ANA Chicago - 1999

By David W. Boitnott

Many members of the Raleigh Coin Club being active in the hobby are also members of the American Numismatic Association and as such forwent the August ice-cream social to attend the annual National Convention. This year's convention, the 108th, was held at the Rosemont Convention Center in suburban Chicago, Illinois. Some members not only attended but participated.

Halbert Carmichael and Dave Provost were the first RCCers to arrive, making it to Chicago in time to set up their exhibits on Tuesday, August 10th. More on the exhibits later but first on Tuesday afternoon, I received a phone call from Dave who asked me to go by his office and pick up some medals and the slide set for his Numismatic Theatre talk which he had purposely left behind. Just too much stuff and not enough bags and hands. I pick the items up and on Wednesday morning Boitnott's Express took-off for Chicago and the big show.

After arriving in Chicago and checking into the hotel I proceeded to the show. The first person I ran into was John Page a former RCC member who now lives at the coast and has formed a coin club there. We talked as we had are pictures taken for our IDs, then parted company as I entered the bourse. I paged Dave as soon as I was on the floor so we could meet up. After a quick joke about forgetting the medals and slides Dave informed me that he needed one of the medals for his exhibit. They were back at the hotel and exhibits had to be complete and sealed in 40 minutes! As Dave put the finishing touches on his exhibits I ran (O.K. walked quickly) back to the room to retrieve the medal. Made it back with time to spare, Dave got his exhibits sealed and we were off to lunch.

Spent Wednesday afternoon! That pretty much sums it up as I spent Wednesday afternoon on the bourse floor blowing my budget the first day. I don't think I was alone though. The plan was to continue the bourse Thursday morning but Dave and I got to the show early and decided to attend the Numismatic Theatre presentation "Western Assay Bars: A Discussion with Michael Hodder & Theodore Buttrey". I don't know if any of you have been following the debate on the authenticity of the Western Assay Bars in the numismatic press but these two have been arguing it for some time now. Well to make a long story short Mr. Buttrey believes they are fake and Mr. Hodder believes they are real and very quickly the fireworks started and the fur flew. We had everything short of a physical fight as threats of legal actions punctuated the show. Q. David Bowers even felt compelled to join the debate to defend his and his company's name. Two and a half-hours and the morning was shot but it was entertaining! I'm sure you'll read all about it in Coin World or Numismatic News soon.

Thursday evening Halbert, his wife Anne, Dave and I got together for dinner since it was an RCC meeting night and we felt compelled to uphold the club tradition. We even discussed whether to call Jim Gahrmann on his cell phone and say hi to all the RCCers at the ice-cream social. But we didn't have Jim's number handy and we procrastinated until it was to late anyway. Hey but we were thinking of the Raleigh Coin Club.

Paul Landsberg and Sam Kirby joined the RCC contingent in Chicago on Friday. Both Dave and I spent little time on the bourse floor Friday so we missed their attempts to page us so we could meet. Most of Friday was spent going on a tour of the Chicago branch of the Federal Reserve Bank with the Society of Paper Money Collectors, in Numismatic Theatre presentations, or at an antiques show that was going on in an adjacent hall. The big disappointment Friday came when the Raleigh Coin Club was inadvertently left out of the program and never called to receive our 25-year club award during the ANA Awards Presentation. Dave Provost was doubly upset as it caused him to miss a chance to bid on a gold Norse-American National Commemorative Medal in Heritage's auction.

By sheer chance I spotted Paul in the lobby outside the bourse Saturday in time for lunch. We enjoyed lunch over coin show "war stories" and then went to the Exhibit Awards Presentation. Raleigh Coin club members did well. Halbert Carmichael took third place in Class 7 - Coins issued prior to 1500A.D. with his exhibit "English Mints". Dave Provost took second in Class 3 - Medals with his exhibit "The National Commemorative Medals of Frank Gasparo." Dave also won the John Jay Pittman Sr. Memorial Award (Hey, but what's in a pedigree) for first in Class 13 - Canadian coins and currency with his exhibit "Commemorative Silver Dollars of Canada." But Dave was not through yet, not only was his Canadian exhibit best in class but it also earned him the Thos. H. Law Award for Best First-Time Exhibitor! This was no small feat as there were 31 first-time exhibitors this year. So let's make sure we congratulate Halbert and Dave at the September meeting.

Saturday afternoon at 5 P.M. the Raleigh Coin Club contingent all met in Room 13 for the Numismatic Theatre presentation "U. S. National Commemorative Medals: The Private Issues" by David G. Provost. There were ten attendees for the talk and it was delivered without a flaw. After the formal talk Dave fielded questions and showed some of the medals he had brought and set up in two cases for the presentation. Another job well done!

Saturday night was the ANA Banquet where we met another RCCer, Robert Hoadley. He has been a longtime member of the Raleigh Coin Club and a couple of years ago moved to Arizona for business reasons but still maintains his RCC membership. As a matter of fact the bulk of the "Red Books" as well as many other titles in our library were donated by Robert.

We all made our separate ways home to hot, humid Raleigh grumbling about spending too much but pleased none the less that we had made the trip. Till next time - and its not too early to start planning for Philadelphia in 2000 or maybe Spring ANA 2000 in Fort Lauderdale - Happy Collecting!