FLORIDA UNITED NUMISMATISTS SHOW, JULY 6-8, 2021

My wife, Phung, and I just returned from the July 6, 7 & 8, 2021 Florida United Numismatist (FUN) Show in Orlando, Florida. We always staff the International Bank Note Society (IBNS) club table with some IBNS Journals and membership applications for the summer and winter shows. Along with IBNS, we also have some Numismatics International bulletins, pinbacks and elongated Hungarian coins to hand out. Everything we brought to the show was handed out to the show's visitors and we hope we convinced some collectors to join one or both societies.

It was an excellent surprise to learn several American Numismatic Association (ANA) members were working on a donation of Gene Hynds' numismatic library by his wife Pat to the Indian River State College Library in Fort Pierce, Florida. The college is remodeling its library so there will be some delay before the donation will be completed. I heard it was going to concentrate on numismatics of North, Central and South America and they want to make it a branch of the ANA Library! I live just south of Fort Pierce and will be assisting in any way I can in getting the library established and loaning out the books. I will also find some references to donate to it. Contact Bob Mellor, our local ANA District Rep atRM3coins@gmail.com for more information.

I also learned that David Sklow is no longer the ANA Librarian and Doug Mudd has taken over his duties along with being the ANA Curator! What happened to David? I hope he is OK.

Wayne Herndon of Wizard Coin Supply had his usual very large display of numismatic books and supplies and I could barely squeeze into it because of so many customers. Wayne is an old friend from northern Virginia and attendee of the monthly Nummis Nova Dinners organized by Wayne Homren. I very much miss my numismatic friends from northern Virginia!

Across the aisle from us was Low Country Coins from South Carolina with several people working in the booth. One of them was recruiting numismatists and dealers (175 already signed up!) to attend the 49th South Carolina Numismatic Association Convention at the Greenville Convention Center on October 29-31, 2021. The man convinced Phung to attend the convention and see the beautiful countryside so I will be giving a talk to some Young Numismatists while we are there. You can get more information by sending an email to LowCountryCoins1@BellSouth.net.

Phung and I have new neighbors from New York City in our Port Saint Lucie community. The wife is Polish and the husband is Hungarian. I decided to give them a piece of paper money from each country and try to get them interested in numismatics. I was at Larry Hirsch's and his wife's table with tons of world paper money on the last day of the show and about an hour before we departed. I quickly pulled two notes from his inventory and told him what I was doing with them. He would not take my money.Good man!

The next FUN Show is January 6-9, 2022 at the Orange County Convention Center. This time it will not be in the older building between Rosen Centre and Rosen Plaza hotels but in the newer building across International Drive from the Rosen Centre. The January shows easily have over 1000 dealers from the USA and all over the world. It is THE show for us, and we will be very busy at the IBNS and NI club table!

For more information on FUN, see:
http://www.funtopics.com/