Charmy's 2014 PNNA TUKWILA/SEATTLE SHOW REPORT w/lots of Pics!!!

[The Penny Lady]

I especially look forward to attending the PNNA Tukwila (Seattle) show since my brother Paul lives just outside of Seattle and I get to spend time with him and his wonderful girlfriend Vicki. So I arrived at the John Wayne airport on Thursday, had my customary preflight beverage – this time it was a very refreshing rum and pineapple juice since had been in the 90’s for the past several days.

 

 

I had checked the weather reports and knew that Seattle was going to be very warm and sunny the first 2 days I was there, and I was not disappointed!

 

 

 

I grabbed my checked bag, and waited at the airport curb for Paul to pick me up. While I was waiting, I noticed a beautiful shiny bright red Corvette pull up just ahead of me. I was thinking, “Wow, who’s the lucky person who is getting picked up in this beauty?” Then I see Paul climbing out of it – I had forgotten he recently bought a beautiful 2002 red Corvette! Boy, this baby looked brand spanking new! Then I began thinking, “Geese, how are all my bags going to fit in this car?” Well, he pops open the back and sure enough, not only do all my bags fit, but he also had his trumpet and other band bags in there!

 

 

 

 

Wow, what a fun car to ride in, it accelerated so smoothly and fast, and took sharp corners so easily, it was a lot of fun! But the first question I asked him was how many tickets has he gotten. He said he actually drove more carefully in this car than his regular car since he knew his “arrest-me-red” sports car was definitely a cop magnet!

 

So we drove through the city and headed to downtown Kirkland to meet Paul’s friend for dinner before they had band practice.

 

 

 

 

What a beautiful town Kirkland is!

 

 

This is where we had dinner, it was yummy!

 

 

This cute little statue was right outside the diner

 

 

 

Then we headed over to band practice - they have been together for quite a while and are really great!

 

 

 

 

After band practice, we stopped by the store so I could pick up a couple bottles of wine for the show, then headed back to his house in Maple Valley and called it a night!

 

 

On Friday morning, we headed over to the show. The drive along the Cedar River to and from Tukwila was really pretty, with lots of wilderness, gorgeous green trees, the river, the old railroad which is now a bike trail, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

I had also brought my Penny Potpourri exhibit and Scott Loos (the bourse chair) kindly let me in a little early to set up my bourse table so I would still have enough time to set up my exhibit before the public was let in at noon.

 

 

By noon, there was a really long line of people waiting to get into the bourse – including Wei/WTCG!

 

 

 

The bourse floor

 

 

 

Several forum member familiar faces stopped by to say hi

 

Jeremy/Airplanenut and Bochiman

 

 

Lakesammman and Seattleslammer

 

 

ANA President Walter Ostromecki was manning the kids table out by registration

 

 

This is the roach coach that was outside the community center and actually had really good food!

 

 

The playground also just outside the community center, next to the roach coach

 

 

I opened one of the bottles of wine I picked up at the store, but forgot to take photo! It was a wonderful Michael David Earthquake cab – this picture is from their website

 

 

That night, my BFF Cindi Snow-Rae (Logan’s daughter of VAMS and More, who was working for ANACS at this show) and I joined my brother Paul and his girlfriend Vicki for dinner at Bahama Breeze not far from the show. The food was great and we had a good time catching up!

 

 

Saturday morning, we also picked up Cindi at her hotel on the way to the show.

 

 

 

This is the bridge over the Cedar River right near the Tukwila Community Center

 

 

And there was plenty of coin show signage along the way!

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday is the kids’ treasure trivia so there are always lots of kids participating

 

 

My sister-in-law Anne and her husband Steve happened to be visiting their son who lives in Seattle this weekend, so they all stopped by to say hi and see what a coin show looks like. It was really great to see them!

 

 

 

More forum members stopped by for a photo op!

 

My buddy Matt Powell

 

 

Cannyn/Cazkaboom stopped by and chatted for a few minutes

 

 

Ryan/JensenBay from CoinTalk and his adorable son Joshua

 

 

Michael and his cutey-pie son Spencer

 

 

The bourse floor on Saturday

 

 

Dealers Gary Groll (Conder Tokens) and Gene Bruder (U.S. coins)

 

 

Dealer Larry Hirsch and his wonderful wife Shelley (they deal in foreign paper money)

 

 

My BFF Cindi Snow-Rae working the ANACS table – her table was quite busy, especially on Sunday!

 

 

Glenn Holsonbake/PonyExpress, Revick Galstan, and his helper, and another collector

 

 

A new customer Kyle and his beautiful wife Natasha – I have a cute story about this sweet couple. Natasha called me a few days before the show because it was going to be her husband’s birthday on Saturday and she wanted to buy a coin for him that he had been admiring on my website. She said they would be at the Tukwila show so I told her I would set it aside for her. She wanted it to be a surprise, so we worked it out that when they came to my table, I would act like I didn’t know her, and when Kyle asked to see the coin, I would tell him it was sold.

 

So they came on Saturday, I saw Natasha standing behind Kyle as he introduced himself and asked to see the 1931-S that he saw on my website. He was so disappointed when I told him the coin was already sold, that I just hadn’t had a chance to take it off my website. By the way, I just happened to also have two other similarly toned 1931-S Lincolns that I had just purchased but weren’t yet on my website, so I had removed them from my case as well, just so he wouldn’t see them and want to buy one of them instead. He looked around at some other of my coins, was mostly interested in ones with pretty toning, but he didn’t find anything else since he was set on finding a 1931-S and wanted to look around at the show.

 

A couple hours later I was at another dealer’s table and ran into them. Kyle told me he had found another 1931-S in a higher grade but it wasn’t as nicely toned as the one on my website, and cost a little more than what he wanted to pay, but he was seriously thinking about buying it. Not wanting him to upset his wife’s birthday surprise that night by buying another 1931-S, I casually mentioned to him that in my experience, he should be patient and wait until he finds one that he really likes in the price range he can afford, that another one would come along. So, fortunately, he hadn’t brought enough money to pay cash for the other 1931-S so he decided to think about it overnight since he would be returning the next day.

 

The next day, Kyle and Natasha stop by my table, and Kyle was grinning ear to ear. He said he couldn’t believe the ruse we had pulled off, especially pretending I didn’t know Natasha, Natasha sneaking back to my table to pick up the coin (she had snuck me the money in one of my information cards when Kyle wasn’t looking), and then my discouraging him from buying another 1931-S. You could tell from the look in both of their eyes how much they loved each other and it really warmed my heart to be part of such a thoughtful wife’s surprise for her sweet husband!

 

 

Saturday afternoon, it began raining pretty hard. I was so excited to see a good downpour since we haven’t seen much rain in California this past year.

 

 

Not far from my table they had a penny press machine where they were handing out PNNA pressed pennies.

 

 

 

The PNNA held their general meeting Saturday after the show closed and since I had an exhibit on display, they invited me to attend. At the meeting, they installed their new officers and gave out several awards, including the exhibit awards. Some of these recipients liked to ham it up a did a little jig when I took their photo. Here are the new board members and award recipients – I hope I didn’t mess up anyone’s name!!

 

Kevin Charboneau

 

 

Dennis Reed (ANA President’s award)

 

 

 

Rick Schulz (ANA Points of Numismatics Light award)

 

 

 

 

Dan Vornbrock

 

 

Galvin O’Connor

 

 

James Reinders (Scout Chair) and Galvin O’Connor

 

 

Bill McKiever (Bob Everett Memorial award)

 

 

Lisa Loos

 

 

Billings (Lifetime Achievement award)

 

 

Mark Gruner (ANA President’s award) and his wife Wendy

 

 

John Brown (Literary award)

 

 

ANA President Walter Ostromecki and PNNA President Danny Bisgaard presenting the PNNA 2015 Portland ANA medals

 

 

 

And my exhibit won First in Class, the C.E. “Hep” Heppner Award for the Best Exhibit of tokens, medals and decorations, and the Byron F. Johnson Jr. Memorial Award for Best in Show – whahoo!

 

 

That night, a group of us had dinner at B.J.’s – we had so much fun, we lingered there for almost three hours, eating, chatting, drinking, laughing, etc.! Cindi and I started a tradition last year of splitting B.J.’s beer samples since she likes light beer and I like dark beer.

 

 

 

 

My brother Paul and his longtime girlfriend Vicki

 

 

Glenn Holsonbake/PonyExpress

 

 

Longtime dealer friends Shelley and Larry Hirsch

 

 

I had their parmesan crusted chicken which was extremely yummy!

 

 

B.J.’s is also known for their scrumptious pizza!

 

 

 

It was still raining on our way to the show, so when Cindi and I were walking into the community center on Sunday morning, we commented to each other how much we loved the rain. The security guard overheard us, stopped us, and with a curious expression on his face, asked us if we would repeat what we had just said. When we did, he looked very confused and asked us where we were from. We said “California.” He laughed and finally understood why we were enjoying the rain. He said he didn’t know many people in Seattle who really loved the rain, and knew we had to be from another state!

 

The show started out slowly on Sunday but eventually picked up. Forum member John/Eng had told me he would be at the show and wanted to bring me a bottle of wine from a family member’s winery – which he did! Since it was Sunday and I didn’t want to transport an open bottle of wine in my checked bag, I haven’t had a chance to drink it yet, but I plan to this week! So thank you so much John!!!

 

 

 

Throughout the day, I can’t tell you how many people stopped by my table to talk about my exhibit. It was so heartwarming and wonderful to have people really appreciate and enjoy seeing the different penny pieces that I had been collecting for so many years that were displayed in my exhibit. They said they had never seen most of the pieces and especially enjoyed learning the history behind them, especially the prison art teapots. It felt so good to hear such positive comments, especially after the not so good experience I had at the Central States show! So a big fat thank you from all us exhibitors to all of you who take the time to express your appreciation to us – it means more than you know!!!

 

Soon it was time to pack up and head out. Once again, my brother transported me and Cindi with all our bags and paraphernalia (not in the Corvette!) to the airport. Once through security, we had enough time to catch a quick bite to eat and a beverage. It was still raining and the cloudy view through the windows out towards the tarmac was beautiful.

 

 

Bye-bye beautiful rainy Seattle!

 

 

Me so happy to be going home!

 

 

Sometimes this show is a gangbuster for me, but overall, this time it was only an average show. I did buy some nice Conder tokens, as well as several slabbed and raw coins, so that helped make my show. I sent the slabbed coins and Conder tokens with Glenn to take to Todd for photographing, so I’ll post photos of the Conder tokens shortly.

 

Next up – the Denver Coin Expo later this week, then I have a break for a couple weeks so I can catch up!!

[delta]

Many thanks for another entertaining photojournalistic report, but whatever happened to the Seattle space needle, has it been dismantled?

[Conder101]

As far as I know the Space Needle is still there and still open for business.

[BrokCoinCollector]

Looks like a ton of fun. CAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!! He's a cool guy.

[michael]

great report and thanks for sharing!!

 

what was one of the most amazing coins you saw at the show?