Time for the FUN show
Today is a travel day for me. Wish me luck. I hope to arrive in Orlando, Fla., to attend the Florida United Numismatists convention.
I never made it to last year’s show because plunging temperatures and a great deal of snow disrupted air travel.
Temperatures are plunging again, though we have not had much snow.
How the coin business plays out on the FUN bourse floor is of critical concern.
It is a signal about how the year is going, but I should stress it is only a signal.
I recall the 1983 show. It was gangbusters. I headed back to Iola, Wis., with the idea in my head that it would be a boom year.
I even created an issue of Coins Magazine that was called the “New Boom Special.”
But it was wishful thinking. Business was not bad in 1983, but it was by no means booming as the year went on.
Numismatics was still recovering from the hangover of the bullion crash after gold peaked at $850 and silver at $50 in 1980.
Morgan dollars would step up and take the market lead. I even had a Morgan dollar on the cover of that ill-fated new boom issue. So perhaps I was half right.
Market participants are not zombies to be programmed by one good show or even one bad show.
They are wired to the wider world and change their tactics as conditions warrant week by week, day by day, even minute by minute if their bullion hedges are involved.
If you plan to be at the FUN show, stop by the Krause Publications table and say hello to Debbie Bradley, Sue Konkel, April Krueger and me.
It will be great to see you.
I also will be interested to learn your views of the coming year. No matter what might happen, I am looking forward to the next 12 months in this great field of ours.
Buzz blogger Dave Harper is winner of the 2014 Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog and is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."
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