Charmy's 2017 DENVER ANA WORLD'S FAIR OF MONEY SHOW w/tons of Pics!

[The Penny Lady]

First, I apologize for this report being posted so late. I had lots of family things to take care of right after the show. Also, my hubby finally retired just before I left for Denver (I'm very glad he's home, but his only instruction from me is "do not bug me so I can get my work done"! - let's see how long that lasts!) So the first thing we decided to do was to get away to our place in Lake Havasu when I returned from Denver and I had to get things ready. The good thing about Arizona is that the gas prices are quite low compared to California which helps take a little sting out of the 113 degree temperatures! Can't wait to take the boat out on the lake!

But first, I told myself I have to get this report posted before I can relax, so I'm preparing this show report while on "vacation." Unfortunately, I left my notes at home, including some of the names of the folks who stopped by my table. I'll do my best and will update this report when I get back home next week. So now on to the show report!

Wow! What a show this was! Even though it was long, it went by very quickly. I went into this ANA Denver WFM show with only medium to low expectations since the last show I did in Denver a few years ago was not very good at all. So I'm not sure whether it was my excellent table location, all the new Pretty Pennies I had recently acquired, or just that collectors were in the mood to buy, but this Denver ANA was one of the best shows I've EVER had! I seemed to be busy from the opening of the show to later in the afternoon. Sometimes I'll judge how well a show is doing (at least for me) by how many times I leave my table, and I can tell you that I barely left my table until late in the afternoon each day!

So I left Orange County on the afternoon of Sunday so I would have the opportunity to hunt for more Pretty Pennies at the preshow on Monday. I always arrive at the airport two hours early just in case there is a glitch going through security, but this time I sailed through in about 15 minutes, even with a bag check. So I had some time to kill and there just happened to be a wine tasting bar directly across from my gate so, well, you know.... I thought I'd start this trip off right!

This Faust wine was amazing, and I look forward to finding it and getting some for home.

Soon it was time to board my flight. I settled into my seat, and felt so very happy to be fortunate to be doing what I love and heading to another coin show!

It didn't seem to take too long before we were landing in beautiful Denver (actually only n easy 2-hour flight)!

I checked into the host hotel at the Sheridan, unpacked, and fell right to sleep. I woke up to this beautiful view of downtown Denver from my hotel room.

I wet over to the convention center so I could drop my bags off at security until set up day.

Well, I was quite surprised at the distance the security room was from the front of the convention center, and all on carpet no less (which makes pulling heavy bags much more difficult)! The security room was at the complete opposite side of the convention center. Hauling two very heavy bags that far on carpet, in thin air compared to sea level air, well let's just say, it took my breath away and made me perspire more than just a little (remember, girls don't sweat, we perspire)! Even those folks who were obviously quite fit had a hard time with the extra thin air. It does take some getting used to.

Then I headed over to the PNG preshow, walked around to all the dealers, starting with some of my favorites. I'm guessing there were a total of about 40-50 dealers set up at the preshow. I was pleased to be able to find quite a few more Pretty Pennies which helped to fill some holes in my inventory.

After the preshow, I stopped by the auction lot viewing.

Then I walked around the convention center and took a few photos (however, Kenny Snow's photos of the bear were better than mine so I used his!). It's a very large and attractive convention center. Most unusual, there is this huge bear right in front of the convention center which is a very popular photo subject!

Then I met up with Rick Snow and Greg Hannigan for a late lunch at the Yard House.

Then we headed off to the PNG dinner. Since I didn't have a table at the PNG preshow where each table holder gets two tickets to the dinner, luckily one of my other PNG dealer friends had an extra ticket. The PNG dinner is held at a wonderfully nice restaurant and they usually serve very delicious wine at dinner. They also honor some of the great folks who work behind the scenes to help make numismatics better for all of us, especially those helping to curtail counterfeiters and coin thieves. So I was very pleased and honored to be able to attend. This dinner was held at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, and boy, was it beautiful inside.

The menu for dinner

I always feel honored to be in the presence of David Bowers, he definitely an amazing man, still going strong and such a wonderful personality and wealth of knowledge. And John and Nancy Wilson are right up there with folks who work hard to make numismatics a better place for all of us. Their tireless efforts often go unsung, but they give their time, service, and knowledge freely and with great delight to countless numismatic organizations.

My fun little bff Nina, holding "court" as usual! She is definitely the life of any party!!!

More numismatic greats! Chris McCawley (and his lovely wife, Julian Leidman, Jimmy Hayes and David Sundman

Part of my posse! Rick Snow, his son Kenny, and Gary Knaus

Ghost Pines puts out some very good wine!

The next morning was set up day. There was quite a crowd of dealers waiting to get into the show.

I set my booth up pretty quickly, and soon vest pocket dealers were coming up to my table showing me more Pretty Pennies. I was happy to pick up several more pieces for inventory, including these Pretty Pennies (since I'm a little late getting this report out, Todd had already finished preparing my new purchase photos!):

I took an opportunity to see the ANA's exhibit and they had some amazing pieces on display!

My buddy Dino Koromvokis showed me this beautiful Flying Eagle pattern piece he had for sale:

So the folks at CoinWeek stopped by and asked to interview me LIVE on Facebook about a "Cool Coin" in my case. Of course, I said "Sure!" I chose this 25 planchet piece from the 1960's that got jammed together in a feeder shoot and sort of welded together. Pieces like this don't usually make it out of the mint, but for some reason, this one did and it's the only piece known to have made it out and not melted. So I took a photo of them photo-interviewing me!

Also, here's a link to the actual video piece on Facebook in case you're interested:

https://facebook.com/profile.php?id=1103900460

They also did a video interview with me about the 1943 cent, and its popularity among collectors, its history, etc. I think this piece will air at a later time.

After the show ended on Tuesday, we went to the very famous Buckhorn Exchange restaurant. It's Colorado's oldest restaurant having been established in 1893 by Henry "Shorty Scout" Zeitz, a big game hunter and the youngest member of Buffalo Bill's band of scouts. So for those of you who aren't a fan of big game hunting, you may want to skip over these next set of photos. My dad was an avid hunter and provided us with meat that sustained our family of seven throughout each year. My dad still has a large buck head mounted on the wall of his house. However, even though I grew up learning how to use firearms from an early age, I personally was never a hunter.

This is a beautifully carved piece hanging also on the wall about two feet in diameter. It looked just like the reposse/push out pennies I collect so I just had to take a photo of it. Someone in our party even commented that we just can't escape coins even at a restaurant like this!

While we were waiting for dinner, we tried some of the various beers they had. I really enjoyed this cherry beer, it was very refreshing.

The menu was printed on the other side of this "newspaper." As you can imagine, they served all kinds of game, including buffalo and alligator!

Since I grew up on venison and never was a huge fan, I enjoyed a delicious tenderloin!

The next day Wednesday was the first full day the public was let in. This is me and Rick's son, Kenny, headed up to the bourse floor.

James Houghtaling was the first to stop by and say hi!

Followed shortly by John/Claychaser, his son (forgive me, I forgot his name), and my buddy Buck

I was very busy most of the day and was pleased to have sold quite a few pennies. Things finally slowed down around 3pm, so I opened one of the bottles of wine I had brought with me. I really enjoyed this Sonoma Zinfandel, and so did several other folks who stopped by for a taste!

I have always been impressed with how hard ANACS works and how many shows they attend, including taking submissions at many of the smaller club shows throughout the country. Since ANACS is based in Colorado, they had a strong presence at the show. Here's a great group shot of all the hardworking ANACS folks. From left to right: John Roberts (Director of Attribution Services), my BFF Cindi Snow (West Coast/Pacific Northwest Rep), Christian Merlo (Texas Rep), Paul DeFelice (Vice President), Brett Williams (President & CEO), Bill Arnold (Denver Rep), Quent Hansen (Midwest Rep), and Matt Adams (Southeast Rep).

ANACS also held a wonderful reception at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. It was a really nice event, and everyone really enjoyed it. Here are pics of various people who attended the reception.

Rick, Neal, Kenny, me, and Cindi

Cindi and me

Raeleen Endo and Ian Russell (GreatCollections), and Paul DeFelice (ANACS)

James Sego

Dennis, Rick and Neal

After the reception, Rick and I headed over to the Black Hawk casino which is located in the mountains in what looks like it used to be an old mining town. It was raining on and off and the sun shining through the clouds along the way was really beautiful.

I found my favorite Buffalo Stampede penny slot machine but sadly had no luck this time.

Thursday I had to get up very early in order to attend my Dealer Relations Committee meeting at 8am. We had a very productive meeting. I had distributed all the comments posted on the message boards, so we discussed them, and several other important issues involving the ANA shows. We made several recommendations to the Board so now it's up to them to decide what can and can't be implemented. Just so you know, the ANA commits to show venues about 4 years ahead of time, so some things can't be changed until a few years down the road. We also discussed having an ANA rep respond to various questions you all have so that you will have a better understanding of what goes into putting on these shows, some of the specific criteria required in choosing a location as well as the costs. Any way, like I said, I feel it was a productive meeting and hopefully you'll be hearing more details soon.

Thursday was another very busy day for me, yay! I bought a few more pieces and sold a lot more! I didn't even get out on the bourse floor once until later in the afternoon! I had even forgot that Rick Harrison of Pawn Stars was making an appearance at the Modern Coin Mart booth, so I missed taking his photo there, but the MCM photographers graciously let me use one of their photos!

Also on display at the show was America's First Coin! David McCarthy (Kagin's) did exhaustive research on this piece to determine that it was the first coin ever minted by the U.S. government in 1783, the precursor to our U.S dollar issued 10 years later. (fyi, These two photos are not mine.)

Then Thursday afternoon was the "Shave Miles" event where Miles Standish was holding a fundraiser to help support his Child and Family Healthcare nonprofit. Rick Harrison and the Broncos Cheerleaders made an appearance, with Rick being the first one to shave Mile's hair. Also, Dave Halperin (Heritage) had his hair shaved off first!

On Thursday afternoon, I opened the other bottle of wine I had brought with me, a very tasty Carr cab. It didn't last long!

After the show was over on Thursday, we went to an absolutely wonderful restaurant in Little Italy called Luca. It was recommended to us and they indeed did not disappoint!

We started off with this awesome 2014 Rosso Toscano

Followed by this 2006 Il Fauno

Wow, both were amazing wines, especially for the value! These are some of the entrees we had. Mine was the brazed shortribs with creamy polenta and grilled brussell sprouts. The sortribs practically melted in your mouth, they were soooo yummy!

If you're even in Denver, I highly recommend Luca!

 

Friday morning I had to be at the convention center early again for my Women In Numismatics board meeting, followed by our general meeting. We had Steve Dippolito give a fascinating presentation on "A Century of Empresses, Russia in the 18th Century," which focuses on Russian Imperial coins.

Back at my table, business began anew. I was so pleased with how well this show was going for me, particularly since coin shows and sales slow down during summer!

Then this gentleman walked up to my table and handed me a Lincoln cent and asked me what I thought. I immediately could tell it was a fake and looked up at the gentleman. He had a big grin on his face, so I looked at his badge and it was Dan Carr! He showed me this beautiful portrait of Lincoln and said the coin was carved using that portrait as a model. This portrait had several differences than the design of our Lincoln cent. Very cool!

Next up was my Fly-In Club (for Flying Eagle and Indian cent enthusiasts) meeting where Rick discussed Flying Eagle pattern cents and passed around several amazing specimens. I sat next to Mark (from Colorado) at the meeting, who recently volunteered to be the Colorado State Rep for the Fly-In Club (I'm the club's District Rep Manager, as well as the California State Rep). District Reps help promote the Fly-In Club at any club meetings and shows they attend around the country.

On my way back to my booth, I passed by this scene where a car is on its side. I am guessing they were getting ready to set up for a car show at the convention center?

After the show was the ANA's Awards banquet and silent auction fundraiser. In addition to the exhibit and other awards, this year they were "changing the guard" and swearing in the new board members.

They had some interesting and fun items up for auction and bidding was quite active!

This is the item I won at the auction!

Then it was time for dinner and the banquet. There are always some neat souvenirs left at each table!

Me and my table buddies! Barbara and Neal, and Rick and me

The room was filled with lots of numismatic luminaries!

In addition to the exhibit awards, the ANA gave out several service awards. This year I was extremely honored to be given the Elvira Clain-Stefanelli award which honors "women who have made significant contributions to numismatics. These contributions, whether in research, leadership or mentor-ship, must have made a lasting impact on the numismatic community and demonstrated a lifelong commitment to the betterment of numismatics."

While I knew I was to receive this award, I seriously didn't know how special it was until that evening. When I went up to receive the award, several people cheered, whistled, and hooted and I became very emotional, so much so that I wasn't able to say much when asked to give a few remarks. I know, me being speechless was amazing in and of itself, but it was true. So let me now just say that I am so thankful and grateful to the ANA and everyone who supports me throughout my adventures in numismatics. I hope I can be an example to young women numismatists that they can do anything they put their minds and passions to, and not let anything or anyone stand in their way!

Then the new board was sworn in. Even though I know Gary Adkins will work hard and be a great ANA leader, I very much enjoyed working with Jeff Garrett on the Dealer Relations Committee. He was very involved, had some great ideas, and worked hard to make the ANA a better organization for all of us. It is this type of hard work and dedication that any organization needs and the ANA was very fortunate to have Jeff. Thank you Jeff, for your service to the ANA and numismatics!

Saturday morning I finally had some time time to view the exhibits. As always, there were several amazing exhibits, but what I really noticed and was pleased to see this year was that there were several "woman" themed exhibits.

Then I visited the U.S. Mint booth.

I came across these young numismatists gathered together going through their treasure trivia loot!

Then it was time for our WIN Summer Seminar scholarship raffle drawing. The days before the drawing, one of our board members, Dreama went around to every table on the bourse floor and was able to sell over $800 in tickets. Together with that, we had sold over $1,800 in raffle tickets. Fifty percent of the sales of these tickets goes towards our Summer Seminar scholarship, while the other 50% gets split between two winners. These are photos of Dreama giving the winners their winnings!

This is David Lange (NGC) along with his well-deserved award for Numismatist of the Year!

Brent Pearson is an talented hobo nickle engraver and I ran into his table at the show. The Denver show was first show. He knows I collect hobo pennies and gave me this pretty piece that he had carved:

The PCGS folks!

Always-happy-Paul at ANACS!

My awesome booth neighbors, Northern Nevada Coin!

It's always a joy to see Lance!

My friend Oded Paz, the Reposse/Pop Out Expert!

LAs photo of me and my lil ol medal and placque!

It's time to pack up and ship out!

Nina and I had flights close together so we took an Uber together to the airport. When she lived in Orange County, we used to meet up at the airports quite often, so it was fun to spend some time together catching up on our families, etc. When we got to the airport, we weren't surprised that our bags needed extra screening which is pretty usual for us. However, what we didn't expect was a very rude and nasty TSA agent who had no patience and clearly wanted to be an alpha dog. And this is why we get to the airport at least TWO hours before our flights!

It started when alpha dog picked up one of my bags and began walking to the private screen room. However, I asked her to stop because my other bag was still at the xray machine and i needed to keep my eyes on both bags at all times. That's when she got the "attitude." When the other TSA agent grabbed my bag and Nina's bag, we proceeded to the room. However alpha dog wanted us to enter the room first, but I said I would follow her (again, wanted to keep my eyes on my bags). But she insisted on being behind us, so I instead walked NEXT to her, but had to enter the room immediately ahead of her. Then she began going through my raw coins very roughly with several of them falling out and her tossing them just anywhere back on the tray.

Then while the alpha dog was going through Nina's PCGS boxes, pulling each coin out one at a time, she couldn't get the lid off one of the boxes. She tossed it on the table and demanded to Nina to "open it." No please or would you mind, no politeness whatsoever. So I said "PLEASE?" but of course she just scowled and ignored me, and continue meticulously pulling out each and every coin.

While she was going meticulously trough my SIX doublerow boxes of certified coins, I eventually began to video tape her while Nina snapped some pictures, but then alpha dog went outside and got her superior who told me I was not allowed to video tape his agents. I said I just wanted to make sure nothing went missing because the coins were falling out of the trays. He told me "his agents don't steal!" I just shook my head. He forced me to delete the video right in front of him. Then alpha dog kept leaving the door wide open every time she went out to do the swipe test, and we kept closing it for security purposes. She complained to her superior about that too and he told us to keep it cracked open, which we had never heard of before. However, when alpha came back in I ignored that command and again shut the door behind her (small victory).

When we were finally finished, we saw several of our dealer friends waiting to go into that room for private screening. We warned each one of them to be careful about alpha dog, that she had a really bad attitude and would draw out the whole process as long as she could. After that experience, Nina and I really needed a drink! We found a nice bar that had great Cadillac margaritas and chips and salsa!

We also took some selphies and Nina added those funny filters to some of our pics. That was a hoot!

While I greatly enjoyed this Denver show, it was a long week and I was worn out and so glad to be headed home!

Bye bye beautiful Denver!

Hello Orange County!

So glad to be home with my hubby and adorable soft fluffy kitty Penny!

So as I mentioned, this Denver show was a huge success for me. I thank the ANA for working so hard and doing such a good job putting on this show. All of your staff and volunteers did a great job and everything seemed to run very smoothly.

Next up: Long Beach, then Santa Clara!

[LINCOLNMAN]

Another fun post, thanks for taking the time and sharing.

[jtryka]

What a great report, I felt like I was there (and I always love reading your posts from big shows I never attend and look at all the wonderful photos!).  I have a wine blog and can certainly appreciate your taste in wine as well.  As for the TSA experience, I can only offer that I travel a lot for work and Denver by far has the worst TSA agents in the country!  I couldn't imagine trying to get through security with valuable inventory!  Thanks again for the awesome post and congratulations on the award, it is well deserved!

[A.Phillips]

Fantastic story and pictures! You make me want to go there next year if I can, and congratulations on the award!

[The Penny Lady]

Thank you for all your kind comments and support of me and my show reports throughout the years. As I mentioned on the other forum, your comments and appreciation brings a smile to my face and warms my heart, and it makes putting these reports together enjoyable for me.

[USAuPzlBxBob]

Enjoyed your report.

I was in Denver (first time, since just the airport doesn't count) for two nights, one week apart, as a stepping off point to view the Total Eclipse in Wyoming.

Stayed in the Historic District and came away with the impression that Denver is a really fun place, especially after walking around, taking in the sights nearby to Union Station.