CHARMY'S 2023 FUN SHOW REPORT w/Tons of Pics! 1 1

[The Penny Lady]

WOW! What a show it was!! This was one of the busiest shows I've had in a long time. Even though there were some very minor glitches on dealer set up day, the show was fantastic, with tons of public on both Thursday and Friday. Even Saturday was surprisingly busy. As many dealers commented, prices are higher especially on better quality, tougher date coins - and it's harder to find the tougher dates in better grades. However, on dealer set up day and throughout the show, I was lucky enough to acquire several nice Pretty Pennies, including an 1856 Flying Eagle cent and three scarce Flying Eagle and Indian cent pattern pieces. The days flew by - it was simply a GREAT show!

As always, each January I very much look forward to the FUN show - this show always seems to start the year off with a bang! I got to the airport early on Tuesday, sailed through TSA, and had lots of extra time before my flight so I grabbed a refreshing Bloody Mary before I began my long trek to Orlando.

I was a little apprehensive about my flight after hearing the airline horror stories over the previous few days, but the only glitch was a a 1/2 hour delay leaving cloudy Orange County.

My only concern was that my layover in Houston was less than an hour, but luckily the gate we arrived at was only a few gates away from my next departing gate which had just begun to board when we landed so I made it just fine. However, when I boarded my flight I asked the flight attendant if our bags from that flight would make it to this flight, and he said "they most likely arrived before you did!" And what do you know, I looked out the window and I saw my bag being loaded onto my plane!

I arrived in Orlando with no problems, checked into my hotel, grabbed a glass of wine down at the bar where the CHUBB Insurance Group was having a huge gathering, then I headed to bed!

After sleeping in a bit, I headed over to the convention center. This was the view from my room.

Set up was at 2pm on Wednesday but I arrived there early to grab my ribbon and to see if there was any dealer trading - which there really wasn't much of since the FUN Board doesn't allow dealers to rent pre-show trading rooms at the convention center. So I just caught up with several dealer friends whom I hadn't seen in quite a while. By the time the bourse was ready to open, there was quite a crowd of dealers waiting to get in!

Set up went smoothly, and then I began my hunt for coins for my customer's want lists and jus to add to my inventory. I did find a few pieces that a couple of my customers had been looking for, but mostly found coins to fill in gaps in my inventory. These are the coins I acquired throughout the show including the three patterns cents and the 1856 Flying Eagle cent.

When I got back to my table, I was happy to see these two long-time forum member friends whom I had seen in quite a while!

@ldhair and @spacehayduke

And my very good ex-FBI now coin dealer buddy Neil Ulrich

In the afternoon, I opened a bottle of this 2014 Williams Selyem Zinfandel - it was very yummy and was shared with several friends!

After a very busy set up day, soon it was time to head out to a nice relaxing dinner! We headed over to Maggiano's and had some awesome food and a wonderful time!

I had a glass of bought 2020 Caymus cab which I've had several times and is always amazing. It was so good and the restaurant price was surprisingly inexpensive so I bought a bottle to take to the show!

Neil and I had ordered the chicken piccata and, and after the other two people at our table had received their dinners, the server accidentally gave away our dinners to the table next to us who happened to order the same two dishes. So the waiter gave us TWO complimentary platters of various desserts.

I have to say, despite this minor glitch, the service at Maggiano's was truly over-the-top.

A couple pics of the bourse on Thursday taken from my table when I had a few seconds to breath!

I was able to pick up a few pieces for my personal exonumia collection - a few hard to find penny pocket mirrors and a scarce celluloid encased Indian cent.

I enjoyed chatting with a few more forum members who stopped by to say hi!

Rick/ @Barberian

Greg/ @keyman64

Ed V.

I brought with me a special bottle of 2014 Eighty-One Justin Cab. I'm a Justin reserve wine club member and I received 6 bottles of this special limited edition wine shipped to me in a wooden crate wrapped in tissue paper. I had been storing it for a few years and this was the first time I opened one of these bottles. Boy, was it amazing! So smooth, full bodied, with hints of blackberry and chocolate - I believe it's the best wine Justin has produced!

One of my customers and a fellow forum member, Steve Feiertag/ @winesteven contacted me before the show to see if we could get together for dinner one evening so we set up to meet me and a few other coin dealers at Del Friscos Double Eagle Steakhouse on Thursday night. Knowing how much I love wine, Steve wanted to share one of his special bottles of wine with us - he brought an "otherworldly" bottle of 2015 Sine Qua Non Syrah Trouvre L'Arene with an AMAZING 100 pt. rating! WOW! It was sooooo delicious, it easily lived up to its perfect rating! Steve even shared wine tasting notes with us which describe in great detail how truly wonderful this wine is.

Even though there could be no wine that we could order that would compare with Steve's wine, we ordered a bottle of 2018 Mt. Veeder O'Shaughnessy cab off the menu and, while it didn't quite compare to Steve's wine, it was very delicious (and pricey at $350!).

The wine went very well with this bone-in ribeye!

By the way, did I mention that, other than the extra bottle of wine we ordered, Steve picked up the entire dinner tab! Boy, it would be hard for me to find a more kind, generous, interesting fellow coin and wine-loving man!

Steve, me, Neil Ulrich and Ron Mirr

Friday morning I took the opportunity to go around the bourse floor and take some photos before the public was let in, including viewing the great exhibits that were on display.

This is Steve Fieretag/ winesteven's exhibit that deservedly won People's Choice

Billie/The Grey Sheet is always a delight to chat with!

Hardworking folks at PCGS!

Also very hard working folks at NGC (David Lange - we miss you!)

Great group of folks at ANACS!

Abe and friends

Young page girls trying their hands at the Kids' Zone wheel

I also stopped by the GreatCollections' table to check out the fantastic Stuart Blay Lincoln set that is set for auction in a week or so. Another WOW which isn't even enough to describe these top pop coins!

I attended the Fly-In Club meeting with Chris Pilliod and Rick Snow, as well as several other club members. Although I couldn't stay for the entire meeting, Chris was giving a talk about Indian cent metals

Photos taken around the bourse floor

Greg/ @Walkerguy21D also came by to say hi

Steve stopped by again in the afternoon and I was happy to share some of my special Justin Eighty-One with him.

My friends Connor and Dan Sedwick with a European percussion cap pistol from the late 1700's-early 1800's that they had just acquired (you may recognize these two from my many dinners in Baltimore in the wine cellar of the Black Olive restaurant)

Friday afternoon, a dealer friend Richard Gross stopped by my table and showed me a very cool and very RARE S-2 1793 Chain Cent. I was thrilled to see it and immediately thought that this might be something my friend Matt Chapman might be interested in. Interestingly, this particular coin is pedigreed to Chapman from 1885 (no relation to Matt as far as we know). So I asked Richard to wait a minute while I called Matt to see if he was still at the show and if he wanted to come and take a look at this amazing coin, which he did! So after examining the coin Matt told Richard he was interested. They then went back to Richard's table to work out the details. I subsequently discovered that they did indeed make a deal and Matt is now the proud owner of this amazing piece of history!

This is a picture of the 1885 photograph of the exact same coin!

And this is the write up about this coin that Matt gave me:

_1793 Chain "AMERICA" cent, Sheldon-2, Wide Date
Pedigree: ex. Chapman (5/1885)

Interesting not only for being the first die variety with the AMERICA fully spelled out on the reverse, but also for being the rarest die variety of the four with an assigned rarity of 4+. This very coin was owned by none other than Henry and Samuel Chapman and was sold in May of 1885 as part of their collection by a third-party auction firm. Henry and his brother Samuel were born in 1859 and 1857 respectively and began selling coins as dealers in 1878. The pedigree is unusual since in most cases, merely brokering coins as a dealer does not warrant a pedigree in the strictest sense. It was only because a third party auctioned the coin and attributed it as having been owned by Chapman that allowed the pedigree attribution. The auction sale price was $23!

The coin itself is actually quite light colored for the type, and the reverse shows several planchet voids and fissures as is typical. The surfaces are hard and glossy. NGC has assigned a grade of AU53 to the coin, and my EAC grade is sharpness 50, net 45. What's really amazing is that until now, the coin has resided raw in a private collection, and has only now been graded for the first time! Before now, the only photos of the coin are from old auction catalogues. Up until now, the only idea of the coin's quality had to be gleaned from these old photos, or photos of photos. According to the photo in Numistudy, the coin was only assigned a grade of sharpness 40, net 30.
_

It's a fascinating coin with a great pedigree! So pleased for Matt that he was able to acquire this historical piece!

On our last night in Orlando I went to the Capital Grille with my foreign coin dealer friends - another restaurant with some great food! We brought our own wine which we all enjoyed.

Gary Braisted allowed me to use these two photos taken of him and the granddaughter of Astronaut Alan Shepard, Laura Shepard Churchley and Gary with Astronaut, test pilot and jazz musician Winston Scott who were at the show

Saturday was a surprisingly busy day too. From what I could see, not many dealers had left on Friday and the bourse was still quite full. I had quite a few decent sales before I had to pack up and head to the airport. So long til next year!

It was really good to finally get home to my dear sweet hubby and my adorable chubby Penny!

Participating in opposite coast coin shows is very wearing and tiring due to the long flights, changing planes, and especially the time change. But I really enjoy attending such a successful and well-organized show as the FUN show, finding beautiful coins, making decent sales, seeing my friends, and dining at great restaurants with good people - so I definitely look forward to going back next year!

Next up: The Long Beach show on February 1-4 and the ANA in Phoenix on March 1-4, 2023.

[zadok]

...another great tour Charmy!!...thank u for allowing me to vicariously share the FUN show with u this year...the only negative is that I gained 5 lbs just looking at all the photos....

[Walkerfan]

What a wonderful show report!!

Thank You!!!

[GoldFinger1969]

I always enjoy your write-ups.   I hope to be at FUN 2024; missed being there this year and my last was FUN 2020.

Why are FUN-LB-ANA so tightly packed together ?  I thought in the past there were a few months between them all.

Glad to see -- in a perverse way -- that it's tough to find coins....combined with your observation that attendance was very good, I think it means that the hobby is on an upswing. 

Get your coins and bullion NOW before the price goes up ! 

Edited January 11, 2023 by GoldFinger1969

[Just Bob]

Those are some very cool exonumia pieces. Nice pickups.

(An aside: I did not realize that Larry was a dealer)

[JT2]

yes it was a great show!!  

[RWB]

Nice show report and comments. Thanks for saving the obligatory "cat pix" for the end.

[AdamWL]

Great report! Felt like I was at the show myself )

Edited January 11, 2023 by AdamWL

[USAuPzlBxBob]

Always a pleasure reading your reviews, Charmy, and not so much for the coins… but rather the beautifully prepared/served food… and of course the wine, too.

[pigeonman333rd]

Congratulations Penny Lady obtaining an 1856 Flying Eagle Cent is Truly a Lifetime Achievement. Thanks for all the pictures of the show.