PAN Fall Coin Show a Covid-19 Compliant Success!
by Patrick McBride, PAN eNews editor

The PAN Fall Coin Show was successfully held on October 29th - 31st 2020 at the MonroevilleConvention Center, near Pittsburgh, PA, with Covid-19 guidance and rules in place. The PAN Boardcame up with a detailed Covid-19 Protocol that was proposed to both the convention center and theAllegheny County Health Department in the weeks leading up to the show. PAN's Covid-19 Protocoloutlined in detail the components needed to keep people safe while hosting a larger regional coin show.Both the health department and the convention center approved the PAN Covid-19 Protocol and ourshow moved forward!

The first hurdle was to assure that event attendance would remain under the allowed capacityrestrictions of the convention floor space. We were able to book the much larger North Hall area of theconvention center that easily allowed us to fall under the 1,500 persons per day restriction. Our normal(pre-Covid) attendance is about 350 persons per day and 150 dealers and helpers on the show floor.This larger space allowed us to place dealer booths with three foot spacing between each booth with tenfeet aisles. Since coin shows typically only have one or two dealers behind a single eight-foot table, thisaction reasonably assured that each dealer would be at least six feet from his or her neighbors. Dealerswere cognizant to not move close to their neighbors if they went from side to side to service theircustomers.

PAN required daily Covid-19 registration forms to be filled out by all attendees, dealers, early birds,staff, convention workers, and security personal. A registered nurse administered temperature checkswith the parameters of 100 degrees or less before admittance was granted. The forms included basicquestions about general health and known exposures to anyone that has had Covid-19. They alsoincluded a liability wavier protecting staff, PAN and the Monroeville Convention Center. The formswere signed and dated. Different colored forms were used each day and each person was given a samecolored small round sticker to place on their hello registration labels that they wore while on the showfloor. This practice gave assurances that the person was properly screened and would allow attendeesand dealers to re-enter the convention center without being rescreened. Since the participating dealerswere in attendance all days, we had a specific color for a one time only dealer specific Covid-19Registration form but they had to verbally answer the health questions and be temperature checked eachmorning by our nurse. They would be given the same round colored stickers as the public to place eachday on their dealer badges. This made for great ease and speed in the early mornings for them to get totheir tables to prepare for the day.

The Covid-19 forms were surprisingly met with little resistance. No dealers refused to comply. Wemade sure to inform them before they traveled to the PAN show. Only one attendee was notcomfortable with the form and chose not to enter. We expected show attendance to fall to about a sixtypercent range of normal. We were very surprised to see a long line of public waiting to enter onThursday, day one. This set the tone for the weekend. The public responded enthusiastically with ourfinal attendance figures coming in at almost the same number as our fall 2019 show before anyone knewabout the Covid-19 virus. The final numbers were dealers and helpers 149, early birds 27, publicattendees Thursday 335, Friday 396, and Saturday 307.

Everyone adhered to the required wearing of facemasks. We found that most people did wear theirmasks in the proper fashion with them covering both their mouths and noses. We also were pleasedwith the number of dealers that policed each other about the proper wearing of their masks. We are nowwell past the standard fourteen-day window and can report that we have had no notifications of adversemedical incidents related to our event! This has been a major concern of our PAN board members. Weactually had two members that were slated to play a very active role during the show and had to cancelat the last minute over concerns of a possible covid exposure. We were thankful to find out that theyboth checked out negative and made it unscathed through their quarantine periods.

This show was very difficult to organize. We were not sure if the convention center would be allowedto open until a couple of weeks prior to our event. This put our normal show advertising at adisadvantage especially with the print media that requires a significant lead-time. Our focus shifted toour 4,000-person mailing list, our 1,300-email list, and social media postings. It was quite impressivegiven these handicaps that we were able to pull it off.

Some other pleasant surprises were being able to have a few quickly organized lectures on Friday andSaturday with John Frost of the Liberty Seated Collectors Club and the Barber Coin Collectors' Societypresenting talks including a very interesting one about the back story of the rarity of the 1894-S BarberDime. Simcha Kuritzky of the Maryland State Numismatic Association presented a talk on PolymerNotes. It was noteworthy that the attendance was about the same as our pre-covid talks. All chairs werespaced at six feet apart.

PAN was able to have a collector exhibit area managed by Exhibit Chairman Tom Corey. Even withless than normal participation, we still were able to have a respectable showing with ten very fineexhibits. Because of the limited participation, the exhibits were deemed as non-competitive and werenot judged by categories under normal ANA judging guidelines. It was decided to award recognition toa "Judges Favorite" category that was unofficially created to at least have some fun for the exhibitorsand the eight ANA certified judges that were attending the show. The ANA judging guidelines wereset-aside for this unprecedented time. The judges chose Bryce Doxzon's interesting exhibit titled"They Also Ran - Select Nineteenth Century Political Medals of Defeated Presidential Candidates."Bryce's exhibit has appeared nationally at various shows and is a definite eye catcher.

Robert O. Stakeley, History Center Affiliates Program Coordinator from the Senator John Heinz HistoryCenter Pittsburgh, PA presented a limited PANKidZone program. KidZone Chairman MalcolmJohnson prepared packets that included a penny folder, two rolls of wheat cents, various other coins,PAN Auction Dollars. Attendance was about one third of normal that can be due to Covid orHalloween falling on the same Saturday. The good news for the kids that were in attendance is that theyreally got some good bargains during the kid's auction since the competition was not there.

William Bierly author of his recent Whitman Publishing book release, "In God We Trust" was anotherpleasant surprise at the PAN show. Bill had signed copies for sale at the collector exhibit area. Copiesof this fine work on our national motto can be purchased on the Whitman website:https://whitman.com/in-god-we-trust/

We also had yours truly appearing as Benjamin Franklin in plague compliance with his "Join or Die"mask as part of his costumed regalia. I was not sure that reenacting would be suited to a restricted showbut I was encouraged to come in character on Friday and Saturday. Even masked, old Ben was verypopular and folks were glad to see the good Doctor roam the show floor. It added a fun and lightheartedfeel to the days. Goodness knows we all could use some fun while dealing with these days of livingthrough a worldwide pandemic.

We would like to extend a special thank you to our PAN nurse, Dawn McBride for creating the Covid-19 forms and volunteering her time for all four days of the show. Her nursing oath to keep us allhealthy and safe cannot be understated since many of our dealers and attendees fall into the high-riskcategory. We are grateful to have such a compassionate person in our midst. Dawn recently retiredfrom the University of Pittsburgh where she was serving as the Director of Clinical Research in adepartment that specializes in urological cancers. Dawn spent the last 25 years of her nursing career inresearch, including 13 years in Infectious Diseases that focused on vaccine research, specifically in theHIV/AIDS community. We also want to thank her helper through the entire weekend Zavier Layne forgetting people through the line quickly and efficiently. Zavier was a huge asset to the registrationprocess with his friendly and polite manner.

The final day of the show fell on Halloween so we made this special badge for Dawn. Being the goodsport, she wore it all day Saturday and made sure that everyone followed her rules.

Inquiries are welcome at pancoins@gmail.com

For more information on PAN, see:
https://pancoins.org/