Same trend at coin and car shows?

The public did a great job of abolishing Sunday show hours at the Iola Old Car Show yesterday. They simply didn’t show up. Multi-day vendors went home Saturday night.

When I arrived on the grounds on Sunday morning to work my shift making hamburgers, many of the swap meet vendors had already left. They are the equivalent at a car show of coin dealers on the bourse floor.

Nearly all of the show cars were gone. It’s as if coin show exhibitors swooped in on a Saturday evening and removed their exhibits.

Weak Sunday business has been a trend in recent years. The car show has tried to combat it by offering free admission on Sundays. For a time, that seemed to stanch the decline, but this year it did not.

For all practical purposes Sunday hours were just the extra time needed for the remaining vendors to pack up and go home.

Sure there are other factors at work like high gasoline prices and a general weakness in the economy.

However, could it be Americans are changing their Sunday habits and this is affecting events from coin shows to car shows?

It’s a question worth asking. Certainly it will be on my mind the next time a reader asks me why the American Numismatic Association eliminated Sunday hours at the end of a convention.