I am 31,000 feet up listening to dance music (Mary J. Blige's "Dance With Me") on my flight home from the ANA's World's Fair of Money in Los Angeles.  The show was dismal as many have reported.  Financially, this show was a disaster.  My sales were only one-third of what they were last year in Baltimore.  Reasons for this include the national economy, the California economy, the location which still has a bad reputation among the coin collector demographic, and last but not least, the coin market.  It's not all bleak, though.  The September Philadelphia show and the November Baltimore show might be better (they couldn't be much worse).  Other lowlights included the continuing worthlessness of Sunday sessions at large multi-day shows (many dealers have left and the ones who stay don't make enough on Sunday to justify another night in the hotel and another day of meals), the unbelievably slow line at the Post Office (I was 8th in line and it took an hour and fifty minutes to mail my packages), the 9.75% sales tax on sales under $1500 which didn't help smaller sales at all, the flight of stairs you had to climb to get to most of the bathrooms, the "host hotels" being about a mile from the Convention Center, and the rather disgusting men's bathrooms not equipped with urinals.

There were some positive things about the show.  We saw a lot of familiar faces and met quite a few new people.  We saw the 1849 and 1933 double eagles together (with the Mint's terse comment "2 in the Smithsonian, 1 privately held and 10 the subject of litigation" being a dramatic contrast with the 2007 Denver display of the ten 1933's where the Mint said several times "they were stolen!") 
Awards:  Congratulations to John Eshbach of the Lancaster area, who was awarded the ANA's highest honor, the Farran Zerbe award, for his 49 years of service to the ANA in exhibit judging, displaying exhibits, serving as an area representative, and many other areas.  Congratulations to Bill Bugert of Gettysburg, who won three awards for his published research on M. L. Beistle, and gave a widely applauded presentation on 1875-CC halves.  Kudos to Jerry Kochel of Lititz who displayed a half-cent clip clock which has 12 half cents, each with a clip for one of the clock positions.  This must have taken Jerry about 50 years to track all of these coins down!   Well-deserved kudos to Julian Leidman of Silver Spring, Maryland, for being named ANA's Dealer of the Year.

We acquired a lot of new coins listed in the "Newps" section, including two R7 coins, two R6 half dimes (one was sold at the show), two 1809 dimes incl. a PCGS XF-40, an 1841-O Closed Buds small o dime in VF, four 1846 dimes, an 1872-CC dime in NGC VF-30, three 1822 quarters incl. a PCGS XF-40, two XF 1867 business strike quarters in PCGS holders, a high-grade 1859-S, a mid-grade 1872-S, an 1886 quarter in PCGS AU-58 reserved for our customer who requested it at the Mid-America show, nine R7 Capped Bust halves, an 1847/1846 half in PCGS VG-10, and an 1855 Seated dollar.  And also a lot of coins listed at right.  I count about 225 new coins in total!

Other ANA positives:  The area around the Los Angeles Convention Center is nicer and safer than the scare stories that circulated in the months preceding the show.  It was similar to Baltimore's environment.  Restaurants in the area are pretty good, although the food at the convention center was typical coin show fare(:   Saturday's ANA banquet was a good time, and I was surprised to be seated next to ANA Executive Director Larry Shepherd, and with several ANA staff members.  The contracts for ANA conventions are signed well in advance and therefore Larry and the current ANA Board are not responsible for the location for this convention.

In conclusion, I had to be there with a table for my West Coast and other clients, and I was happy to meet some new ones.  I got some great new coins for you, and I am hoping for better attendance and higher sales at the East Coast shows during the rest of 2009.

Thank you again for your business!  Enjoy what's left of the summer!

                                            - - - Rich Uhrich