September 10-14, 2024: The Great American Show in Tampa, FL
Prologue:
Recently another dealer asked me why I did not write a Road Report Prologue before the recent ANA show, to which I responded that I really can’t remember, but I’m sure there was an excellent reason.
Still, I felt like I had really let that guy down, and since we do not like to disappoint our readers, I hope this weather-intensive installment will suffice.
We head to Tampa with a combination of enthusiasm (since this is a brand new show), trepidation (ditto) and a rain coat since my quick perusal of the weather forecast for the week down here looks like this:
Yikes.
Of course that can sometimes be misleading, since that could indicate merely brief periods of rain during otherwise glorious sunshine. Or a non-stop gorilla monsoon all day, every day.
Regardless, we are delighted to report that this show is being held indoors, where we will be buying, selling, trading, grading and of course schmoozing nonstop, start to finish no matter how terrible (or beautiful) it is outside.
So if you are in the area, we hope you’ll stop by and see us at our deluxe table #308 where we will be unleashing a whole bunch of new, never before seen coins.
Can’t make it? No problem – you can still follow along with all the action in our Road Reports posted daily from the show right here in this space.
Starting tomorrow.
September 10th: Day 1
Having arrived in Tampa without so much as even one hitch on Monday, Team CRO was up early on Tuesday AM, dove straight into email and saw one from the Westin Hotel in town announcing that our room there was now ready for occupancy. Yay! Er, hold on a sec . . .
This actually came as a great surprise to me, since of course I was comfortably seated in my room at a different hotel at the time. Not sure how that happened, but it did provide a fun opportunity for me to hang around on the phone for the next hour attempting to cancel that second reservation without paying the exorbitant late cancellation penalty and thus making what is already a very, very pricey hotel situation at this show exactly 2x worse.
Amazingly, and with no yelling, I was able to get out of that 2nd reservation unscathed, get a confirmation email as proof and then, feeling a tremendous sense of relief, re-focus our attention on numismatics.
Which would entail immediately schlepping over to the convention center, quickly and efficiently getting our giant show badges and then heading up to the pre-show trading room on the 4th floor with perhaps the best view we’ve had at any coin show, ever:
Where we took our spot amongst many / most of the well-known national dealers, put out our wares and began doing business like crazy.
Interestingly, the first two people who came to the table on this day asked to see world coins, which surprised me (but not as much as that email from the Westin). Those world coin seekers came to the right place though, since we were ready for them in a room in which maybe 3 or 4 dealers had any world coins at all.
And with that auspicious beginning, the day proceeded nicely with a dozen interesting purchases and 8 sales. We also picked up a couple of coins we purchased last week and had delivered here, making a solid day that much more productive.
With our last transaction the purchase of a couple of toned Morgans at about 4 PM, after which we packed up, put our inventory into the security room, hung around the hotel for a while and then eventually headed out to dinner at a place called Uleli, which looked interesting online, and was. We also realized we’d been there before, probably on our last visit to Tampa during the FUN Show in 2018, which now seems like it was 1.5 million years ago.
After which we walked back along the River Walk where 127,500 people were jogging with a variety of different pained expressions on their faces on an extreeeeemely warm and humid evening that might have made some coin dealers wish they had taken an Uber.
We made it back eventually though, just in time to turn in early in anticipation of what will be a long, and, we expect, action packed day on the bourse floor on Wednesday.
And if it is, or even if it isn’t, we’ll be here to blog all about it on Thursday AM.
Until then, then –
September 11th: Day 2
We were back at the convention center at about 8:15 on Wednesday, made our way to the security room, picked up our bags, trekked down the long corridor to the elevator, stood in the queue with several other dealers (including one guy pushing the longest wheeled cart I’ve seen since the original Grinch movie), made our way to the 3rd floor, schlepped to the other side of the building and just like that we were on the bourse floor ready to set up our table #308.
1st Thought: We seem to have a pretty good spot here
2nd Thought: We have the correct number of cases, and lights, and there is an electrical outlet that seems to be both accessible and connected to a power supply
3rd Thought: Watch me now as I drag the tables around and create an angled, forward facing work space behind the table so I can sit back there like a big shot
Then went about the process of arranging the cases, setting up the lamps, labeling the case keys, laying out the coins and voila we were ready to do business.
But only after we picked up our voluminous PCGS grading which was completed last week but which we had requested to be delivered here. And they all were, allowing us to seamlessly move them directly into the cases and on display for the first time ever, anywhere. That was exciting.
And then while MaryAnn stayed at the table, your author started perusing the room, looking for cool NEWPS and finding a few coins here and there to add to the stack we started to amass on Tuesday.
Returning just in time for the early bird entrants to come in, but unfortunately there weren’t many of them. The good news is we do not need large crowds, we need the right kind of collectors who are there to buy, sell and trade.
Including a collector I had emailed with last week, struck a deal for a coin and arranged to finalize it right here on Wednesday. And we did.
Which would turn out to be one of about a dozen transactions during a day which was pretty sparsely attended, but still productive for us on both the buying and selling side.
Including right up ‘til the end of the day when I bought a coin that I first saw Tuesday, decided I wanted and then had a very difficult time finding again until about 4:30 when I stumbled into it in the far back corner of the room.
After which we packed up and headed to the hotel bar to unwind before having dinner with some dealer friends at a cool Mexican place.
And then returned to our room to watch Day 2 of the sumo tournament taking place in Tokyo which of course we would never miss.
Things we would also never miss: Thursday at the show, where we’ll hope for better attendance, but make the most of whatever happens just like we always do.
EOM
September 12th: Day 3
It’s time to review a dozen interesting things that happened in Tampa on Thursday:
We lamented the lack of robust collector attendance here with many other dealers, though several local collectors told me that people in Tampa are most likely to attend a show on Friday and Saturday. Hey, that would be great.
Still, we managed to sell a bunch of coins, including several which had been on the site for a while.
We continue to be amazed that otherwise responsible adult coin dealers are forced to smuggle food into the convention center here since security does not allow you to bring in anything that was not purchased onsite, even though what they have onsite is woefully inadequate and/or makes no effort to accommodate any dietary restrictions or satisfy anyone who wants to eat something kinda healthy. I would describe the situation overall as ‘not a good situation overall’
Had a good interaction with a YN who I hope will offer us some cool stuff going forward since the last few coins he sold to someone else were seemingly perfect CRO items.
We bought a cool, key date Morgan $1 which is literally the best toned example of this date we’ve ever had the chance to buy. Then scoured the floor and bought 2 other toned Morgans which I always say are not typically a major focus of ours, but maybe they kind of are?
Had some interesting talks with a bunch of industry bigwigs in attendance here who I had not spoken to in a while. There are some extremely smart people in this business.
Dropped off a cool NEWP for reCACing because the sticker was partly peeling which upset your author’s aesthetic sensibility to the extent that I simply could not offer it as is, even if that means we’ll have to delay its EB appearance by a few weeks. Hey, I’m not going to apologize for being a perfectionist.
Bought yet another mega-Fugio during a run in which we have now added 5 fantastic examples.
Completed and took delivery of a deal here we had been working on for the last 6 weeks.
Did some show and telling with several other dealers and collectors during which I was often asked my opinion about various coins, gave it and then was argued with about said opinions. So for the avoidance of any future confusion, if you want my opinion about a coin please ask me, but if you are only interested in my opinion if it jibes with your opinion, maybe it’s better if we skip step one.
Sold a coin here to a guy who immediately listed it for resale online, which was cool to see. We actually sell a lot of stuff to other dealers, often coins that collectors have passed on. I have always found that interesting.
Had dinner with some dealer friends at Columbia in Ybor City, a Tampa tradition which we have to hit at least once every time we come here. I still never know what to order though.
And now we look forward to Friday where we literally have no idea what to expect, but whatever it is we’ll blog about it right here in just about 24 hours from now.
September 13th: Day 4
Notable Numismatic Quotables Heard at the Show on Friday
“There are about 200 people lined up at registration in the lobby!”
– A dealer reporting on a seemingly positive development just before the show opened to the public
Editor’s note: That may well have been the case, and I guess it’s possible they all made it into the show since Friday (at least until 2 PM or so) was the busiest day of the week so far. This is however a relative descriptor, since it was still pretty empty in that big room.
“Long Beach was busier last week than this is”
– Another dealer who attended both shows
Editor’s note: That really is sorta stunning, since a lot of collectors and dealers (including some people who have never actually gone there) seem to have concluded that LB is in serious decline. For the record, Team CRO attended Long Beach religiously until the end of 2022, had a wicked table right near the entrance and always did well there, but we stopped going primarily because the travel out there and the redeye home was a killer.
“I like this coin, but the holder is old and a little scratched and I will have to figure the cost of reholdering it into my purchase price”
– A collector at our table holding a coin in an old PCGS OGH slab with a gold CAC sticker
Editor’s note: We could have spent a lot of time explaining the collectability of old holders and how cracking coins out of OGHs would not be financially prudent, but it was pretty clear that we were not going to have a meeting of the minds with this collector and so we recommended he look for a different example on the floor already in a new slab.
“I did not show you that coin because it was not in an old holder and I did not think you would want it”
– A vest pocket dealer I have known for a long time and done a lot of business with who sold something cool to another dealer here which that dealer ended up splitting with us
Editor’s note: First of all, we do like old holders, but a quick perusal of our cases here and the inventory section of our website will indicate that we do have a lot of coins in new holders and we are enthusiastic buyers of cool coins housed in them. Second, I would say that since the early days of CRO and continuing to now, a lot of people try to guess what we might like, or hand us coins that they have already concluded we will like, but unfortunately most people are just not very accurate in those assessments. So I really wish people would just show us everything and see what happens.
“We could just sell this as is, or send it in for +, or maybe regrade it, or cross it to PCGS, or CACG, or maybe downcross it, or what of we cracked it out, or . . .”
– Another dealer with whom we own a coin figuring out every possible scenario for how to market and sell it and thus totally exhausting your author in the process.
Editor’s note: Whilst I do understand that this sort of stuff is SOP in the modern coin business, and we do send in some coins to grade or regrade, my strong preference is to 1) buy cool stuff and 2) list it directly on the site while skipping all the intermediate steps in the process, since all that costs money, and time, and generally creates angst, and I already have enough angst.
“I do not like when you whine in the Road Report”
– A major national dealer offering an unsolicited assessment of this section of the site
Editor’s note: Well, we genuinely do appreciate any and all feedback on all things CRO, and I do understand that some people want different things here, including more hard hitting numismatic content and detail about what we bought, or maybe me outing coin doctors, or possibly more photos of my appetizers. What I do write is whatever struck me as interesting, unusual, amusing, or noteworthy about the previous day (or summarizing the whole show), without an agenda, and without trying to put some positive spin or something on it. Basically it is the (numismatic) world according to CRO.
“Someone’s gotta write a book about this”
– A long time dealer friend who has had at least as many crazy experiences on the coin circuit as I have, but insists I should be the one to write it
Editor’s note: I do think this could be incredibly interesting, but if you were really going to tell all the best stories you’d probably have to do it only after you retire. And since I don’t ever plan to retire from the coin business, I guess these RR’s will have to suffice.
Finito
September 14th: Post Mortem
Now finally back after a much delayed flight home, let’s do a deep dive into the Great American show in Tampa:
Dates
One of the most appealing aspects of this event was that it was being held at a time of year when we need more shows. As is, our travel schedule is usually jam-packed in the first 6 months of the year, and then we have just a few major shows in the 2nd half, so we were happy to try to balance that out.
City
Prior to this week, we have set up at three previous shows in Tampa, the FUN show in January 2011, 2016 and 2018, we enjoyed it each time, it was successful, and it seems like a fine place to hold a show.
Venue
We’ve also been to this same convention center those three previous times, and it was also perfectly fine, though it would be better if did not have a bizarre combination of escalators and stair cases, with some floors seemingly only accessible by using some of each, which is not ideal when you are hauling wheelie bags and show supplies. In fairness, it is not the only convention center on the circuit with this issue.
Bourse
Pretty much everyone who is anyone in the numismatic world was here in Tampa this week – all the grading services, all the major auction houses, a high % of the major national dealers and a bunch of regional and local guys. There were a lot of cool coins available, and a lot of neat displays. It was impressive, particularly for a new show.
Attendance
I would describe the public attendance as utterly anemic. I’ve been going to shows on the dealer side for more than 20 years and these were the smallest crowds I can recall at any major show since the widely panned 2009 ANA World’s Fair of Money in Los Angeles. How come? I really don’t know. I feel like the show organizers did pretty much everything you could do to promote the show. And I don’t think you can blame the venue (since, as noted, we’ve been here thrice before), or the dates, but perhaps this venue during these dates is just not workable. More than one attendee pointed out that this is the peak of hurricane season, and said a lot of snowbirds aren’t here at this time of year. Or maybe the entry fee was too high and scared people away? Or possibly it just takes time, and you need to run the show at the same place and same approximate dates for a number of years to gain full awareness, acceptance and attendance from the public.
One thing is certain: None of the other stuff above matters if no collectors come to the show.
