April 23-26, 2025: The Central States Numismatic Society Show in Schaumburg, IL

April 23rd: Day 1

Team CRO got to the airport early on Wednesday and immediately remembered that it was school vacation week in Massachusetts, which thus explained why there was an enormous crowd of young people and their parents / chaperones gumming up nearly every single aisle, ticket counter, security screening, restaurant and gate.

But we fought our way through, eventually found a place to eat breakfast, scurried onto our plane and arrived in Chicagoland unscathed and on time.

Then zipped over to the Renaissance Hotel & Convention Center here in Schaumburg, where we were delighted to find out that our room was ready, ditched our bags there and headed straight to the already-opened bourse floor for what was left of PNG Day.

PNG Day? Yes, the pre-show event held by the PNG where we could set up our table early, get situated, do some wholesaling and generally iron out any glitches in the matrix.

And we were glad we did, since we discovered that the table lamp clamps provided by the show were the shoe equivalent of child’s size 4, and the edge of the tables were a men’s 13 EEEE. So we needed to find a solution which we did in the form of the last few giant replacement clamps available, which of course every later-arriving dealer here will need and not be able to get.

So we were well illuminated when we were told right off the bat that the expensive coin we split with another dealer at the very end of the New Hampshire show Saturday was already sold here this AM.

A good start to a day during which we sold a bunch of coins, bought some extremely cool ones, delivered some coins purchased off the website by some local collectors, schmoozed excellently and fielded one curious question when a collector came to the table and asked if our company was owned by Rare Coin Wholesalers. I have no idea where one would get that notion based on anything we have ever done, said, listed, etc., but I assured him that CRO is 100% owned by MaryAnn and me.

That aside, we were generally very productive until 4 PM when the limited entrance PNG day ended, and full scale dealer set up began.

Affording us a whole new group of tables to pore through and more cool coins to find in a room that rivals the January FUN show for grand scale and dealer variety. So your author raced around and found some more nice coins among the tables that were mostly in the process of setting up.

And then all of a sudden it was 6:15 PM, so we headed out for an excellent dinner with a group of dealer and industry friends who all get together at this show every year. Returning to the hotel late and collapsing after what had been by then a 20 hour, 18,363 step day.

But do not worry, we will be rested and ready for a full day on the bourse floor on Thursday, and then blog all about all of it right here first thing on Friday AM.

Until then, then.

April 24th: Day 2

Good morning coin collector, coin dealer, industry professional or random person who accidentally found this blog while googling coin operated laundromat and welcome to our Thursday installment of the RR.

Which will begin with a description of our hectic morning which included email answering, blog writing, spreadsheet updating, gym visiting, failed breakfast eating (since we could not find anything we wanted in the coffee shop and had no time to sit in the restaurant) and finally a mad dash to the bourse floor where we discovered two things:

1. Most of the other dealers were again already there, and
2. There was a check waiting for us at the table for our share of a coin we split with another dealer on Wednesday which he had already sold earlier Thursday AM.

That second one a surprising and most welcome result I would characterize as an example of the “I’m Cleaning My Oven Phenomenon”, referring of course to the 1970s ad campaign for Easy-Off oven cleaner in which a person could go about their daily activities while this magic stuff is hard at work scouring and scrubbing for them.

Which would be the first of many lovely outcomes on a day in which we acquired another 25 or so cool coins variously by outright purchase, carefully orchestrated trade and deft consignment.

Including some very nice US type in copper, silver and gold, a bunch of choice world coins and one weird esoteric piece of a type I have always liked but could never find in any kind of presentable shape. Until now.

Sales were good too, including coins in all categories from colonial to esoteric, from a few hundred dollars to the mid 5-figures. Including two other fancy items we owned with two other dealers which they sold here.

In and around which we submitted coins for grading, picked up the few that were done, did some impromptu appraisals at the table, were asked for our opinion of various coins and generally did a lot of standard coin dealering activities.

Including consigning a complicated, multi-part, entirely raw collection of Mexican War of Independence coins on behalf of an astute collector who had assembled it over many years when prices were way lower than they are today in what has become a pretty hot area. So he and we have high hopes for that group.

In other words, it was typically productive day for us at a CSNS show and a good example of why we all like coming here so much.

With the action continuing right up until 6, at which time we headed to the hotel bar for a drink before we piled into a collector friend’s car and drove to Wildfire, a nice local restaurant we first tried here last year.

And then again got back to the hotel late, caught the tail end of the NFL draft and then immediately fell asleep after another looooong day here in Schaumburg.

Where we will be ready to do it all again on Friday, and blog about it right here on Saturday AM. So you might want to keep an eye out for that –

April 25th: Day 3

It was an interesting, entertaining, at times frustrating, kinda exhausting, but ultimately very successful day here on Friday during which the following things happened:

We actually had breakfast in the hotel restaurant where we could eat sitting down, and order something healthy. Trying to do the latter at these shows is a difficult challenge in which time and availability deviously conspire against you.

You author then went straight to lot viewing to check out 20 or so items of potentially high interest to us, ranging from what I expect will be the relatively affordable to the highfalutin. Though I did eliminate one possibility that I am completely convinced has repaired graffiti on it. So be careful out there.

We sold a bunch more coins in all categories to a variety of collectors and dealers.

Your author scoured the bourse floor for interesting items, invariably finding them at tables that were unoccupied, and then having to go back there 5 times until someone finally showed up. Why didn’t I just leave my business card and say “I am interested in your XYZ coin”? Because in my experience doing so changes the negotiating dynamic significantly, and not in a good way for CRO. Better to just casually stroll up the table, bump into said item and innocently ask how much.

We did a trade, then sold those trade items to another dealer later in the day, but only after attributing them lest we unload a rare variety for common variety money.

We got a bunch of grading back with some quite mixed results from the shockingly good to the head scratchingly bad. In other words, it was a totally typical result for us these days.

I tripped over the giant raised bump on the floor that they use to conceal wires near the 1300 aisle three times in a 20 minute span because I was busy looking up at dealer booth signs and/or numismatic items.

Twice I encountered cool coins in unfamiliar dealer cases and was told they were not for sale. I’ve always found that curious, since it’s expensive to attend these shows and just hanging around displaying your collection seems silly to me. Unless it is some kind of sales technique where the guy is waiting for someone to start throwing crazy offers at him, in which case I don’t have the time or inclination to play games.

A collector showed me a coin he had bought on the floor that was actually our coin that we had sold earlier in the show. I always find that fascinating, where in a sense we end up competing against ourselves. Sort of.

I spoke to another collector in the afternoon who described a coin he had just sold to another dealer at a price that I calculated was 50% too cheap. I really wish he had talked to me first.

I returned some proposed consignment coins to another dealer in the afternoon since they were in our view not CRO-worthy and thus not something we wanted to list.

We bought some cool medals late in the day which I think are going to image spectacularly.

And then at 6 PM we packed up, waded through some gala going on in the adjacent convention center space, fought through a limo and Uber logjam at the front door and made our way to Evanston for dinner with our local relatives. Eventually taking an uneventful Uber back to the hotel except for the part where another driver pulled up alongside us, rolled down his window and threatened to kill our driver. So that was fun.

But we eventually made it back unscathed and will be ready for our last day here in Schaumburg on Saturday, where we will endeavor to do as much business as possible, clean up every loose end and head home late so we can relax and unwind on Sunday is something I wish I could say. But I can’t, since we have a Devens, MA show Sunday AM and we will of course be there.

Which means I’ll be writing the final installment of this CSNS RR recap from the airport on Saturday night and thus demonstrating once again our non-stop commitment to coin dealing, blog writing and sleep deprivation.

EOM

April 26th: The Airport Report

Now uncomfortably seated at our crowded airport gate awaiting our flight home, let’s recap the just completed CSNS show via our usual series of random observations presented in no particular order:

Saturday was our busiest day of the show which is sorta surprising since the public attendance was pretty light. That worked out OK for us, though, since many of the other dealers had left by then and the enthusiastic coin buyers in the room were thus funneled directly to the CRO table, and those of a few of our like-minded, late-staying colleagues.

I’m not sure what the record is for number of Caesar Salads eaten during one major coin show, but I am confident my performance this week would rank in the top 6.

Including Saturday’s results our grading here remained uninspiring.

I got to hang out for a little while with an 11 year-old dealer prodigy at the show, which reminded me of my own days coin dealing as an 11 year-old in 1974. But this guy is waaaaay ahead of where I was back then.

As the dealer community was vacating the Renaissance Hotel, the next convention was moving in which included some kind of formal event, lots of dudes in tuxedos and women in slinky ball gowns. And since this was the Discount Tire convention, I kinda feel like us coin people need to up our game.

CRO hats given out in Schaumburg: 14.

The CSNS group did a fantastic job organizing this show and it continues to be one of our favorite stops on the circuit.

Our last purchases here took place Saturday at about noon and brought our total NEWP count to 57 colonial, US, world and esoteric items. Which we’ll now combine with the coins already in the queue, carefully sort the group, make some judicious edits and arrive at one fantastic EB. The timing of which will be determined by how fast we can image everything. So keep watching for our EB schedule to be posted, as usual, at the top of the website.

But not until after the Devens show from where our next RR will be posted as astonishingly soon as tomorrow afternoon.

OK? OK!