Coin Show Report - GSNA show, Somerset, NJ

[DaveG]

Today I went to the annual, three-day convention of the Garden State Numismatic Association. The show features about 55 tables and runs Thursday-Saturday.

 

As you can imagine, Thursday and Friday are mostly for the dealers and a few hard-core collectors. People who go on Thursday and Friday usually report that floor traffic is very light.

 

Saturday is the bid day for the public, but even then, floor traffic is usually light, especially when compared with the monthly Parsippany show.

 

However. . .

 

Tom Hyland, the show manager, does a tremendous job getting dealers who don't usually come to New Jersey, so it's not just the same old dealers and material and it seems like a number of collectors save up all year for this show, because despite the seemingly light floor traffic, most dealers report they're very happy with the show and come back year-after-year.

 

I mostly spent today talking to people I know, so I didn't really get around to see what was available. I can say that floor traffic was much heavier than normal for Saturday and the aisles actually felt crowded around noon.

 

Book dealer John Burns was present, with a really nice inventory, I might add. He had copies of Birdsall's book on Charlotte gold coins, Breen's Encyclopedia, Bowers' Silver Dollar Encyclopedia, Awash's book on Seated dimes, Miller's book on half eagles, a set of Akers' books on gold coins, etc.

 

I also spent some time with Bill Shamhart of Numismatic American, who, as usual, had some really stunning and esoteric material.