May 16-18, 2024: The Early American Coppers Convention in Indianapolis, IN

Prologue:

For the first time since I attended the Indy 500 ages and ages ago, your author was delighted to land here early on Wednesday morning, grab my suitcase off the conveyor belt with authority and burst out into the clean Indiana air looking for a shuttle bus or van.

Which I found relatively quickly, made my way to the show hotel and was thoroughly checked in and in my room mere minutes later.  

After which I headed to the lobby where I encountered a bunch of other attendees, who, like me, had arrived here extreeeeemely early for a show which does not even begin in earnest until dealer set up at 1:30 on Thursday. So why come now? The answer is of course unbridled enthusiasm for coins!

Which will be discussed in vivid detail, displayed with gusto, compared with high powered loupes and generally fawned over like crazy for the next several days.

But don’t let the name fool you – while most of the coins will be of the copper variety, plenty of cool nickel, silver and gold will be here too, especially at the CRO table.

Where we’ll be ready to do business like crazy, buying, selling, trading and of course schmoozing each and every day, all day, from start to finish.

So if you are in the area, we hope you’ll stop by and see us –

May 16th: Day 1

Now settled in here at the show hotel, your author was up early on Thursday hammering away on emails and spreadsheets, then off to the gym by 7 AM, and in the breakfast room by 8:30.

Where, as is the case at every EAC show, I knew pretty much every other person in there.

After which we were back to the hotel lobby talking coins and comparing notes with a bunch of collector and dealer friends who were all focused on the fact that the A/C in the hotel did not work, and everyone’s room was apparently 88 degrees.

Except mine for some reason, which was actually too cold forcing me to turn the A/C off completely. Come to think of it, I wonder if the thermostat in my room controls the entire hotel? If that’s the case, I’m very sorry about that (especially to the guy who claimed to have filled his bed with 15 ice bags in what we would all agree was an extreeeeeme effort to beat the heat).

Anyway, we eventually made our way to the bourse floor at 1:30 for the start of show set up and we’re pleased to discover that it was also wicked hot in there (in terms of temperature, not numismatic activity).

Still, we managed to sell a nice Ryder-3 Vermont right off the bat, and 2 US coins of the distinctly non-copper variety. Which is never surprising to me there, since this has been the case for us at nearly every EAC show in the last 15 years.

We found a few cool coins too at other tables which were in various stages of being set up, including some higher end early type in copper and silver.

With things eventually winding down and rolling directly into the EAC reception where we could not stay long since we snagged a hard-to-get reservation at St. Elmo’s downtown with the help of a collector friend.

Returning pretty late and immediately collapsing after a long, sometimes hot, thoroughly entertaining, extremely productive day here at the EAC.

Where we’ll look to do it all again on Friday with (we hope) a full bourse floor and some XL public attendance.

With whatever happens to be described right here on Saturday AM.

Until then, then –

May 17th: Day 2

It’s time to review some Notable Numismatic Nuggets on Friday:

We sold a whole bunch more coins.

You know the breakfast here at the hotel is not great when some people are walking 15 minutes to the Waffle House nearby for something better.

Not too surprisingly, we bought some very choice early copper on the floor.

Also not too surprisingly, a lot of the other neat coins being offered on the floor were priced at levels waaaaay higher than I could ever imagine listing them for on our site. That seems to happen more at this show than any other I attend.

I found out that some of the guys made a golf trip to that course in the infield of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Wednesday which sounded amazing (literally, since race cars are whizzing by you while you are playing). Of course your author was far too busy working to ever do anything like that on a weekday.

I very nearly bought a coin for myself (i.e. to keep). I’d say I thought better of it, but I still might snag it before this show ends.

The elevators here at the hotel are just slow enough to make you think that maybe you are stuck between floors. So I carry a book with me, just in case.

I overheard a collector ask a dealer if he had any silver coins to which the response was “No, this is the Early American Coppers Convention so there aren’t any silver coins here” in plain view of my own table which has a lot of silver coins on display.

I feared a young woman had expired on a couch in the hallway outside the show, but it turned out she was merely sleeping in a crazy position.

At near the end of day 2, I finally scrounged up the correct number of cases and lights for our table in some sort of DIY project. That also seems to happen more at this show than any other I attend.

We found a fantastic southern restaurant downtown, but could not get a reservation until nearly 8 PM. So it was a very late night on Friday.

We’ll be back at it on Saturday with, we hope, some more local attendees and even more good buying, selling, trading and schmoozing action.

May 18th: The Airport Report

It’s been a while since we’ve recapped a show from our airport gate, but we’re here early, I did not get jerked around by the TSA and thus have the time, the setting is right, I’m near an electrical outlet, no children (or adults) are screaming, and I cannot think of any reason not to. So let’s get started!

Almost completely exhausted on Saturday AM, your author nonetheless woke up super early and compiled spreadsheets recapping a couple of memo deals, answered emails enthusiastically, worked out vigorously and eventually arrived on the bourse floor before most everyone else.

Where we once again did some pretty decent business, selling a couple of colonials, another gold coin, a seated dollar and, appropriately, some copper on a day in which we had more traffic at the table than any other here.

Then settled one of the aforementioned memo deals, consigned some coins for customers to HA and SB, did one partial trade, took a few more coins on consignment and then resigned ourselves to the fact that this show was pretty much over when suddenly a local customer emailed to say he would be arriving just before the bourse was scheduled to close.

And he did, bringing with him an utterly epic colonial new to the market which we were shocked to see – I’m pretty sure you will be too when it eventually makes it to our list.

After which the show actually did end, so we packed up and headed to the hotel bar where we could reflect on another excellent EAC show during which we saw many collector and dealer friends, schmoozed excellently, did good business and had a grand time in a new and interesting venue.

And now we have another pretty long stretch before the next major show, so we’ll dive into the website and endeavor to put out two (2) epic EBs during this period.

So you might want to keep an eye out for that –

Finito