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 Friday, May 28, 2010
Quarter mintage extends decline
Posted by Dave
The long decline in quarter production continues. Just as every design in last year’s District of Columbia and U.S. Territories program was lower than the prior one, so too is the first design of the America the Beautiful series.
Quarter production for the Hot Springs, Ark., coin dropped 18 percent to 59.6 million pieces as compared to the Northern Mariana Islands total of 72.8 million.
Output for the Hot Springs design was evenly divided. Philadelphia cranked out 30.6 million coins and Denver came it at 29 million.
If production stabilizes at this level, the 2010 quarter total would fall just short of 300 million pieces divided among five designs and two mints.
However if the rate of decline were to match that of 2009 where the six-design series saw almost 58 percent fewer quarters produced at the end as at the beginning that would result in the final design of 2010 coming in at just over 25 million coins, or roughly 12.5 million apiece from each mint.
How low can quarter mintages go before collectors start nibbling?
Friday, May 28, 2010 2:10:22 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00) 
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Thursday, May 27, 2010
Of Memorial Day and anniversaries
Posted by Dave
There are an increasing number of military-related commemoratives coming down the pike either as planned programs or as proposals in Congress.
Next year offers coins for the Medal of Honor and the founding of the U.S. Army in 1775.
This year the Mint is selling the Veterans Disabled for Life coins.
With Memorial Day on Monday, I have been thinking again that in just a few more years come other significant military events and anniversaries.
We are coming up on the centennial of World War I. It started in 1914 for the major European powers and the U.S. entered the conflict in 1917.
To say this war had an impact on our way of life is an understatement, though time glosses over the horrors. I have a piece of shrapnel taken out of one grandfather who fought in the trenches and photos of my mother decorating war graves as a child on Memorial Day, a regular task undertaken by my other grandfather who came back from France unscathed.
This topic is a sensitive one in the country where much of the fighting and dying occurred. It is not that France does not have a long military history, but according to the head of the Paris Mint, there is a rethinking going on about the wars fought against Germany in the 20th century and whether bringing them up numismatically is a good idea.
No matter what they decide to do or not do in France, I expect there will be much more thinking about this topic here at home and future commemorative coins will be the result.
Thursday, May 27, 2010 2:03:14 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Not a pleasant surprise
Posted by Dave
Are collectors crooks at heart?
That’s not my view, but it is a question that comes to mind regarding a situation arising in Florida.
Donn Pearlman forwarded me a link yesterday to a story on the Ocala.com website.
The story tells of a situation with the Greater Ocala Coin Club where an officer alleges that up to 40 percent of members were engaging in selling cleaned coins to other inexperienced members that were fraudulently misrepresented.
He wants the state to shut the club down.
Wow. Read it and see what you think. Here is the link.
http://www.ocala.com/article/20100525/ARTICLES/100529824/1402/NEWS
Over the years coin clubs have been disbanded because of personality clashes, aging membership and subsequent loss of initiative and simply loss of interest by members.
I don’t recall ever seeing an allegation of problems created by a large part of the membership. That’s a new one and if it is true, it will be a blow to the standard advice I give that some of the best places to learn about coins is at a local coin club.
I feel like the kid who exclaimed disbelief to Shoeless Joe Jackson after the 1919 Black Sox baseball game fixing scandal.
“Say it isn’t so.”
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 2:10:10 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Tuesday, May 25, 2010
It's not 2009, but is that good?
Posted by Dave
Perhaps the best news in 2010 is that it is not 2009. Collectors spent much of last year looking for coins in circulation that they could not find.
Their frustration was compounded by the fact that the coins they sought seem to appear on eBay with no problem at all.
This year the coins are out there. The 2010 Union Shield cent was finding its way into change in January and readers e-mailed me their reports of receiving them.
The Hot Springs, Ark., quarter was the first of the America the Beautiful coins to be struck and readers are reporting getting them.
Other readers are commenting about receiving 2009-dated coins that they could not find last year.
And even collector versions of bullion coins are soon to be coming, with the proof Buffalo gold piece arriving a week from Thursday.
What I notice, though, is that the general energy level among collectors has receded. The sense of urgency is gone.
I wonder if 2009 with its many frustrations will not prove over time to be the year that future collectors will recall with “I was there” relish that current collectors might say about finding 1960 small-date cents, 1972 doubled-die cents or even buying American Eagle coins in the mid 1990s when nobody else seemed to want them.
We might all be more mellow in 2010, but will that count for anything in the histories written in 2020 or 2030?
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 2:13:34 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, May 24, 2010
Bullion buyers out in force
Posted by Dave
Iola sure isn’t Nashville, Tenn., or Baltimore, or any other national show location, but when the Numismatists of Wisconsin held their 50th anniversary show here Friday and Saturday, attendees were behaving like their national counterparts.
Green Bay dealer Paul Reiser said, “Gold bullion was our best seller.” He noted that buyers were taking advantage of a price dip that occurred last week.
“I sold out of Krugerrands and Eagles,” Reiser explained.
“We did a lot in silver bullion,” he said of his 100-ounce and 50-ounce bars.
I can attest to that. One NOW member came by the Krause table as he was walking around the bourse and he was so pleased with his purchase of 10 ounces of silver that he showed me the A-Mark bar.
We had a nice talk about what the future might hold for it.
Nathan James Lord of Grant and Clemens, Watertown, Wis., pointed to an empty spot in his case on Saturday when I came around and he said that is where his 90-percent silver coins had been.
He wished he had had more, but he was not expecting to get a table when he came to Iola. A last-minute cancellation had given him a prime corner right at the show entrance. His results benefited.
Bullion might be hot, but the NOW show was full of typical collectors as well.
The Krause booth did a booming business in coin and paper money books.
I was personally chewed out by one attendee for not having non-numismatic books on hand that Krause published. She was in the mood to buy.
All I could do was invite her back to Iola July 8-11 when the annual car show will be held and Krause will have a book tent.
If that interests you, too, mark the dates on your calendar.
Monday, May 24, 2010 2:10:07 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, May 21, 2010
History moves on
Posted by Dave
When the 1933 Saint-Gaudens $20 gold piece set the record price of $7.59 million for a U.S. coin, I was there at the auction. It was thrilling.
Yesterday, I received a press release that says that record is now broken. A 1794 silver dollar that many believe is the first one struck is now the holder of the new record at $7,850,000.
I wasn’t there for the transaction.
The press release says the coin, which is graded Specimen-66 and is the finest known, was sold by Steven L. Contursi, president of Rare Coin Wholesalers of Irvine, Calif.
The buyer is a nonprofit, the Cardinal Collection Educational Foundation of Sunnyvale, Calif.
It was a private sale brokered by Greg Roberts, president and CEO of Spectrum Group International of Irvine, Calif.
Now I know the world doesn’t wait for me to be present for historical moments, but it is a little disappointing not to be able to say anymore that I witnessed the sale of the record-holding U.S. coin.
However, I can console myself if that is needed.
The press release notes that at the 2004 American Numismatic Association summer convention in Pittsburgh, Pa., the coin was carefully removed from its PCGS holder so it could be closely examined by experts assembled there.
I happened to be in the room for a part of that process and was able to see the coin close up. It definitely is something to see.
I was never able to do that with the 1933 gold $20.
So time marches on and I have to change my story.
Is that so bad?
Friday, May 21, 2010 3:16:16 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Thursday, May 20, 2010
Kicking Keynes a well liked sport
Posted by Dave
British economist John Maynard Keynes is a favorite target of the hard money crowd. He famously called gold a "barbarous relic" and it is a term that caught fire and lived far beyond the immediate conditions in which it was uttered.
The beauty of the term is it means different things to different people. Individuals who viewed it as an obstacle to the advancement of economics and central banking were electrified by it. To those who supported the gold standard, it was patently ridiculous.
Keynes was trying to prevent Britain from going back on the gold standard in 1925. He argued that Britain had too much debt, its labor costs were too high at the proposed $4.86 exchange rate and it constrained the Treasury from engaging in demand management that might get the country out of its prolonged post-World War I slump.
Keynes lost the political argument, but won over the younger generation and was the founder of an important school of economics.
His opponents, who feared inflation, and had just lived through the inflation of World War I, wanted gold as an anchor. Keynes saw it as a millstone.
With gold at record highs nowadays and fears of inflation once again riding high, the battle is being engaged and gold and Keynes' ideas are once again front and center.
Just as in 1920s Britain, it can be argued that America has too much debt, its labor costs are too high relative to other countries, especially in Asia, and that the U.S. Treasury attempt at demand management is inflationary.
Who will win this time?
The numismatic memento of all this is the 1925 British gold sovereign, or one-pound coin. It was struck after a production gap of eight years and is the symbol of Britain's return to gold. It also turned out to be the last circulating gold coin ever struck by Britain under the gold standard, which was abandoned in 1931 once and for all in the terrible deflation of the Great Depression.
Thursday, May 20, 2010 2:11:03 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Great day for something else
Posted by Dave
It has been a battle this week to stay focused on the tasks at hand because the weather has turned so fine that being indoors and at work is the last thing I want to do. Throw in server issues and you have to tie me to my chair. Watching the spinning wheel over and over again is not my kind of entertainment.
While it is not unusual to have good weather or computer problems what it interesting to me is the coincidence of a large drop off in communication from collectors over the last day or two as measured by my e-mail. Overnight if it had not been for spam, I would not have gotten anything. That's unusual. I checked with a colleague in another area to make sure this wasn't some reflection of larger computer issues. It does not seem to be.
Is everybody in numismatics feeling the same way I do? I wouldn't think so, but there has always been a seasonal tendency in coin collecting. Good weather equates to a usual slowing down. Indoor activities give way to outside pursuits.
Memorial Day weekend is close at hand.
Fortunately for me, on Friday and Saturday there is sort of a fusion of the two impulses as the Numismatists of Wisconsin gather in Iola to hold a coin show and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the group.
The bourse floor in Iola is just a hop, skip and jump from the great outdoors, so perhaps we will kill two birds with one stone this weekend.
That suits me.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 2:00:54 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Will it or won't it?
Posted by Dave
I am told that the IT department will be doing some work on a server about the time tomorrow morning when I would normally post a blog. If all goes well, there will be no problem and the posting will occur as usual. If there is a problem, the posting could be delayed by several hours.
So let's see how it goes.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 9:42:04 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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What kind of gold buyer are you?
Posted by Dave
Everybody knows gold has been going up, right?
You would think so. However, I had an e-mail from Pat Heller an online writer for our e-newsletter and he mentioned that some dealers were taken unawares by a 10 percent move higher in the price of Mint State gold $20 coins as they were setting up at the Texas Numismatic Association show.
That is the definition of volatility – when even professionals are taken by surprise.
With Europeans rushing into the gold market because the euro has been sinking, it would seem that this becomes a selling point for more American investors to jump in. They bid up the price of Mint State U.S. gold in consequence.
Is it rational to buy fairly common gold coins and pay high premiums just because they are Mint State?
Rational is probably not the right word. But it does happen a lot.
Buyers pay premiums over bullion value for common coins in strong markets that disappear in weak markets. This has happened time and again.
That’s why it is so necessary to stay on your toes if you want to make moves in this area.
Traders love volatile markets because they can make money on the price swings. Investors who buy at market low points and sell at high points over long periods of time make money, too.
Buyers who stampede into things on an adrenalin rush generated by rapidly rising prices can easily be whipsawed with large losses. The rush turns into buyer’s remorse.
So be a long term investor, or trade day to day, but don’t be an investor who acts only when gold generates a new headline.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 2:07:54 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, May 17, 2010
Remember the Ultra High Relief gold $20?
Posted by Dave
It has been some months now since the 2009 Ultra High Relief Saint-Gaudens gold $20 piece went off sale.
After being available for nearly all of last year and collectors buying 115,178 of them, the coin has fallen off the average collector’s radar screen.
Coin Market editor Harry Miller says the coins are trading at about $1,685 on the retail market if you want to buy one.
That’s about 37 percent over bullion value.
Though you will likely not get an MS-70 version, it is interesting to see that the coin is priced almost as if the U.S. Mint was still selling them. The current mark-up over bullion is virtually identical to what the U.S. Mint would charge a collector.
So on the positive side, collectors who are late to the party are being penalized only by the amount gold bullion has risen in price since the first coins were sold in January 2009.
That’s not a bad deal, but it should also serve as a warning that the gold bullion content aside, it is not likely to be a 2010 speculative darling. Investors are not likely to find it appealing.
Does it matter?
It is important that collectors buy it because they love the beauty of the work as the artist originally intended it to be seen and not as an effort compromised by the stacking needs of the nation’s banks as circulation strikes of 1907-1933 are.
Shouldn’t that be enough?
Monday, May 17, 2010 2:03:27 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, May 14, 2010
End of the euro?
Posted by Dave
Europeans are suddenly buying gold like crazy. The precious metal is setting records that are rippling through the coin market. The euro is sinking like a rock.
What’s this?
Just two year’s ago all the pundits were anointing the euro as the coming currency that was going to knock the U.S. dollar out of its role as the world’s reserve currency. Now it is the Federal Reserve lending massive numbers of dollars to help the Europeans shore up their financial position.
Pundits are saying the euro could fall to $1 (it peaked at $1.60) or even cease to exist as Germany and the other stronger European states try to save what they can.
Does this mean that the next truism of recent punditry to go is China and its super economic status?
The country has been hoarding commodities. This has helped keep their prices up.
There are many parallels between this, the worst recession since the Great Depression, and the Great Depression itself.
But one thing is different. Then it was commodity prices that fell first, followed by the stock market and the runs on the banks occurred.
This time we started with the stock market, which was followed by runs on the banks.
Commodities have swooned a bit but many are still at or near record highs.
Will commodities continue to defy the historical parallels? The answer will influence where the U.S. coin market goes from here.
Friday, May 14, 2010 2:03:28 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Thursday, May 13, 2010
Making silver meaningful
Posted by Dave
Gold set a record yesterday. Silver went up too. It passed a nice round number of sorts.
The bullion value in 90 percent U.S. silver coins struck before 1965 is now worth just over 14 times face value.
I like round numbers. A quarter is worth $3.50, a half dollar is $7 and the dime is $1.40.
Figuring this out this morning makes me recall the advertisements of a bygone age when silver bullion buyers were just starting to push up the value of the silver in standard silver coins beyond face value.
I remember ads offering a 7 percent premium over face value.
Yes, that’s right, 7 percent.
It is hard to imagine a time when that would be a sufficient inducement to even bother to search, but it was.
It was because we all expected more. Silver was going to go higher yet. You put silver coins aside because they weren’t making them anymore. You put them aside and invested them with a view of the future.
In the intervening four decades, the value of silver has fluctuated. It has gone up, backed off and gone up again.
What it hasn’t yet done is surpass the $50 mark, which was the high point of 1980.
Will it do so?
Good question.
People are still investing their views of the future in their silver coins. We have many more options now with convenient one-troy ounce sizes, but for me the strongest bond is between my pre-1965 silver coins and me.
They tell a story. They were also a part of my life. That makes them more real than having a simple stake in the price of silver.
Thursday, May 13, 2010 2:02:31 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Has Chicago become too popular?
Posted by Dave
Are there going to be too many coin shows in Chicago?
This question, more rhetorical or philosophical, was asked yesterday during an American Numismatic Association board of governors telephone meeting.
The ANA is in the process of consolidating its summer show in a suburb of the Windy City.
Central States Numismatic Society is doing the same thing in another suburb.
The Professional Currency Dealers Association autumn show will be moving there from St. Louis.
Then there are shows that have been long anchored in the city, the Chicago International Coin Fair and the Chicago Paper Money Expo.
Chicago is evolving from what was once considered to be an underserved area into something else.
When I was a regular attendee of the Illinois Numismatic Association convention years ago, it was always down state in Springfield or Peoria. I got used to the change of seasons with that early September show. After I spent a weekend in usually hot weather I would drive back to Iola at the end of the weekend and the furnace would kick in during the night.
There was no real answer at the ANA board meeting other than to wait and see how it all plays out and make changes in the future should convention fatigue be obvious by the conclusion of the ANA run there in the summer of 2015.
What do you think? Does or will Chicago have too many coin shows?
Wednesday, May 12, 2010 1:54:38 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Get used to the idea
Posted by Dave
I see the nickel made the front page of the Wall Street Journal yesterday. The topic of the story was that it and the cent are more expensive to make than what the government gets when it puts them into circulation.
What surprised me was that there was nothing new in it. No hearings are set. No specific proposal was set out.
We are just reminded that when costs are high the government wants to change the composition.
Perhaps someone is laying the groundwork to get the issue before the public, get them used to the discussion and then spring something later.
Who knows?
The Treasury secretary is still seeking the authority to change composition at will, though when set in the context of all the lobbyists and coin-using vending machine operators, the article does serve as a reminder of just how slow the process is even if the Treasury secretary is given this new power.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010 2:00:47 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, May 10, 2010
Snow in May goes away
Posted by Dave
We woke up to snow in Iola, Wis., on Saturday morning. I never heard what the quantity was, but it was significant enough to cover the ground and weigh down plants and trees.
It disappeared before noon. I wasn’t quite sure of the time because I was busy outside selling bratwurst for a fund-raiser. It is amazing how many people want to eat when it is cold and blustery.
This morning the surprise was on the financial markets. Europe has put together a bail-out package for Greece and suddenly it appears the damage done to confidence will disappear as fast as snow in Iola in May.
Gold is back under $1,200.
Silver, though, has stayed up over $18.
Perhaps like the brat buyers of Saturday, it pays simply to ignore the pyrotechnics of the financial markets and just go about our business, but there is something about the market swings that just makes me want to watch them and wonder how they might affect collecting behavior.
But it isn’t simply some form of entertainment.
With the major rarities being bought and sold by buyers who have a lot of skin in the financial markets and a lot of dealers who finance themselves through various lines of credit, we are not unaffected by financial swings.
Also, there are an awful lot of collectors who have decided to take a flier in silver and gold and are rooting for the precious metals to go higher.
The question becomes have we lost sight of the main numismatic question of simply going about the business of building our collections?
Monday, May 10, 2010 2:16:43 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, May 07, 2010
Make sure you have something real
Posted by Dave
Each morning as I start my day, I check the Kitco website to see what precious metals are doing.
Yesterday I wrote down $1,180.10 for gold and $17.52 for silver. This morning I wrote down $1,197.80 and $17.63.
If those numbers were the only information you had, who would think that the financial system almost melted down again yesterday purportedly due to some glitch?
That's some glitch.
While it is easy to get wrapped up in online virtual reality, it is important to take a step back from it. Even the stuff that is supposed to be real online might not be.
That's hard to wrap my mind around.
A little typing mistake can disrupt the world economy or worse.
That sort of puts typos in newspapers and blogs into perspective, doesn't it?
That isn't really my point, though. What I think is important to take away from this episode is the necessity of having some things in your life that are real and not affected by virtual reality. Obviously, home and family come to mind, but to whatever list you might compile, keep in mind that a coin collection is very real. You have it no matter what. There is some value there no matter what.
The same is true about gold and silver. Whatever happens, both metals are real. There is value there. There always will be. Market analysts simply argue about current and future prices not about whether they will have any value at all.
That's something to hold onto.
My point, I think, is true whether next year's gold price rises or falls. Gold is real. Real is good and it is something that can't be trumped by whatever happens online.
Friday, May 07, 2010 2:13:37 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Thursday, May 06, 2010
Mint output good news for workers?
Posted by Dave
There was some good news in the April U.S. Mint coin production report for those of us who use the numbers as an economic indicator.
Production rates are up.
The bad news?
They aren’t up much.
In the first four months of the year, the Mint has produced 1,249,190,000 coins.
If the Mint maintains this pace for a full 12 months, it will strike 5.6 percent more coins than last year.
Finding a bottom is the first step in any economic recovery.
If the 5.6 percent increase were the whole story, that is small consolation for those looking for work.
However, the rate of production in April if maintained for another eight months would lead to a far higher output increase of 37 percent for calendar year 2010.
Which will it be?
I expect it will probably fall somewhere between the two percentages and that wouldn’t be bad.
Either way, we are still a far cry from prosperity and full Mint production rates. We may never return to the heady numbers achieved in the year 2000 of over 25 billion coins, but that is a problem for another day.
Tomorrow we will see what the unemployment figures tell us.
Why do I associate this with numismatics?
Well, it all relates back to experience. Bob Wilhite, the editor of the Coin Market price guide 1976-1999, taught me his money in the jeans indicator of numismatic health.
When collectors are working and have money in their pocket, they tend to buy coins for their collection. When they aren’t working or fear losing their jobs, the money they do have in their jeans stays there.
As for the Mint, it supplies some of that money.
Thursday, May 06, 2010 2:09:17 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Still waiting for the Scout sellout
Posted by Dave
This is being posted about an hour later than usual because I started the day off at the dentist. My dentist’s crown-a-year plan seems to be in full operation despite my best flossing and brushing efforts.
As I sat in the chair as they pried off the temporary crown, I wondered when I would get the first nerve zinger, letting me know that the real work was getting under way.
Waiting for the first one is far worse than experiencing it. Once it hits, it sort of helps me mentally calibrate the level of discomfort and then I relax a little.
In some weird way, it was a little bit like waiting for the Boy Scout commemorative program to finally conclude with a sellout. I know it is coming. I just don’t know precisely when and how strong it will be.
Extrapolating from weekly U.S. Mint sales data has been an interesting mental exercise, but the weekly sales rate has been plunging.
This week just 8,007 more coins were sold. This is less than half the sales rate of 17,949 from the week before.
The upshot?
With 11,391 proofs left to go, we are still more than a week away from a sellout of all 350,000 coins. If the sales rate halves again this coming week, we are talking three weeks away.
Like my time in the dentist chair, I wonder when this program will end.
I have hope. The dentist put in the new crown in what seemed like record time this morning. Perhaps the end of the Boy Scout program now will be rapid.
But unlike the first zinger of this morning, I am still waiting to relax over the conclusion of the Boy Scout program.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010 3:00:16 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Another political cover-up
Posted by Dave
Mark Twain, who said that history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes, might smile knowingly today if he could catch up with current events.
Collectors who know their numismatic history will also smile.
I thought of this yesterday when I saw an online story about the attorney general of Virginia who gave pins to his office staff bearing an adulterated image of the state seal with the emphasis on the ‘adult’ part.
The Roman goddess of virtue on the seal has a bare breast much as the Standing Liberty quarter design of 1916 has a bare breast.
It was designed by George Wythe and adopted by Virginia in 1776.
For the staff pins, as with the quarter design of 1917, the goddess now has her own virtue protected by the addition of chain mail at the instigation of the state attorney general.
Thus the story line of 1916-1917 extends itself to 2010.
It was only three years ago that we had the hullabaloo over “In God We Trust” being placed on the edge of the 2007 Washington dollar. This echoed the arguments of 1907-1908 over the absence of the motto on the redesigned early 20th century $10 and $20 gold pieces. Subsequently in 2009 the motto was relocated to the obverse on Presidential dollars just as the motto was placed on the two new gold coins in 1908.
This is getting weird.
What long-told numismatic story will be the next template for an event here in the 21st century?
I can hardly wait to find out.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010 2:17:44 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, May 03, 2010
CSNS experiment results are in
Posted by Dave
The Central States Numismatic Society experiment regarding having a full day for Professional Preview attendees who pay $75 to get in has been judged a failure and the approach will be abandoned for next year's Chicago convention, Kevin Foley says.
Too many people who had come for the Professional Numismatist Guild Day on Wednesday did not like the idea of paying the admission charge on Thursday. They also did not like hanging around waiting until Friday, so they left.
Dealers who spent a large amount of time on Thursday twiddling their thumbs did not like it, either.
So, next year, the Professional Preview portion of the convention will see its hours cut back to 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday and public attendance will run from 2 p.m. until 7 p.m. on that day.
Trying to tweak the system is not necessarily a bad thing. Foley pointed out that this year's experiment was the result of previous dealer requests for more dealer-to-dealer time. CSNS tried to be responsive. It was responsive to the requests, but this apparently generated more counter requests that led to the changes to next year's schedule.
Central States closes on Saturdays, so I was up and out of the loading dock area by 3:45 p.m. and back to Iola by 6 p.m. on Saturday. It was nice to be home. The lawn was waiting.
Monday, May 03, 2010 2:13:32 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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