I got back from the FUN show this morning, and it lived up to its name again this year. Pictures of what I bought will be forthcoming. This message is about everything else. It's a little long, so grab a beverage and prepare to relax for a while.

In order to save about $200+, I used miles and flew into Tampa and rented a car. It was only about 1 hour 20 from the Orlando Convention center. Josh had a table there and said he was having a good show. Perhaps he'll report later. One of the big reasons I go to these shows is for socializing with VAM guys. It's not as much fun going to a show by yourself and not partaking in the social aspect. In addition to the usual cast of characters I meet up with, Leroy Van Allen made his first coin show appearance since 1999 or 2000. About 12 of us took him and his wife Marilyn (formerly the Coin World Collector's Clearinghouse editor) out to dinner Thursday. The only drawback was that Leroy was losing his voice and couldn't speak much. This became a bigger problem Friday.

On Friday, PCGS had a free lunch for its members, which featured a talk By David Hall on what's coming in the next 20 years, and a panel discussion with the coinfacts.com panel of experts. Based on the apparent success of attributing many VAM varieties (we managed to fill a table of 10 with VAM guys), PCGS will be expanding their variety attribution service, I believe this year, to include all varieties of US coins made before 1836 that are cataloged by variety.

They will also have an online Photograde, with each grade featuring multiple pictures of coins. The sample they showed looked pretty good. The values at PCGS.com will eventually be expanded to include minor die varieties. I look forward to seeing these plus other improvements.

Hall also handed out a bit of advice to the registry set collectors in the crowd, which should seem obvious to all of us. Building a collection is a lifetime journey, not a midnight snack. Be deliberate and take your time finding quality coins, not just high grades. Don't quickly put something together and then just sell it. "Just say 'No!' to Greg Rohan," was one of his recommendations (Greg Rohan is in charge of consignments at Heritage.) This advice appeared to be aimed squarely at John Kutasi, who sold a very nice collection of $10 Indians and $20 Saints in one of the Platinum Night auctions that fizzled more than sizzled.

One other thing he talked about was a practice of many dealers that collectors may trust to look at coins in auctions for them. These dealers inspect the coins, then talk the collectors that trusted them out of bidding. The dealer then uses a third party to buy the coins for himself, after which the coins become wonderful. He wouldn't mention names, but said he knew for a fact that this happened several times recently. The moral of the story is to know who you can trust for auction representation.

Friday afternoon was VAM Thing IV, which is the annual SSDC meeting at the FUN show. Leroy Van Allen was to be the keynote speaker, but his voice was pretty much gone, so he wrote out his speech for Jeff Oxman to deliver. Jeff is a very composed and competent speaker, but he made the fatal mistake of not reading the speech ahead of time. Leroy was going to talk about how "VAM" was almost "KM" by explaining his research into his family lineage, including several rather sordid details, including how he found out that he's a fraction of a percent Delaware Indian due to some affair in the 1770s. This caught Jeff totally by surprise and was the first time I'd seen him have to pause so he could regain his composure, much to the entertainment of everyone present (a record crowd of at least 60) as well as the guy that video records all the educational seminars. Bill Fivaz was awarded a lifetime achievement VAM award and spoke a bit about how he got started. I gave my presentation on my new Top 50 Peace Dollar software and Peace dollar die progressions. Take a look.

After the official end of VAM Thing IV, lots of people lingered for photo ops, bull sessions, show and tell, and I sold a handful of software to defray the cost of my trip.

That is what a big show is all about, in my opinion. I bought some stuff, too, but I have to do some cleaning up around here before I can photograph it.

John Baumgart