
Saturday the show part of the convention was been a little slow and more sparsely attended than Friday. So I was able to get away and attend a very interesting talk given by John Kraljevich (even though I have a similar sounding Polish maiden name, I still always have to look up how to spell his name!). His talk had a very intriguing title: "The Taste of Dogmeat: Lewis and Clark in the Pacific Northwest." (As many of you U.S. history buffs already know, Lewis and Clark subsisted on salmon and dog meat during their time in the Pacific Northwest before heading back home.) John is an amazing young man and very entertaining to listen to - I don't think there is a question you could ask him relating to history that he couldn't answer. (Sorry, most of the photos I took caught John while he was blinking!)
I went to the auction Saturday night just to observe. I noticed that McCauley was bidding (and winning) up a storm - it seemed he had his bidder number up on every other lot! Being new to an EAC auction, what I found very interesting was the number of electroplate (sp?) copies and restrikes in the auction that were selling for what I considered strong money - but what do I know?
Sunday was what I call a "nothing" day: no public and no sales, just mostly people coming in to pick up their auction lots, and dealers packing up and leaving. However, my buddy did pick up a very pretty 1903 1$ gold piece PCGS MS64 in an old green holder from "the Colonel" that he is very pleased with.
All I did was finish entering all the new slabbed Indian cents I bought into my inventory sheet, then packaged them up so Ron could ship them off to Todd on Monday for photographing (that way, I didn't have to take them home in my already very heavy bag!). After that was done, we packed up my table and headed to the airport.
So here are my final photos from the Portland EAC Convention. Here's one I took from the back of the room at the auction last night. The auctioneer was a hoot (don't recall his name), but he kept the lots moving and he was quite entertaining.
I took this on our way home after the auction - Portland at night....
I forgot to mention the great local diner we went to several times for breakfast in the Lake Oswego area - Miller's has an amazing avocado eggs benedict!
After two beautiful sunny days in Portland, here's what I left behind - I took this last photo as we approached the airport.
My hubby told me it poured pretty hard this morning here in SoCal but when I arrived home, it was absolutely the beautiful sunny SoCal I know and love! Boy, is it good to be home!
For those who have never attended an EAC convention, it was an interesting and very enlightening event especially compared to a regular coin show. It was certainly evident that the club put a lot of work and effort into making the EAC convention a very educational experience for everyone. There are so many people involved in the EAC who have a wealth of knowledge and expertise, and it is our great gain that they are willing to share that knowledge and expertise with the coin community. So I for one want to thank the EAC folks for putting on this convention, and for all they do to promote our hobby.
By The Penny Lady | April 22, 2011 at 11:47 AM EDT | No Comments
Charmy's April 2011 Santa Clara Show Report!
I left Thursday morning and drove the 6 hours to the show, which opened to dealers yesterday at noon, though I neglected to notice they had changed the set up time from 2:00 pm as it had been in previous years so I got there around 3:00 pm due to some accidents in the L.A. area. It was a nice relaxing set up day, opened up a nice bottle of wine, did some shopping around, then had a wonderful dinner and a great bottle of 2003 Zinfandel at the Italian restaurant in the Hyatt. Here's what the restaurant looked like before it got crowded - it's very trendy with a sparse but delicious menu.
I was pretty tired so i just went back to my room and watched a movie (Conviction with Hillary Swank).
Friday morning took a while for the show to get going, it seemed like the public sort of meandered in but soon the floor began to have the usual show buzz.
Wei took this photo because he said I should have at least ONE photo that wasn't blurry!
Several CU forum members stopped by and chatted - Obiwan, 19Lyds, Wei to name a few. I got this photo of Lance/lkeigwin at the snack bar.
Here are more photos I took today around the show...
More usual suspects...
The CBS news crew was here at the show filming and interviewing some of the bullion dealers due to the huge increase in gold and silver. Here is a shot of their equipment (couldn't find the crew, they must ave gone out for lunch)
And here is the "Pirate's Cove" where all the kids will gather on Saturday for the treasure hunt These are some of those very old coin books that I recently acquired and have gotten some interest. The smaller books are Wayte Raymond and the tall album book is Meghrig & Sons and is very hard to find. And here was my very unique purchase I made on Saturday! It's a set of very cool beautiful old Sterling makeup brushes in a velvet case!
As you can see I do like girly things! As a matter of fact, Gene Bruder's wife was selling these beautiful crystal beaded lanyards so the wives and women dealers can hang their badges and loupes on something pretty rather than a standard (usually bulky looking) show lanyard. I bought two black and gold ones that are just like jewelry and I love them!
As for my usual wine fest, yesterday we had a very nice 2008 Bogle cab and on Thursday we had a tasty 2008 La Creme Pinot. On Saturday, I opened a Foggy Valley Pinot which was very good. At the Bay 101 casino (where I did quite well) on Friday night I had a house cab while playing cards, however, it was only tolerable.
On Saturday the show gradually filled up, then died down by mid-afternoon. Sales were slow, but I did pick up a few coins for inventory but nothing really special. I found these cool penny jigsaw puzzles from a guy and have been selling a few of them. I think they're pretty cool and people find them very challenging.
Also, another CU forum member Obiwan Canoli, who told me he hadn't yet appeared on my reports, and let me take his photo!
Also on Saturday, I finally picked up a beautiful coin for my own collection - it's a stunningly toned Pop 1 1956 Lincoln, PCGS MS67 RB. Another CU forum member, Lance, brought it by to show me, and I asked him if it was for sale. He said it was, and was happy to see it go to a good home. Here are some photos (that don't do the coin any justice) that I took with my camera phone - of course, I'll have Todd photograph it and post those later.
I also got on consignment a beautiful VF-AU Indian cent set - wow! They're all really pretty pieces! I'll have to get photos of that too! in the meantime, here are some of my not-so-good photos of this set.
This same customer also gave me as a gift a beautiful brand new Capital Plastics holder for Indian cents!
And yet another customer gave me this really pretty stained glass box with some yummy candy (that I'm trying to stay far away from!). Last year, he gave me a really pretty tray made out of a melted wine bottle. So, Saturday night after the show, Glen/PonyExpress and I headed back to Bay 101 for some more poker. Another dealer Greg also met us there. Here's the front of the casino and the entrance to the poker room (I had to be slick about taking pictures in there since they don't usually allow people to take photos).
Here's Glen and Greg who ended up sitting on either side of me.
So, about a couple hours into our 6-12 game, I was dealt pocket 7's and the flop came 10-7-7. My heart is beating a mile a minute, but of course I slow play my hand and checked. Another guy bets, so I just call, and a couple people drop out. Another 10 comes on the turn, so the guy bets again, and I raise, he calls. Then comes a J I think (can't really remember the last card). The guy bets, I raise, he re-raises, I re-raise and this kept going about 6-7 times. The pot was at least $450, when the other guy was finally all-in. I'm sure you can guess what he had! Yep, pocket 10's!
My heart starts beating even faster and I got even more excited because I think I just won the bad beat jackpot! Usually, if Aces full of 10's or better gets beat, everyone at the table splits a big jackpot, and the one with the losing hand gets the biggest percentage. I was whooping and hooting with my hands pumping in the air.... when I was quickly told there was no bad beat jackpot at this casino!!! UGGGGGGHH! I couldn't believe it! WOW! What a letdown. Oh well, easy come, easy go. But at least by the time I left, the guy who won ended up losing most of his chips, while I still had a few trays full of chips, so that was my only consolation to such a horrible bad beat!
It was a very quiet Sunday morning, the public was very sparse, so I packed up early. Saturday was decent, but overall sales were still slow. The best part about the Santa Clara show actually was seeing some of my regular customers whom I only see a couple times a year, as well as all the forum members who stop by. And even though I really like the SantaClara show and enjoy going up to that area, as a result of this show slowing down, I will definitely be attending the Baltimore show in November instead of this one (since they are on the exact same dates this year).
By The Penny Lady | April 22, 2011 at 10:47 AM EDT | No Comments
Charmy's March 2011 Tukwila/Seattle Show Report!
Let me start out by saying, in case you didn't already know, that as beautiful and pristine as Seattle (and the surrounding area) is, Seattle is VERY COLD!!!!! It's even colder than Baltimore was, but this SoCal gal is a huge cold WIMP! As much as I love trees and mountain beauty, I still much prefer the 120 degree Havasu-desert-boating-on-a beautiful-cool-lake climate over this 30-degree-frost-covered-scraping-windshields-frosty-breath coldness! It didn't help that my table is set up right next to the huge open door loading area which made it feel like I was sitting outside. OK, enough whining, now on to show stuff.
My brother Paul lives here (he too was born and raised in SoCal so I don't know how he ever acclimated to the Seattle climate, but he does love it here). Any way, right after I arrived here in Seattle, Paul (who works for Expedia) took me to Frys to help me pick out what I call my new "show" notebook - it's a 10" laptop that I will take to shows instead of my regular laptop which will stay at home safe and sound. Yes, I also back up my laptop up but I feel safer having a separate travel notebook that doesn't contain everything my home laptop does but still has the the things I use on the road, and of course all my coin photos! I thought about getting an iPad-type device but just couldn't get used to the virtual keyboard that I would need to input information on my Excel inventory, so I went with the tiny Dell notebook. My brother is setting it up for me - yippee!
So I arrived at the show pretty early since Paul had a meeting at work and dropped me off around 7am. Set up went smoothly (except of course for it being 20 degrees below zero - I had to keep wrapping my hands around my lamps to keep warm, ok, sorry for the whining...). Then I did some quick shopping. I bought some more beautiful Conder tokens for my collection (including another white metal Conder - a Red Lion Inn), as well as several nice better date Indians for inventory, AND a beautiful AU 1877 Indian cent!
The show opened at noon - I took a couple photos of what the bourse looked like about 2 hours into the show
Several forum members stopped by and I actually remembered to take some of their pictures (a couple I had to ask pretty please!).
I apologize about my poor quality photos, I know some are blurry, but I take them rather quickly and don't want to make people stand around while I re-take them, so thank you for enduring my lack of photographic skills - I'll try to hold my hand more steady - if only my camera phone will comply!
The bourse floor on Friday was full and steady most of the afternoon. I understand this show has been going on in this location for years, and every coin person in the area knows it. So don't judge a show by just one photo taken at a particular minute - I take photos of the bourse when I have time and it's usually when things slow down a little. All shows ebb and flow - and for a half day of public, yesterday was flowing very well!
I understand that it was actually colder on Friday because the clouds were gone - which is a good thing around here. It was a really beautiful day and when we drove home, I too could see Mt. Rainier so clearly, it was quite spectacular! I guess I just take the sunshine for granted. Here's a picture I took from the car - even though it's in the distance, you can see how pretty Mt. Rainier is.
My brother lives in Maple Valley right near the Green River (yes, THAT Green River), so I took a couple photos from the car as we drove along the river to show how pretty the area is. As you can see, it is back to being cloudy, but still very very pretty.
And here is the street that the coin show is on - also right on the Green River.
Saturday was another incredibly busy day. It finally started to thin out around 4pm. I had some great sales, including a beautiful 1955/55 PCGS MS64 and two 1909-S Indian cents. Other than a few rolls rolls of lower end Indian and wheat cents, I didn't buy anything,
Here are some shots of the bourse taken around 11am - this is what it looked like Friday too!
I had the pleasure of chatting with several more forum members who stopped by today. Bochiman and Swampboy hung out with me for a little while, and I was honored to have my photo taken with Laksamman and Bochiman! (It's a little blurry but my neighbor took it, so it's not only me that is photo inept!)
High Relief and his pretty wife also stopped by, and they even brought me TWO bottles of tasty Washington wine (what sweathearts they are!)
Matt/BillyGoat
Dave99
So on Saturday night, my brother Paul, his girlfriend Vicki, and a couple other friends went to Mizu (sp?) which is a Bennyhana-type restaurant where the chef prepares your food right in front of you. Our chef was quite entertaining, flinging shrimp up in the air towards one of us to catch in our mouth, which my brother was quite good at (you know, the trained seal type thing!) What was really interesting was that he used Vodka to clean the grill surface in between types of food he was grilling!
We then went back to his house, where he continued setting up my new "netbook" (I earlier called it a notebook and was quickly corrected that the term is "netbook" - I told him, "tomato-tomoto, notebook-netbook"!) Any way, this thing is sooooo coooool! It's has everything I was looking for - portability, a keyboard AND a touch pad, powerful speed and big memory, can hold all my files including Excel, and best of all it has a flip screen so you can use it like an iPad! I just LOVE IT!
I mentioned that I bought some great Conder tokens for my collection, so I tried to take some photos with my phone camera - of course they didn't turn out very good, but here are the Conders - the 1 pence D&H Young's Promissory Penny is very beautiful and very rare and the D&H 24 Slough Red Lion Inn is a very cool and rare white metal piece
And here are the rolls of Indian and early Wheats I bought from a little old lady who just wanted to sell them so she wouldn't have to carry them around! I don't usually buy rolls of Wheats since I have so many already, but there were a few some nice early dates, rather than the usual 30's and 40's and they were all original and uncleaned.
Wow! What a show! I was exhausted... Glen, Dennis and I managed to finish off one of the bottles of wine that HighRelief brought, it was yummy and just what we needed to end the day and the show.
My show started out with a bang when I sold a beautiful raw 1864 bronze proof, and ended with another bang when I sold my 1873 S-1 double Liberty Indian cent! I was glad to see both of these great coins go to good homes. As I already mentioned, the show was steadily active and went by so fast. There were a lot of passionate coin people in the Pacific NW and I am grateful to have met many new ones and chatted with familiar ones too.
I spent the last hour of the show mostly socializing with Matt BillyGoat, Glen, and Dennis88. Then I coerced kindly Matt into helping me pack up! He was awfully gracious to assist especially when all I did was sort of hand him a box and showed him where to start! If only Todd could be so easily and amicably coerced. ;)Now another great coin show has come and gone. This one was unexpectedly fantastic! I mean last year was a really good show but you never know how mid-sized shows will turn out. As with any show, it just depends on what you have and what collectors are looking for. Scott and Lisa Loos and the PNNA group do an extraordinary job putting this show on. They really cater to us dealers, making sure we have what we need, even providing a separate dealer lounge where we can relax, have a cup of coffee, some snacks, etc. before the show begins, as well as throughout the show. And they do a great deal of advertising and offer great little seminars for the collectors during the show. Sometimes everything comes together as it did at this PNNA show.
Not only that, but there are so many forum members in the Seattle/Portland area so they made this show even more fun stopping by, chatting, swapping coin stories and interesting forum stories, and even buying a coin or two. It's this kind of comaraderie and show success that make all the traveling, walking around in very cold cities, hauling coins through airports, setting up/tearing down, sleeping in lumpy beds, etc. very much worth the effort!
By the way, I mentioned earlier that another customer had given me a can of yummy Washington-made Almond Rocha (but since I'm a chocolate addict and try to keep away from such temptations, I decided to bring it home to my hubby who loves these tasty treats. But the can wouldn't fit in my bag (yes, my bags are packed very tightly), I just dumped the foil wrapped pieces in my carry on. However, when the TSA folks decided to do a bag check and remove everything from my bag, all the almond rocha came tumbling out, so they helped me gather them up and put them in a TSA blue rubber glove to help contain them back in my bag!
After a day of catching up, it'll be time to prepare for Santa Clara! Here we go again....
By The Penny Lady | March 25, 2011 at 06:32 PM EDT | No Comments
Charmy's Sacramento ANA Show Report!
My son Erik and I left early Wednesday morning and 7 hours later arrived at the convention center in Sacramento. The loading dock is quite small and not multi-vehicle friendly, but we all managed to unload for set up in good time.
After set up, the ANA had a wine tasting dinner at the Old Sugar Mill, so several of us boarded the buses for the short ride across town along side the beautiful Sacramento River to this ex-sugar mill/now tasty winery!
My "little boy" on the bus!
Everyone bellying up to the wine bar!
Here are photos of the wine tasting dinner including photos of several ANA folks.
Larry
David
Tiffany
And I just had to take this photo of Kay in her very soft fur jacket
Jeff and his wife dined with us at our table (Jeff is a member of the Sacramento Coin Club)
Andy (Mr. Eureka)
This was a tee-shirt they were selling at the winery (he he)
We took a brief tour of the sugar warehouse. They said the building was constructed in Utah in the early 1900's and then taken apart and moved to its current location in the 1930's.
And this is the extremely rare and very expensive 1804 $1 in a specially made museum holder that Larry was showing us at dinner!
Bourse floor on Thursday
PCGS folks
Ernie received this wonderful award for all his selfless contributions to the world of coins!
Logan and his beautiful daughter at VAMS & More
Me and Logan
More usual suspects (Todd and his dad Roger)!
My neighbor across the aisle Ian Russell
Me in my St. Patrick's Day Green!
On Thursday (St. Patrick's Day), we started with some of my own very yummy Sangiovese at the show, then went over to the Citizen Hotel for their free wine happy hour. We stopped by the park where they had live music and vendors but they wanted $25 per person just to get in so we went over to McCormick & Schmidts for some wonderful rib-eye where I also had my first Irish car bomb of the night! We then ended up at a really fun pub on J and 15th called The Torch. They had a live band that played a lot of jazz/rhythm & blues - not exactly Irish style music, but great just the same! We danced a lot, had some more Irish car bombs as well as several pints of Guinness. My son even asked me to dance, which was really special since he's moving to Italy next week and I am sad that I won't have him around for quite a while, not to mention his birthday is TODAY!
I have to say that I haven't been out dancing in quite a while, and this place was a ton of fun! We finally called it quits around 11:30, headed back to the hotel, crawled into bed, and quickly fell fast asleep! Here are several photos I took at the pub - enjoy!
And here's a view of downtown Sacramento from my hotel window - it's a very pretty city, especially at night!
Oh, and I did pick up quite a few more nice coins: some very pretty half cents, 1909-S Indian MS65 RB, a gorgeous MS64 1867 with a bold RPD "1" and a STUNING MS66 1860 Indian cent.
Friday at the show was very busy for us! I bought several more nice coins, even bought and quickly sold a beautiful 1909-S Indian MS65 RB. Also quickly sold an MS63 RB 1877 Indian that I had just picked up from NGC. I've had Todd image most of my newps, including several beautiful new Conder tokens I just got back from NGC - can't wait to post them! Also bought another gorgeously toned proof which I think will photograph beautifully.
Friday night was our last night here in Sacramento, and it was also Erik's birthday! So we celebrated his birthday with several friends at a really super wonderful restaurant called Ella's.
We even ran into several other show people dining at the restaurant, including some familiar ANA folks!
Here's a pretty view of Sacramento from our room Saturday morning.
After dinner, Erik went back to the room and watched a movie since it seems I had worn him out with all our late-night "sight seeing"! So several of us met at the Capitol Casino for some after-dinner poker. There were probably about 5-6 dealers who were there, I ended up at a table with a couple of them and quickly and accidentally beat them out of a big pot! Rick was there at another table and he had the high hand of the evening (straight flush) for a nice $200 bonus!
Saturday was very busy, especially crowded with scouts and kids doing the treasure trivia hunt. Sales were steady, as was my buying, but the best thing was that I bought two BEAUTIFUL original RED Indian cents: 1909-S NGC MS65 RD and 1908-S PCGS MS65 RD! Of course, Todd photographed them for me. Speaking of Todd, I finally got to meet his better half - what a very nice pretty lady - I certainly see what Todd sees in her!
Here are photos of the bourse floor, some of the exhibits, and one of the many dozens of kids that stopped by my table today....
This is the Dino-Lite booth right behind me - they are wonderful neighbors and have a great microscope camera!
I finally made it home late Saturday night after a long wet and windy drive! Sunday at home it was still cold and windy outside but the rain had subsided here, and I sat warm and cozy in front of a blazing fire, with a steaming cup of coffee, catching up on some missed episodes of my favorite shows (Survivor, Criminal Minds, etc.), checked my emails and of course the coin forums. Later, I went through all my newps and added them to my inventory and my website.
Sacramento is a neat city, full of history and some great architecture, as well as a lot of wonderful people. I met some new forum members, visited with some regular forum members as well as lots of old friends. I think overall the show was much busier and better attended than anticipated. From the dealers I spoke to, they had a better show than they had expected, though admittedly some had low expectations. Being part of the kids' treasure trivia, I saw more kids at this show than I usually doe at other ANA's, so the ANA is doing a great job getting more and more kids in the door, which is indeed a good sign for the future of coin collecting!
Now I'll take a few days to regroup, then it'll soon be time to get ready for BALTIMORE!!!
By The Penny Lady | February 21, 2011 at 03:33 PM EST | No Comments
Charmy's January San Jose Coin Show Report!
My son Erik and I arrived the evening before the show after an uneventful (yet CHP riddled - I think they're trying to drum up extra revenue for our poor bankrupt state!) drive up the 5, and set up was at a very weird time - 7pm-10pm (due to hotel conflicts). Chatted with Wei for a while, had a glass of wine, then luckily, I found out that my particular table section was prepared and ready to go a little early so we were able get in and set up around 6pm. We made quick work of it, then went to dinner with several people at the wonderful Spencer's Steakhouse right here in the hotel. Then it was off bed (no, no partying yet)!
Opening day was quite busy right from the start, and at 4:30 pm. the room was still a buzz. I bought a few nice coins today (1909-S vdb PCGS AU58, 1909-S Indian PCGS XF45, 1931-S PCGS MS65 RED rattler, 1915-D PCGS MS64 RB, 1925-D PCGS MS64 RB, 1936 NGC PF66 RED, etc.). Todd stopped by and I gave him several coins to take home and photograph for me. I sold quite a few coins as well. Good thing, since I also spotted a beautiful bracelet that goes really well with a ring I bought at the show last year - but I restrained myself and didn't buy it!
To give you a feel for this show and its surroundings, here are some photos of the hotel, restaurant, and inside the show. As you can see, the hotel is quite nice and spacious, and the show room is also really nice, fully carpeted, and everything was set up nicely. Ray Johnson and his crew do a GREAT job putting this show together, that's for sure!
The outside entrance to the convention room This is the lobby in front of the show where the supplies and exhibits are
Entrance to the show
My table
My cute little boy!
The bourse floor
The wonderful Spencer's Steakhouse
The hotel bar
The hotel coffee shop where we had breakfast
So the next night we had reservations at Spencer's Steakhouse in the hotel for dinner, there were 9 of us and we brought 6 bottles of really good wine to taste and share. However, the restaurant wanted to charge us a $25 per bottle corkage fee. Since we had so many bottles, we expected that they would reduce it to $15 like they did last year, but this manager refused, so we ended up leaving and just having dinner at the cafe. Even at the cafe, the food was pretty good. Soon, the higher-up manager came over and talked to us about why we left, and after some negotiating, he agreed to reduce the corkage fee if we would return to Spencer's the next night (tonight) which we agreed to. So we'll see how it goes tonight.
Then I was off to the casino! I was excited to go play cards since Bay 101 is a really nice casino with lots of action. I was playing 6/12 limit but wasn't getting very good cards for the first couple hours so I switched tables. Then I started getting good cards, was making straights and flushes, but what's even worse than getting bard cards is getting good cards and coming in second! I was being beat by full houses back to back! When I finally got a full house and thought I for sure couldn't lose that hand, and got beat AGAIN by a bigger full house, I knew it was time to leave, and I did!
The next day at the show was quite busy, even more people here than the previous day. I bought some more collector grade coins, 1909-S Indian and Lincoln cents, and even got a nice 1873 closed 3 S-2 (double Liberty) MS64 Red.
Saw a couple forum members, and took some more photos around the show.
This is the kids' table outside the front door in the lobby area of the show....
This is Scott Western and his wife also set up in the lobby - he's our wonderful coin supply guy and hauls a ton of stuff to all these shows!
These are my San Jose party animal coin dealer friends! LOL! I very much enjoy spending time with Jerry and Linda Carsman and Sara Wargo (behind them) - Jerry has taught me most of what I know about good wines. He has an amazing wine selection.
This is Sarah's other half - Joe Wargo - he is a big wheeler/dealer and will buy and sell just about anything - he's very savvy, and a very hard worker!
And here is the McIntosh clan in their Saturday "uniforms" hard at work (or as Todd would probably say, hardly working!)....
And this is fellow forumite Stealer - he's such a very nice polite young man and very and serious about coins!
Also, Gene Bruder's table is directly across from my table.
Last but not least is our own sweet big ol teddy bear Larry Shapiro!
That night we finally went to Spencer's for dinner. We were not disappointed! They have wonderful food, that's for sure, and boy did the wine flow! I meant to take a picture of our table but forgot - good thing, cause if you saw what the table looked like with all those bottles of wine, you'd think we were a bunch of alkies!
We all had quite a bit of such yummy wine that all I could do was head up to my room where I quickly succumbed to my very soft bed and cushy pillow, so it was no casino-ing for me last night!
The last morning of the show, I went over and held the big huge gold nugget on display at Kagin's table! WOW!!! That thing is HUMONGOUS!
And I was finally able to visit some of the very interesting exhibits outside in the lobby. I took pictures of a couple of them, including a neat error exhibit and a wonderful elongated Lego Land exhibit which won FIRST PRIZE!
By The Penny Lady | February 21, 2011 at 03:15 PM EST | No Comments
Charmy's February 2011 Long Beach Show Report!
On up day and I was surprised to see that just about every table was occupied AND new tables were added towards the back of the room - I think that's a great sign that things in the coin world are picking up! Later in the afternoon, PCGS gave out free beer to all the dealers which seemed very welcomed by everyone.
Once set up was over, PCGS hosted a really nice 25th anniversary party at the Hyatt for authorized PCGS dealers, complete with "special" entertainment! What a hoot it was. After a couple very talented high school acts performed (barber shop quartet, a fantastic young "Aretha Franklin" and a young group of girls), David Hall picked up his guitar and and Laura Sperper took over the drums! And boy were they good! Here are some photos of this wonderful event - I'm sure you'll recognize several familiar faces....
By The Penny Lady | December 06, 2010 at 01:16 PM EST | No Comments
Charmy's Houston Money Show Report
The dust has settled on the Houston show, and I'm home this morning after a hectic week, including attending my local show yesterday in Anaheim. I'm sitting here in front of a warm crackling fire, while the rain pitter patters on the roof and windows, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to share some of my experiences attending my first Houston Money Show (sorry folks, the few photos I took didn't turn out very well, so this won't include my usual pictorial report).
Any way, I arrived in Houston on Wednesday evening, met Todd and his Dad and we all took a car to our hotels (our bags literally filled almost every inch of the large SUV!). The car dropped me off at the Hilton and took Todd and his Dad to their hotel. I was glad to see that the Hilton is directly across the street from the convention center, and even more pleased to see that this particular Hilton was a very nice hotel. I watched the Lakers/Rockets game for a little while in the hotel bar, then had a wonderful dinner at the hotel's steak house restaurant (Spencer's).
Headed to the show Thursday morning, found our table (which was about 20 feet from the PCGS table), Todd and I set up our respective coins/gear, and we were ready for business! Before the public came in, we were able do run around and check out any potential coins to buy. I found a few nice pieces for inventory but nothing for my personal collection. The public was let in at 1pm and they slowly filtered back to where our table was. Thursday started out a little slow but picked up. I made one big sale (my PF61 1856 Flying Eagle - whahooo!) so I thought that was a great way to start off a new show! Todd seemed to be busy right from the start, he had lots of PCGS forum members bringing coins for imaging, as well as several dealers wanting him to image their inventory.
Thursday night Todd and his dad went to the dealer hosted bbq which I heard was very good. I ended up going to Three Forks steakhouse with a few other dealers and I can say that it was FABULOUS! The service was over the top, the wine was perfect, and the food was absolutely delicious! I highly recommend it. Then we went to the House of Blues and then to a dueling piano bar which was a ton of fun! And then after that, we ended up back at the hotel bar where a number of other dealers were still gathered.
Friday seemed slow but steady though Todd was quite busy again. I even bought a few more coins (pretty 1873 MS65 which I sold the next day), however, by the late afternoon, it was pretty sparse and we got a little bored. So my friends at PCGS and I ended up having a rubberband war (I had to "borrow" some rubberbands from the NGC table which was right next to PCGS since their rubberbands were thicker and made better ammunition!). Don't worry Don, the battle was brief and no PCGS customers were harmed!
We kept quite busy on Saturday. Todd was working hard making sure he met everyone's deadlines, and I had steady business including buying a beautiful group of Indian proof Indian cents (photos to come!). The day seemed to go by very quickly, several more forum members stopped by, and then it was time to pack up to catch my plane. When I got to the airport, of course the TSA people wanted to check my bags but an overzealous (to put it nicely) clerk with an attitude felt the need to pull out every single coin I had! She was very abrupt, wouldn't explain or answer questions, so I finally asked for the supervisor who ended up replacing that worker with a nicer one. Wow, that was a very frustratingly long experience. But after I got through that, I went had a deliciously strong margarita which helped calm me down. Then since I was on the same plane as the wonderful PCGS folks, I chatted with them until it was time to board.
All in all it was a successful show and I think Todd and I will do it again next year.
By The Penny Lady | October 05, 2010 at 03:25 PM EDT | No Comments
Hi all! I thought I'd create a place where I can post information about shows, collecting, the market, coins in general, etc. Feel free to add your comments as well, but please keep it respectful!
The Long Beach show last week was quite successful for me. It seems there were less dealers setting up, which was partly due to Whitman Philadelphia show being the very next week. But since I have many customers who look for me at this show, I seem to always do well. It's also a great buying show for me, and this show was no different. I am posting new price lists, and you'll find all my new purchases in bold, as usual. I also had Todd (bluCCphotos.com) photograph a lot more of my better certified inventory, so you'll see many more pictures of coins on my website.
I just returned from the Buena Park show which started out slow but ended up very busy. There were about 75 dealers or so, with some new dealers who were set up for the first time. This has always been a very active show, and some dealers were a little worried when Saturday was slow, but when all was said and done, most dealers were pleased. I bought several G-VF Early American Copper pieces which always seem to be popular.
Any way, I'd love to hear any comments you may have - thank you!
So several of us met at the Capitol Casino for some after-dinner poker. There were probably about 5-6 dealers who were there, I ended up at a table with a couple of them and quickly and accidentally beat them out of a big pot! Rick was there at another table and he had the high hand of the evening (straight flush) for a nice $200 bonus!
