It sure was nice to hear the buzz on the bourse floor of the Florida United Numismatists convention on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the show this past week.

Not only were dealers there doing what they always do, the public showed up in significant numbers.

Former American Numismatic Association President Bob Campbell said Saturday afternoon when I caught up with him on the bourse floor that the things that sold best were his “catchers,” or eye-catchers. These are the things that catch the eye of first-time buyers as they walk by his table.

Catchers are things like gold nuggets, police badges and hobo nickels. He cited a few other things, too, but he was speaking so rapidly I wasn’t able to take the whole list down.

This is interesting because gold was approaching $900 an ounce and silver was over $16. Not everybody is caught up in the bullion investment wave.

Sunday morning at the annual meeting of the members of FUN, Donna Moon, who handled public registration, said attendance was 2,800 Thursday, 2,450 Friday and 3,250 Saturday. Those numbers didn’t include dealers with badges going in and out multiple times nor did it include members of the public who kept their identity stickers for the duration so they wouldn’t have to register a second time.

I cite the numbers because they strike me as significant.

It was a good show. It is good to be home, even if I did get into Iola around three hours late. We sat on the tarmac of the Orlando airport for about two and half hours yesterday afternoon waiting for a thunderstorm to pass. And here I was worrying about snow.