Resentment over the early departure of bourse dealers reached a peak in Atlanta, when outspoken incoming president Criswell and his then-ally John J. Pittman walked the bourse floor withclipboards, jotting down the names of offending dealers. Soon after the show closed, the two raised the early departure issue before the new board and engineered the denial of tables at the 1978Houston convention to five offending firms.

These included Stack's of New York; Bowers & Ruddy of Los Angeles; Rarcoa of Chicago; Paramount International of Englewood, Ohio; and Superior Stamp and Coin, also of Los Angeles. These alsohappened to be the leading numismatic firms in the entire U.S. Despite a gleeful "we showed 'em" attitude among ANA board members, the absence of these major dealers would notably impact the Houstonconvention's bottom line.

But more than that, the action against these dealers had the wholly unexpected consequence of bringing them together for the first time in numismatic history to collaborate in staging an annualseries of auctions that became known as the Apostrophe Sales based on their names: Auction '79 through Auction '90. These cooperative sales gave forthright competition to the official ANA conventionauctions and were bitterly opposed by such ANA leaders as John J. Pittman.

Establishing cooperation among competing dealers was no easy task, though ground rules were relatively simple. Free of the staggering or extortionate fees demanded by the ANA for the conventionsale, each firm would place 500 high-quality lots in their section of each Apostrophe sale. Each would catalog its section in its own customary style and provide color and black-and-whitephotography. All catalogs would be produced by a single printer and would be distributed in hard cover or paperback format.

To read the complete article, see:
Coin Market In-Depth: Remembering the Apostrophe Sales: 1978-1990(http://www.coinweek.com/us-coins/coin-market-in-depth-remembering-the-apostrophe-sales-1978-1990/)