Coins We Love: The Road to FUN: Delays, Discoveries & Great Coins!
While traveling to central Florida during the middle of summer isn’t for the faint of heart, this year we learned beating the heat was just one of the hurdles standing between us and FUN. First came a flight change to leave a day early to fulfill some last minute appointments for Monday. Next was a two hour maintenance delay while departing, a lightning storm en route, and a two hour delay at baggage claim upon arriving. So far the FUN show was turning out to be anything but fun! But as the clouds lifted, so did our spirits and we decided the bright side of missing our evening appointment was getting extra rest to hit the ground running on Tuesday.
The adventures began bright and early as we divvied up the day along with our newest employee and numismatist, Eli Kelso. On the first day, Wes and I started with an appointment at 8am, only to learn that Jack won the dedication award working until 2am the previous morning, stopping only when he found himself nodding off. (Do we sense new slogan material here? “DLRC is so good, we can price coins in our sleep!”) Eli, Wes, and I jumped in to help and the four of us were soon busy with separate buying appointments going on at the same time. Dividing and conquering was certainly the gameplan for the day, communicating our whereabouts but only briefly bumping into each other along the way. The problem with the FUN shows is that the show doesn’t really support dealer activity before the bourse opens. While it’s great that they prioritize their bourse floor, it’s a little short-sighted for the security of the dealers who end up schlepping half of the International Drive corridor of Orlando with their suitcase and desk lamp in tow. Did we mention summer is hot in Florida??? Personally I visited eight different hotels/condos on Tuesday and I believe that Eli and Jack approached the same numbers. By the end of the day Tuesday I was able to reschedule my Monday appointment where I worked until somewhere around 10pm before I called it a night and retreated to my hotel.
Wednesday was another early morning due to another 8am appointment at yet another hotel! We followed that up by a group visit to the last of the area residences before we headed to the convention center to prepare for the main event. Overall, there was a lot of transporting and adjustments, but I have to say that I was thankful for the rental car and the flexibility to go where we were most productive! Overall, these trips were certainly the highlight of our show buying experiences. They were all incredibly productive and it’ll prove to have been worth it in a few weeks as we share the new coins across the future auctions.
Once the show opened on Wednesday afternoon, we saw a few dealers depart for home already, but we put together our booth and had a productive day overall. We found yet more coins to purchase and started selling a few coins as well. Once the day had closed we had already surpassed our buying goals and our sales goals had been reached as well. We were overall very pleased with a FUN show that was turning out to be just that.
That evening a few of us ventured out to a local mall for dinner after we had a nice walk through a few stores where Jack searched for the next cologne to impress the folks at the show the next day. Thursday, the show opened to the public for the first time and I have to say that the show was busy and well attended. It wasn’t to the expectations of the Winter FUN show, but for a summer event in humid central Florida, we couldn’t complain! A few more coins found new homes and we had a number of consignments walk up to the table. The activity was brisk and there was a lot of numismatic opportunities to be had. That evening was the shortest one as Wes, Eli, and I had dinner with our Florida colleague Bob Mellor. We enjoyed a lighter event before we were able to close up shop in our room a little earlier to catch up on the rest we missed the previous few days.
Friday at the FUN Show was a bit more laid back as the public was less active, but the loyal collectors that showed up were up for chatting which is always nice. We bought a few more nice items and enjoyed conversations with old friends. The final transaction that we were able to finish actually happened as we had already departed and were in the airport. We purchased a pair of better date $20 Liberty Gold coins in a deal that we had been working on all day. So, even when we walked away from the show pleased with the success, we had an event to cap off the week!
All hopes that our travel day home would be less eventful than our travel day there vanished when our dinner, which was a bit slow to come, caused us to be later than we’d like getting through security. Hopping on the wrong train only added to the chaos (if you’ve ever been to MCO in Orlando, you feel us here!) and delivered us to the wrong terminal. After back tracking and finding the right train, Wes and I ran to the gate with Jack and Julia laughing at us as the late arrivals. Hey, at least we made it! We’re looking forward to getting home and catching up on a little bit of the missed rest from last week, but the best part is to come when we get to sort what we bought and see what comes up next!
Next on the travel calendar is Wes and I visiting our partner in Utah followed by Eli, Wes, Max Padigos (our newest DLRC team member) and I heading to Witter Coin U for a week of numismatic excitement. Then to complete the summer travels, we have the ANA World’s Fair of Money in Pittsburgh at the end of August. We’ll be traveling across the country (along with wherever Jack ends up next week) for more coins and we hope that we can find something that’s of interest to you. Thanks again for reading and we hope that you enjoy this week’s Coins We Love!
Numismatically Yours,
John Brush
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