Tales from the ANA show by our social media man, Rick!
How I spent my summer vacation…
The title may be a bit misleading. It wasn’t really all summer, only a week. Also, it wasn’t really a vacation, it was hard work! All in all, it was one terrific trip!
Rick answers customers’ questions on our social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. This was his first ANA coin show.
I’m talking about my first visit ever to the ANA World’s Fair of Money. This year’s week-long show was back at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois; just outside of Chicago. The total show attendance for the week was estimated at nearly 10,000 people.
The Littleton Coin Company buyers attend many coin shows per year throughout the nation, but for customer engagement (meeting and greeting LCC customers), the ANA show is the granddaddy of them all.
I’ve always been amazed at our own facility’s size and have, quite frankly, never seen anything else quite so impressive in terms of coins at one location. That is until I stepped into the convention center on opening day. When you walk onto the bourse floor, it’s almost overwhelming seeing hundreds of booths from all over the U.S. and the world chockfull of rare and collectible coins and paper money (and more!). Large national mints like the U.S. Mint, the Perth Mint (Australia) and the Bureau of Printing and Engraving were there, as well as numerous “mom & pop” coin dealers from across the country and even Canada.
Collectors line up to get in to the World’s Fair of Money
If I had to choose one thing about the show that I enjoyed the most, I’d say it was the interaction with collectors. I can’t even begin to count how many people told me stories of how they began collecting with Littleton Coin Company; whether it was many years ago or just recently. One collector even took the time to fondly recount his early days with LCC and how our founder, Maynard Sundman, would personally correspond with him on occasion. He’s been a customer for nearly 70 years and still buys from us today (although, not much any more, he confessed. At 92, his collections are pretty much complete!)
While there were a lot of long-time numismatists at the show, it seemed there were just as many new collectors; young and old alike. Husbands and wives just starting out together, parents and grandparents collecting with their children and grandchildren and a constant stream of Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts and Brownies stopped by our booth to spin our “Wheel of Fortune” in hopes of winning a prize. By my count, “Can we spin the wheel?” was heard hundreds of times!
The Littleton Coin booth
During the week-long show, the ANA ran a Trivia Contest for the younger folks. The kids were given a list of numismatic-related trivia questions and were sent out to find each booth tied to a question. Littleton held question number two. It was very encouraging to see children as young as 5 or 6 knowing that the Lincoln Memorial was on the reverse of the Lincoln cent from 1959 to 2008! I was continually impressed with the knowledge some of these kids had already and how excited they were to see everything the show had to offer. It was equally encouraging to hear from avid collectors and members of various coin clubs who continually volunteer their own time and energy to help bring education and support to the youth of today in the hopes of cultivating the next generation of collectors and keeping the hobby alive for years to come.
It’s great to see Littleton customers and their collections.
Next years ANA World’s Fair of Money will be in Anaheim, California. I hope we see you there!
