Charmy's 2017 CENTRAL STATES COIN SHOW REPORT w/lots of Pics!

[The Penny Lady]

The CSNS show is the last show in a string of back-to-back shows I've attended over the past couple months, and I don't have another show until Long Beach in June. So I was hoping to end this show with a bang, or at least in the positive, and I wasn't disappointed! Wednesday was a great buying day, Thursday I had lots of sales, Friday was slower but still had decent sales and found some more good pieces for inventory, and Saturday was sparse but I had a couple great sales. Kevin and his staff do a most excellent job of putting on this show and making the dealers feel welcome. They also go over and above to get collectors in the door. So overall, for me the show was a solid B+!

I left on Tuesday and for a change, I had a mid-day flight out of sunny Orange County direct to Chicago. It was in the low 80's when I left.

This is me very happy to be headed to another coin show!

When I arrived in Chicago it was in the high 60's which wasn't too bad. Coincidentally, my flight arrived around the same time as Rick Snow and his son, Kenny. So Kenny and I waited while Rick retrieved the rental car.

The host hotel for the CSNS show is the Renaissance which is connected to the convention center. It's a beautiful hotel and the rooms are spacious.

I'm not sure how I rated this, but the Event Planning Director left me a wonderful bottle of wine along with glasses, an opener, a box of chocolates, a glass bottle of water, and a granola bar. I felt very special!

I had a room on the 16th floor and had a great view.

This is the view at night

They had this fascinating picture on the wall of the Chicago skyline in a car's side mirror.

Set up was at 9am on Wednesday and there was quite a crowd of dealers waiting to get in right at 9am.

My table was one row over from the PCGS table so I decided to get an early photo of the group before they got too busy. It was great to see Mark Stephenson join the gang!

Also, the Kagin table was just down the aisle from me as well, and Nina was being her usual vivacious self!

I also ran into two of the nicest, kindest, and friendliest people in numismatics - Mitch Ernst/Cornhusker and his son Sam/Notlogical. I met Mitch when I took an exhibiting class at the ANA Summer Seminar several years ago. He collects sower medals and put together an amazing exhibit of these medals a couple years ago and won Best of Show.

This was the Central States Numismatic Society's souvenir coaster that was being handed out. Since it had an Indian cent on it, I had to include it in my report!

After the show ended on Wednesday, we met a group of people at The Gather bar in the Renaissance for drinks and dinner, including Mitch and Sam.

The Gather is a very popular spot where many dealers gather for drinks right after the show.

Mitch follows my show reports and wondered why I didn't give him one of my lipstick kisses like he saw in one of my recent show reports, so of course, I had to oblige!

Thursday morning I had an early Women in Numismatics board meeting, followed by our general meeting. Louise Boling (WIN VP) gave a fascinating presentation on medals of Saint Barbara, Patron Saint of Those Who Make Things Go Boom.

During the show, Kenneth/NickelJones stopped by my table to show me this nickel with a previously unknown reverse die.

Emily of Americana Rare Coins came by to show me some coins.

Rick showed me this rare beautiful 1861 CSA Restrike

Throughout Wednesday and Thursday I was very pleased to find many nice coins to add to my inventory.

Usually in the afternoons the show slows down quite a bit, so that's when I like to open a bottle of wine and turn up the music, it makes the slow afternoons much more enjoyable! This is the wine that the hotel left in my room.

Others like to pass the slow time with other activities, Stacks Bowers was right across from me, and this is Peter Treglia tossing nuts in the air and trying to catch them in his mouth!

After the show, a group of us headed into the city. They had the most beautiful tulips all around the city. (Most of the photos of Chicago were taken by my bff Cindi Snow Ray.)

We went to Trattoria No. 10 for dinner with some dealer friends, Bob and Carol Campbell, of All About Coins

We really enjoyed this wonderful bottle of Brunello.

I completely forgot to take a picture of our dinner entrees, but let me tell you they were excellent. When I finally remembered, this was all that was left!

At the show on Friday, a couple of young men stopped by my table to fill a customer want list. They ended up staying for a while (and buying quite a few coins). I really enjoyed chatting with them, learning about how they got started in coins, working in a shop together, and then ended up buying their own coin store together. It's so great to meet such friendly, honest, and hard working young men. This is Tyler Walker and Alex Ralston of All American Bullion & Coins from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

A fellow exonumia collector stopped and showed me this amazing multi-love token pin. He guessed it was made for an entire family.

Once again, the late afternoon was quiet and i caught the Stacks folks enjoying playing a little baseball in the aisle with a cardboard tube and wadded up piece of paper! This is Robert Witt of Stacks Bowers with the "bat."

After the show, we went back to The Gather for dinner before heading over to the Grand Victoria Casino in Elgin.

Saturday morning I checked out the exhibits. There were quite a few great exhibits but I thought these were most interesting.

The public slowly bean streaming in on Saturday morning. Even though several dealers were packing up and leaving, there were still quite a few dealers still left by noon on Saturday. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to do quite a bit of business on Saturday.

PCGS and ANACS were still doing business up until the last minute!

Soon it was time for me to pack up and catch my plane home. When I walked out of the convention center, I was shocked to find that it was raining and the temperature had dropped to 38 degrees! Wow, that cold air hit me right in the face when I opened the door! I arrived at the airport with no problems, sailed through security with just a swipe test of my bags, and headed to my gate. I found a nice little bar right next to my gate so I decided to grab something to eat. All they had were Chicago dogs so I decided to try one. Wow, it was one of the best hot dogs I've ever had!

When I got to my gate, I ran into several familiar faces who were also on my same flight headed back to Orange County! This is the group from Stacks: John Konop and Chris Napolitano in the back, with Linda Bernard and Wendy Napolitano on the bottom.

And Robert Witt and Peter Treglia

Watching the cold, cold rain from my window seat

Four hours later we were landing in beautiful sunny warm Southern California!

This is a picture of the historic airship hangers in Tustin

Here is a little background info on these hangers from Wikipedia:

"The Air Station was established in 1942 as Naval Lighter-Than-Air Station Santa Ana, a base for airship operations in support of the United States Navy's coastal patrol efforts during World War II. It was commissioned on 1 October 1942 by its commandant, Capt. Howard N. Coulter. As of July 1947, the facility, under command of Capt. Benjamin May, had personnel consisting of 100 officers, 500 enlisted men and 180 civilian employees. NLTAS Santa Ana was decommissioned in 1949. In 1951, the facility was reactivated as Marine Corps Air Facility Santa Ana to support the Korean War. It was the country's first air facility developed solely for helicopter operations. It was renamed Marine Corps Air Station Tustin in 1979."

And coming in for landing...

As always, I really look forward to each show I attend, but I especially look forward to getting home to my own bed, hubby, and Penny!

As an update, some of you will remember the drama (and trauma) that occurred while I was at the CSNS show last year involving my husband's crash during the NORRA 1000 race in Mexico. Well, Wednesday was exactly one year since his accident, and he's doing great. Since he is no longer driving a race car, he still went back to help his buddy's team as a chase car driver and pit crew. He had a great time, and their car finished third in class with no major problems!

Now I have a month home and get to spend lots of time with my new grandbaby Ryder who is five months old!

Next up, the Long Beach show in early June!

[ldhair]

Fun report. Thanks for sharing.