Show or no show
California Governor Jerry Brown was a no show yesterday for the official ribbon cutting ceremony to open the American Numismatic Association National Money Show in Sacramento. Apparently a late night state budget negotiation made his participation in the 8:45 a.m. event impossible.
While the ANA can carry on very well without the governor, what it cannot do is carry on without public attendance. People were slow in coming. Perhaps it was the early hour of the show opening. Perhaps it was the fact that most people work and getting to a coin show on Thursday is not a high priority. But whatever it was that kept people away, the morning hours began very slowly.
The paradox was that there always seemed to be a short line of people waiting at registration every time I checked.
I was having a nice conversation with the wife of a collector who was busily engaged at the neighboring dealer’s table between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. when I sort of changed the subject abruptly to ask her if the room suddenly sounded louder than it had. She looked at me like I was a little bit crazy, so I joked perhaps my ears had been plugged all day and they had chosen that moment to open.
However, for a few minutes yesterday there did seem to be a level of activity that generated the proverbial buzz on the floor. Buzz is the general background noise that helps to indicate that deals are being done. However, by 4 p.m. it was gone again.
Walking the floor I saw a number of empty tables where the dealers had not come.
The Krause table is located just across the aisle from the U.S. Mint booth. It was not busy during the day, either. To bad the Mint couldn't bring something like 5-ounce America the Beautiful coins to generate traffic.
So Friday beckons. Will the public make it? I hope so.
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