FINAL UPDATE: Charmy's ANA Summer Seminar Report w/Lots of PHOTOS!

[The Penny Lady]

I arrived here Thursday afternoon. I have to say that the flight from Denver to Colorado Springs was quite an adventure, sort of like a roller coaster! And other than the pilot missing the landing due to the wind current and having to circle back around, the flight was the shortest flight I'd ever been on. This photo was taken as we landed in Denver.

 

 

I got here just in time for the wine a cheese reception at the ANA Museum. Wow, what a wonderful numismatic museum! Here are photos I took inside of some of the exhibits.

 

Rick and Nathan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following the reception was the awards banquet for the first session where all the instructors and volunteers are recognized.

 

 

 

 

I finally got to meet Bruce/Hobo (on CoinTalk) in person!

 

Steve

 

John and Eric hamming it up right after they received their award

 

Sandy, an ANA staffer

 

Me

 

2011 Banquet token given to everyone at the banquet

 

Then, following the banquet was a talent show that included a card magician, a few wonderful piano players, and an amazing flutist (Akia) who played these huge bass-type flutes - I neglected to get a photo of these.

 

And finally, I ended up of course at the famous (infamous?) Lunar Lounge!

 

 

 

Jerry Bobbe on the cello

 

 

FYI, for those of you concerned regarding the museum photos, Larry Shepherd personally approved my taking photos and posting them on this board for my report, and also, the reception was a special event held at the museum with other photographers taking pictures.

 

I forgot to mention that I picked up three of my Conder tokens that were waiting for me at the ANA vault (a friend had submitted them to NGC along with his Conders and he happened to be at the Summer Seminar so he dropped them off for me). Any way, WOW, I was quite pleased with the grades and these are three wonderful Conders. One is very close to a terminal die state and it graded MS66 BN (Spence's D&H 855). Another is a rare white metal donkey carrying rents and taxes (Spence's 722), and the third is a beautiful Spence's 778A. I picked them up just before the reception, and put them in my shirt pocket since i only had a very tiny purse and they wouldn't fit. So everyone could see I had coins in my pocket and of course wanted to see what I had. The terminal die Conder was quite a hit at the reception, and it got passed all around with many ooooohs and ahhhhhhs, all to my enjoyment of course!

 

 

 

 

Here are some photos of the college campus and dorm area.

 

Then Friday was another pretty busy day. I enjoyed a nice breakfast with David Lange (NGC) and Rick at the school cafeterial.

 

 

After breakfast, Rick drove us to the coin show where we spent a few hours perusing all the dealers' cases. It's funny, because when Rick and I arrived at the show, we sort of automatically went in separate directions - he started at one end of the room and I went to the other so that we weren't "competing" to buy the same coin at the same time!

 

It sure was nice to be on the other side of the table and not have to worry about getting back to my own table, etc. It was much more relaxing and carefree. Right inside the door is Doug Bird and John K who showed me an amazingly rare silver kneeling slave Conder (only 2 known). Then I briefly chatted with Glenn/PonyExpress, Paul/CoinKid, and another YN Jeff.

 

 

 

 

I picked up a few coins, including a really nice earl die state of the 1909 vdb DDO (PCGS MS64 BN) with bold doubling, a very pretty 1864 Bronze Indian cent with numerous die breaks (ANACS MS64 RB/RED) and a beautiful toned 1894 Proof Indian (PCGS PF64 RB).

 

 

Knowing how much I love toned copper, Larry Shepherd very graciously invited me to view his AMAZING toned Indian proof collection, so after the show, Rick and I stopped by Larry's office at the ANA to see these stunning pieces. And all I can say is WOW! My mouth dropped open and I could feel drool starting to form as I picked up each piece, one by one. Most of them are graded PF67 - and they truly were jaw droppers. A few of them he had bought in the original mint wrapper and sent them in to be graded still in that original celophane. I was so honored just to be holding and seeing these beauties in person. So a big THANKS! goes out to Larry for letting me have the pleasure of viewing some of the prettiest copper I've ever seen.

 

 

After Larry put those beauties back in the vault, he showed us a foamboard of the floorplans for both the upcoming Chicago and ANA shows. The Chicago show is almost sold out and is bigger than any other ANA show to date. And they have organized the set up so the public enters down one main aisle which leads straight to the exhibits. Also, there are many more corner tables than ever before. Also, he had to expand the Pittsburgh show because the original group of tables was already completely sold out, so they added another group of tables to accommodate all the requests to set up at this brand new show. This is very exciting to hear, since it seems like the ANA is doing everything they can to bring back the popularity of big coin shows. They have also greatly expanded the amount and type of marketing they are doing, including creating an entire magazine on all there is to do in Chicago so the collectors and their families can make a vacation of coming to Chicago.

 

We ran into Scott Rottinghaus at the ANA offices and he gave me one of his campaign tokens.

 

 

This is an old coin press that is on display at the ANA offices.

 

 

While we were leaving the ANA offices, they were removing an obsolete plaque that still had Cipoletti's name (they were actually using a crowbar to pry it off the wall!).

 

 

Friday continued....

 

After we left the ANA, we picked up Todd who had just arrived and headed over to Cripple Creek which is an old mining town that has a lot of tiny casinos and card rooms. We took a more rural route called Gold Camp Drive that was an old train track road. It went through old train tunnels, was partly paved, mostly dirt, and winded through some beautiful country. However, we soon realized that, rather than heading towards Cripple Creek, we had taken a wrong turn somewhere along the road and were headed back to Colorado Springs. So we stopped at the visitor's center and found out there had been a tunnel collapse a while ago and there was a different route we should have taken - Stagecoach Road. So we were soon back on our way. Here are some photos I took along the way, including one of a not-so-shy doe grazing along side the road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though it took us a couple hours to get there, as I mentioned it was a very scenic drive. After we arrived in Cripple Creek, Rick and I headed to the poker room while Todd took off to find in the other direction to play some slots. Later, we met up with Glen/PonyExpress and Paul/CoinKid. Paul and I ended up playing some roulette together and unfortunately, he was getting frustrating because the ball kept leaping right over his number, but fortunately for me, it lept right onto my numbers! Also, the casino had a special "bingo" thing going on so if certain numbers hit, it was a "bingo" and if you were on that number you won an extra $25. Well, i ended up getting 4 bingos, along with hitting several numbers - I left the table a few hundred dollars ahead (though that still didn't make up for what I lost at the dang BlackJack table!). We ended up getting back to the dorms well after midnight!

 

All in all, it was a very eventful and fun day!

 

Saturday...

 

What a freaky storm we just had! Sudden thunder and lightening, then pounding hail!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Besides the huge hail storm that just passed, here are some highlights from Saturday. Rick, Chris/Halfhunter and I took a trip up to Pike's Peak - wow, it is strunning and breathtaking! And what a beautiful day to take a drive, but you'd better not be afraid of heights when traveling on the road to the top (elevation over 14,000 feet)! Here are photos I took along the way....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our way back to the dorms we decided to locate some poker chips so we could get a game going tonight. Along the way, we passed right by the U.S. Olympic Headquarters so, of course, we had to stop and take more photos!

 

 

 

 

When we got back from Pike's Peak, it was time to officially register for the week. Todd was hanging out there so we took a few minutes to relax.

 

 

We also registered for the Minor Leage baseball game on Monday night (Sky Socks) which includes a BBQ and of course fire works.

 

Speaking of BBQ, we just had an amazing BBQ dinner following the registration which luckily was under a large tent so we stayed dry even though the rain returned. By the way, just for Ricko, we actually bought some wine glasses as a little winery near the bottom of the Pike's Peak mountain, as well as a couple yummy bottles of local wine - here's one of them! And the glasses sure made all the difference!

 

 

We plan to start a friendly poker game here shortly, so that's about it for today. I can't wait for classes to start tomorrow!

[ldhair]

Very nice Charmy. Hope you guys have a great time.

[leeg]

Always a good read and enjoy the images. Adds a special touch to the presentation. (thumbs u

 

 

[RWB]

Good to see that coin collectors still know how to drink, too!

 

Thanks for the vicarious visit!

 

[The Penny Lady]

Sunday....

 

Last night we played poker at Lunar Lounge until midnight. There were 6-8 of us, and we had a blast - well, especially me, since I was the big winner! Even Todd played and ended up a winner at the end of the night! Though staying up this late sure makes it hard in the morning to get moving, and even harder in the afternoon when you have to be in class and actually pay attention and think!

 

This morning was pretty relaxing, everyone was taking it easy until their classes started at 1pm. So we drove over to Garden of the Gods and viewed the neat sand formations from the Jurassic period.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then everyone headed to their respective classes for the afternoon. I took Doug Bird and Steve Carr's Early American Copper class and learned quite a bit just in the 4 hours we had today! Here are a couple photos of my class.

 

 

 

After class, we headed to the cafeteria for dinner which was pretty good despite the previous poor reviews of the catering here. Of course, I brought a bottle of wine, which makes everything taste better! I actually left my newly purchased glass at the bbq last night but was very fortunate that the caterers had set it aside so I was able to retrieve it, thank goodness!

 

 

Following dinner, we made a wine, beer, ice and more poker chip run into town! While we were out, another big storm came up, with thunder, lightening, and lots of rain (no hail this time).

 

 

When we got back, there was this big area of bright blue sky and sun, yet the rain was still pooring down on us. So I took these photos of this beautiful conundrum.

 

 

 

Now we're headed back to Lunar Lounge for another rousing poker game!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Coindude]

Wow Charmy, another fantastic show report! Thank you so much for sharing.... I'm sure it must pain you to have to put all these shows in for business expenses at the end of the year... it just doesn't seem fair!!

 

Keep them coming and thanks so much for thinking of us when you post your show reports!

[tejas1836]

Thanks for the report. Looks like the activities outside the classes are worth the trip.

 

 

One more thing. ATS CaptHenway has a thread on "why coin dealers drink". There are some really funny dealer stories. Have you got any to add?

[The Penny Lady]

Monday...

 

This was our first day of full classes. As I mentioned, I'm taking Doug Bird and Steve Carr's Early American Copper class. We spent a lot of time on becming familiar with EAC books and learning to attribute large and half cents. It was quite tedious but so worth all the effort.

 

 

John Wright graciously donated a copy of his book "The Cent" to our class for each one of us to keep! Wow, I know it's about $100 book, so we were all very thrilled and appreciative to have this book!

 

 

We also received an older copy of "Copper Quotes by Jack Robinson" which is the best pricing guide for EAC.

 

I went to the book sale at the ANA offices on Sunday when it first opened but it was overly crowded and too difficult to sort through the books. So at lunch I went back to the ANA and was able to check out what was left. I ended up buying some really neat old pamphlet type books on of course various types of copper! I was especially pleased with one of the books which is a 1924 reprint of a very rare 1881/1883 EAC book.

 

 

Then after class, a bunch of us gathered to head over to the Sky Sox baseball game and fireworks. Here are some photos taken on the bus.

 

Opening ceremonies

 

That is the first minor league game I'd been to and it was a lot of fun - they had some sort of entertainment in between each inning, including this guy who had life-sized Michael Jackson puppets lined up and attached to several horizontal poles and he was in the middle, and whenever he moved his arms or legs, all the other puppets moved in unison. It was quite an interesting and entertaining act.

 

Me and my new Sky Sox hat!

 

Rick/EagleEye and Chris/HalfHunter

 

Rick and his patriotic hotdog!

 

Glenn/PonyExpress

 

Todd/Blu62vette and one of his students

 

Some of the wonderful fireworks following the game

 

And finally, the bus ride home!

[JOBESSI]

wow, any of those coins for sale?

[The Penny Lady]

Tuesday....

 

We had another informative day in my EAC class, did a lot of attributing and grading which seemed to go quite a bit faster than the day before. We also discussed different types of counterfeits and then we were tested to see if we could detect the counterfeit large and half cents from among about 20 different pieces. This is a great class so far, but I'm discovering that the more I learn, the more I know I have a lot more to learn!

 

Later after dinner, I attended the "Minting Mayhem" class with Joe Paonessa from the Badger Mint (he also creates the most beautiful Hobo nickels). Now, that is a fun class, especially if you're interested in how errors were created.

 

We got to work on a rolling mill:

 

a punch press:

 

a Castaing machine or edge mill:

 

and a No. 4 screw press (or fly press):

 

close up of the die on the screw press:

 

Using 4 pewter planchets, I created a couple of deep die caps but two planchets stuck to the obv die and two stuck to the rev die, so I ended up with an obv double die cap and a rev double die cap. Then I created a strike thru using a piece of copper wire that got completely meshed into the planchet. The last error I made was a double struck off center.

 

 

After the class, as Rick mentioned, several people gathered back at Lunar Lounge to listen to Ron Landis (who played a beautiful Dubrow guitar), Sonny Henry, Mark Hammang and David McCarthy play guitars and the harmonica (the harmonica is one of my favorite instruments to listen to - that's probably why I like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springstein and U2 so much). What a wonderful and relaxing atmosphere it was, the weather was cool and breezy, we had a spectacular view of Pike's Peak, all the while listening to some very talented people playing great music. It doesn't get any better than that!

 

[The Penny Lady]

Wednesday....

 

During class, we did a lot more large cent later date attribution which is much more difficult. We also saw a lot of counterfeit EAC coins some of which were very difficult to detect. Also, the ANA photographer came in and took our class pictures.

 

 

After class, we went to dinner at the Famous Steakhouse (that's its name) and were we in for a wonderful surprise. Their food was probably one of the very best we ever had. We each had their bone-in ribeye special which was amazing, but even the side dishes were extremely tasty, including their battered onion rings! We had a bottle of Argentina Malbec, and that too was a wonderful bottle of wine. Though pricey, I definitely recommend anyone coming to Colorado Springs to stop by Famous for dinnerr (reservations are suggested).

 

 

Following dinner, we went to the YN Auction. Boy, was I in for a surprise. I knew that the auction was not meant for people to try and get a good deal on items, but is more of a fundraiser for the ANA Young Numismatist program but this being my first year at the Summer Seminar and YN Auction, I did not know that there are no real "rules" for this particular auction, so I got to be the butt of some cute pranks by my "friends." At one point, I made the mistake of leaving my "bidder number" on my chair when I went to talk to someone and one of my good ol buddies decided to use my number to bid on some items, including this handmade straw hat with a flying fish sticking out of the top owned by the ANA's beloved Summer Seminar legend Daniel "Tny" Cross!

 

The auction catalog and my "bidder number"

 

My new hat!

 

Then my "good buddy" Todd decided to create a counterfeit of my bidder number and began bidding on items "for me." Here are my real bidder number and Todd's counterfeit!

 

At one point, I was even bidding against myself (Todd using a counterfeit of my bidder number) for the Weiner medal that I eventually won! Luckily, someone else chimed in, so Todd dropped out, but I really wanted the medal so I continued to bid against another guy. We both ended up just standing up and continually holding up our bidder number as the auctioneer called out prices. However, at one point when the price got a little too high, we coincidentally dropped back to our seats at the exact same time. So the auctioneer asked who wanted to pay the last bid, and I agreed and won this beautiful medal! Since Todd owed me, he was good enough to photograph it for me this morning!

 

Cathedral Medal depicting Church of St. Genevieve (Pantheon) by Jacques Weiner, 1858

 

In addition to the Demetrios 1 tetradrachm that Rick won, the other highlight of the auction was this beautiful Hobo Morgan Dollar masterfully carved by Joe Paonessa of Tiny. It sold for $2,300!

 

 

They also auctioned off a chance at a money grab. Two of them were donated back to a YN to do the grabbing and the last one went to Tiny with an extended amount of time to grab all the bills he could.

 

 

This was a pile of play money for YN's to play with

 

More photos from the auction

 

Then of course, we ended up back at Lunar Lounge!

 

Rick and his alter ego Brian Fanton

 

Our last bottle of wine!

 

Tomorrow we're headed to the Denver Mint for a floor tour! I won't have any pictures of that, but there's always the bus ride! Then it's home on Saturday - yippeeeee!

[The Penny Lady]

Thursday...

 

In class we did some more variety attributions, and then we got to see quite a few neat large cent errors.

 

This was a fantastic class and Steve Carr and Doug Bird are excellent instructors. If you are at all interested in Early American Copper, I highly recommend taking their class. Chris/HalfHunter06 was in the class with me, and he was very good a figuring out the attributions much quicker than i did! He is a joy to be around, very kind, supportive and always positive - and he sure loves coins!

 

So Thursday after class was the wine and cheese reception and "graduation" banquet, followed by a "Lie, Cheat, and Steal" program (I arrived here last Thursday just in time for the first session's reception, banquet, and talent show).

 

Here are a few photos from the banquet.

 

 

Steve and Doug right after they received their instructor awards

 

Todd and his award

 

The "Lie, Cheat, and Steal" program was put on by Andy/Mr. Eureka and I was honored to be included in the panel. We were given 4 scenarios involving coin deals gone bad and yhe 4 panel members argued one side or the other. Then the audience was divided up into 7 jury groups consisting of 5-6 people, and they had to decide which side they thought was ethically right (not leally). Jerry Bobby was one of the panel members and he sure was a hoot! Unfortunately, since I was a panel member, I didn't get any photos, but I think Todd or Rick or maybe Chris may have taken some photos so perhaps they can post them when they get a chance. I did get this photo of Chris/HalfHunter06 wearing my new auction purchase (he looked a lot better in it than I did)!

 

 

Then of course, we all ended up back at Lunar Lounge for our last night together. I didn't take any more photos since it was mostly the same crowd, but it was another fun night, yet a little more mellow since everyone seemed to be winding down.

 

Friday....

 

Several of us signed up for the Denver Mint tour and as we were boarding the bus, many others were packing up and waiting for their shuttles to the airport. It took only about 1 1/2 hours to get to Denver, which is a very pretty city (the "Mile High City").

 

 

Since we couldn't take our cell phones into the Mint, the only picture I got was this photo of the outside of the building.

 

 

Our tour was a ground tour meaning we got to walk all around where the actual machines were, and we were strictly told not to pick up any coins we may see lying on the ground - and we did see a few here and there and it was tempting to reach down and pick them up but we all resisted! It was very interesting to see how fast the machines work and how many coins they produce in seconds!

 

When we got back to the dorms, it was pretty deserted. My flight wasn't until Saturday and Rick too wasn't leaving until Saturday, so we took a walk around town. We stopped by The Leechpit which is a really neat vintage store.

 

 

I ended up buying an original Beatles "White" album on Apple Records from I believe 1967. It has an original embossed serial number and included the poster and 4 photos of the Beatles. The album is in great shape, looks barely played, though the cover shows some wear.

 

 

Here are some random photos I also took around town.

 

An old typewriter in the ANA library

 

Then we went over to Hallenback Coins for a few minutes, then back back to the very quiet dorms. I went out to dinner with some friends of mine who moved from Irvine to Colorado Springs - we went back to Famous Steakhouse because it was SO good. I was so exhausted by the end of the night that I couldn't even stay awake long enough to post this report!

 

So now it's time to go pack, head to the airport and back home. Thank you everyone for taking the time to follow with me along this adventure - my first Summer Seminar has been a truly wonderful experience, and I certainly hope to return next year!

[The Penny Lady]

Here are a few more random photos:

 

One of Todd's photos of the Tiny Hobo Dollar

 

Me during the YN auction when they roped me into being the auctioneer on a couple Lincoln pennies

 

Some beautiful photos Todd took right after the hail storm

 

I got home yesterday and then had to set up at my local show this morning, so I am dog tired now! But I can't wait to do it all over again next year!