The Berlin World Money Fair 2025

Day 1: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (But not in that order)

Today I started off with a normal day in the office, but at 10:30 I departed, picked up Luke, and high-tailed it to Germany. Our 1:19pm departure landed us in Frankfurt at 8:30am local time and was an interesting experience for the circadian rhythm. We didn’t check bags, so we had to find our way past baggage claim and to the terminal with the train station. We took a bus a mile down the road and found our destination, only to walk to the wrong part of the station where the “long-range” trains were. Little did we know, we needed the short-range. So, we headed to the basement except the escalator was broken, so we took the stairs.

After a 4-stop ride on the lovely subway-like train, we got to the main Frankfurt Station that was built in the 1880s. I felt as if Harry Potter might be jumping on the next Platform, but we missed him and ended up on Platform 9 and made our transfer (but not after running the length of 8 train cars!).

We settled in for the 2-hour ride, which was 15 minutes late, before a transfer in Erfurt. Little did we know that we’d miss the connection 2 hours later, only to not even have to change trains. So we stayed another 2 hours in our seats before arriving in the gorgeously clean, brand new-looking main station in Berlin. A quick Burger King stop and a cab ride to our downtown hotel capped the night. However, Luke did land a pizza before bed to make up for the last 36 hours that he stayed awake!

We were staying at the Ritz Carlton in downtown, but, before you think, “man, how does he afford that?”, I’ll point out that the rate was half the room rates at the Convention Center Hotel, which was in the outskirts of town. So, I booked this place to save money and to see the actual city!

Day 2: Germany wins 3 wars to unite, becomes a world leader, then loses two wars

Day 2 started with breakfast at the hotel. It was quite an ornate and bountiful European buffet with 5-minute eggs, 7-minute eggs, a ton of breads, pastries, cheeses, and weird meats as well as some bacon and potatoes. It was an interesting mix! The waiters didn’t tend to the table and it took me 30 minutes to get a coffee while Luke drank 3 of the massive 1 liter bottles of water.

We then cabbed over to the Palace of Tears for a walking WW2 tour of Berlin. It was a fascinating walk where we learned of the children that were sent away before the war, the Jews sent to Concentration Camps, how Germany united in the 1870s after 3 wars, became a world leader, but realized it had to be very courteous to those around them as the east and western borders were too large. They didn’t do well with that with Kaiser Wilhelm 3 and war came. WW1 didn’t go well and the Treaty caused WW2 and brought Hitler to power. The city was 80% destroyed after WW2 and we learned much about the Russian taking of the city in 1945. We saw the Reichstag (Government building), Hitler’s bunker where he died, the Berlin Wall several times, Soviet War Memorial, Brandenburg Gate, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews. It was an interesting day and after the 3-hour walking tour we went to Checkpoint Charlie, had lunch at Mickey D’s and boarded a tour bus that circled the rest of the city. By the end we were exhausted and came home for a nap. After 2-hours asleep we walked to dinner, by the Canadian Embassy and then came back home to wrap up the day and prepare for tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the first day of the Coin Show!

Day 3: Off to the Show!

The Berlin World Money Fair isn’t your typical coin show. As their program explains, a “Fair” is an opportunity for dealers to network and introduce new products to their clients. So, its purpose isn’t to be a coin show, but it really does turn out to be a bit of both. There are booths set up on the side halls where the coin show occurs (and a little at the main entrance as well), but it’s not your typical VFW Hall or Whitman Baltimore show. The products are mostly centered around modern issues and ancient coins. There are a number of currency dealers and auction companies attempting to show off their consignments and upcoming sales, but the big focus is all of the modern issues that are being produced at all of the world mints. And, there are some really cool things that are being produced with today’s modern minting innovations.

As you walk through the coin show you make your way to the Mint Exhibition Hall. Imagine a hall almost as big as the FUN Convention or the Summer Baltimore Show filled with 5 and 6 figure booths (yes, I’m serious) displaying many of their new products for the next year. I don’t get the opportunity to attend many professional business conventions, but this makes me see how our national coin shows can be improved. This event is enough to get any numismatist excited! Along with the big, flashy booths, a number of the mints release special World Money Fair coin issues in limited quantities and you will see hundreds (thousands?) of people jumping in line for their favorite mint issues at their favorite mints. I asked my son, “Luke, is this the Comic Con of Coin Shows?” The early morning energy and the buzz of the show is quite exciting and it was fun to participate and observe as a collector, not as an early bird dealer. Once the special issues had sold out for the day, I took the tour around all of the mints to check out future new products that we can offer. I definitely saw some favorites among the new designs and licensees and hope to be able to start opening up our doors a little bit to these new issues as well. There was everything from the first 3-D Printed Coin and AI-coin minting to jewel-encrusted animal coins and some of the most beautifully designed artistic coins. My un-numismatic, history-loving son even found coins that he liked! Having one child who loves everything coin-related and one that does not has helped my perspective on these new issues as we continue attempt to expand the hobby to those that are not already coin collectors.

My touring was broken up a few times by meetings with some of the mint customer managers in discussing their products, greeting friendly faces from back home across the pond, and the occasional ANA Governor question, but the day was for the most part spent observing, discussing, and looking into the future of numismatics.

On Thursday evening, we were invited to the Honored Guest event that happens every year. This year the event was sponsored by the Swiss Mint and they put on quite the shindig! Over 800 people were invited to this special themed event that was held in the exhibition hall next to the show. Catering for 800 people can NOT be easy, but they sure made it look that way! The meal was Swiss themed with lots of cheese, fish, bread, fondue, and Swiss-focused desserts. There was also entertainment by a Swiss choir (for the lack of a better word) and 2 ladies playing the Alphorn. The choir had been roaming the floor singing all day, but these Alphorn players stole the show. Being a musician of sorts, their mastery of the horn was amazing and I really enjoyed the atmosphere. Once they were done, there was some entertainment put on by a local 80s tribute band. All in all, it was quite an event. Thankfully we had some wonderful guests that I knew from the ANA (the Heinrich Family) and some folks from the CIT Mint in Lichtenstein at our table, so it was quite an interesting and educational event! The day ended somewhere around 10pm and we had to take a cab back to our part of town (more downtown than the suburban convention center) and we were exhausted!

I have to admit that the day went far better than I expected, we were able to check off quite a few items on our list that we wanted to discuss and look to for the future. And the networking that occurred was fantastic. For a last-minute trip that I kind of dreaded (getting out of the office for 9 hours on a plane wasn’t my kind of fun as I have so much to get back to), but it was certainly a worthwhile venture.

Friday was much of the same at the show, with a few more meetings and get-togethers and tying up some loose ends before departing. We took some videos of the event to give you a view from my eyes, so hopefully you’ll get the opportunity to enjoy a few of those! I also think that you’ll start to see some of the fruits of our overseas labors in the coming months as we want to share some of our favorite things that we’ve found with you on our website! This month, you can start with the Niue issues that we finally got listed that are in our Modern World Coins Collection on the website.

The weekend:

Unfortunately, Berlin is not the easiest city to fly in and out of (as you’ve seen above). Being rather loyal to Delta (and not wanting to travel back to Frankfurt on a train), we took a detour to Paris for a day. Having never been, why not make it a numismatic event and do everything that we can. So we did! 35,500 steps is a lot, but that’s what it took to see the Louvre, the Monnaie de Paris (Paris Mint of France), the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, and the Champs-Elysees. We didn’t meet Emily (for those that watch Netflix), but we saw everything else it seems.

Not ironically, but my favorite tour was probably the Louvre and the Mint. Now, I have to say, the Paris Mint knows EXACTLY what it’s doing. They had an incredible display that told the story of coinage in France for over 2,000 years! It talked about all of the metal compositions they’ve used over the years and displayed examples of coinage from Caesar to Date. Even throwing in a few US coins and medals. Then, after the museum part, there are numerous exhibits that explain how coins were minted over the years, with an opportunity to interact with the old machinery. There were even dies from the 1800s on display (that weren’t canceled!). Overall, I have to say that this may be the best numismatic mint exhibit that I’ve ever seen. Now, I can’t suggest that I understood the rarity of the coins as I do in the Smithsonian, but they told a real story of money in France and it had quite the following. In the 2 hours I spent (to Luke’s possible dismay) reading the displays, there were hundreds of others checking out the exhibits.

Having observed so much about collectors and people, I’m starting to understand the draw to modern issues more every day. It’s a great entry into the hobby, and I’m sure I’ll pick that as a CWL topic in the coming weeks. Suffice it to say, I see a future for our hobby. It just might not look exactly like it has for us the past 30 years, but the endpoint may just be the same.

It’s been a long week of traveling and I’m ready to get home to my wife, kids, and dogs…and maybe to my office. It was an exciting (even rejuvenating) week overall, but we can’t build Rome (or Paris?) in a day, so we’ll utilize these new ideas as best we can and hopefully find a few new collectors along the way. I hope that you enjoyed this travel blog. Now, I’m off to play with some coins!

~ John Brush