Yes, I am bugging out to Denver

While this issue is being produced, many hobbyists are in Denver to see what excitement the American Numismatic Association World’s Fair of Money can produce.

Naturally, I am there as well.

That means that this issue of Numismatic News Express is being put together while I am out of the office.

A casualty of my absence is the weekly Mint Statistics column. This two-page weekly offering is for people who like numbers.

I am one of them. Most collectors also like numbers. We think in terms of numbers. Mintages, prices and percent back of bid from Graysheet are all numbers. Even our grading system is numerical.

But not everyone likes figures as much as we do. Perhaps this will help explain why Mint Statistics are not included this week. I was not present to do them.

Lately, the best way to tell if I am on a lengthy road trip any given week is to see if the Mint Statistics presentation can be found. Yes, I feel guilty when it is not published. But I console myself that during the summer, the numbers hardly move.

Any number that might be exciting, say that for sales of the Mint’s 225th Anniversary Enhanced Uncirculated Coin Set, I will be watching from the ANA bourse floor.

It will be interesting to see what kind of crowd will form at the Mint booth when these sets are due to go on sale.

I recall the 50th anniversary gold Kennedy half dollar that went on sale specially at the 2014 ANA convention in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont.

This year’s set offer should not be that disruptive. Maximum mintage number is a far larger 225,000. Also, I am not yet aware that there will be any kind of a special grading service label for the set that would forever mark it as a product of the Denver convention.

But that is in the future as I write this column.

Look elsewhere on our website to see how the tale unfolds. What the headlines might read, I also cannot say, as that decision will be made while I am away.

Suffice it to say that coin conventions are absolutely essential to our business, but they also are disruptive of routine. I hope you are one of the disrupters and will be on the floor of the bourse as I will be. Then we can compare notes.

The autumn collecting season is just around the corner. Labor Day will soon be upon us. After we have experience that summertime tradition of gatherings and backyard barbecues, we will seriously get on with life in numismatics.

I hate to see the summer end from the perspective of Wisconsin weather, but I love the excitement of this time of year for coin collecting.

More Collecting Resources

• The 1800s were a time of change for many, including in coin production. See how coin designs grew during the time period in the Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1801-1900 .

• Purchase your copy of The Essential Guide to Investing in Precious Metals today to get started on making all the right investing decisions.