Road Report

April 23rd: Day 2

Thursday here in Schaumburg started off waaaaay better than expected in two ways:

First, based on a loooong story with which I will not bore the reader, Team CRO packed up and was ready to check out of the show hotel in the AM as I was never able to get a room here for Thursday. Seriously, the Renaissance was 100% booked for that night with the exception of something called the Golden Aster Suite priced at $1700. No thanks. And this despite me checking nearly every day for weeks in advance hoping for a regular room to become available and never having any luck. So we get to the front desk, go through the “How was your stay?” formalities when MaryAnn says “Hey, you don’t have any rooms for tonight, do you?”. To which the answer was (to my great surprise) yes, no problem, allowing us to go straight back to our previous room, dump our bags again and begin the day without any extra schlepping whatsoever.

Second, we walked down to the show rejuvenated to discover a customer waiting for us at our table, who saw a coin he liked yesterday, apparently thought about it all night and returned to buy it first thing. Allowing us to write our first invoice within about 30 seconds of arriving.

So our day certainly began on a high note which can, in our experience, indicate good things to follow.

Spoiler alert: It totally did, as the show was crowded and active pretty much all day, we sold coins in all categories, new and old, from the cool and not-that-expensive to the downright highfalutin.

In and around which your author scoured the bourse floor finding some cool coins scattered about, and snapping up a couple more interesting ones that walked up to the table, but honestly not as many as I’d hoped as our show NEWPs stack is just 23 coins tall at the time of this writing. Of course there are still a couple of days to go, so that number is very likely to grow as it usually does.

With our last deal of the day on Thursday the sale of a fancy colonial coin which we traded for gold bullion, then sold the gold straight away. So keep in mind that trading gold (or most any kinds of coins) for items in our inventory is always an option if you are so inclined.

After which it was time to pack up and zip off to Park Ridge, IL for dinner with our relatives before getting back here pretty late, catching the tail end of the NFL draft coverage and then peacefully falling asleep here at the show hotel and not at the Embassy Suites up the road per our lousy original plan.

Meaning that we do not have to drag our bags back here in the morning, so we should again be well-rested and ready for action on Friday. So we can then blog about everything that happens right here in this space in just 24 hours from now.

EOM

April 22nd: Day 1

As I was writing yesterday’s prologue I could not have known that just 10 minutes later I would feel the same sense of dread I had experienced while leaving the June 2016 Long Beach show. Readers may remember that as the famous “Super Steve” episode where I left my phone in the cab on the way to LBO, panicked, borrowed the JetBlue phone to call the driver and somewhat miraculously got it back in time to make my flight.

This time I was sitting comfortably on my flight during boarding when I suddenly realized I again did not have my phone, panicked, blasted like a salmon going upstream through the queue of people still trying to get on and eventually found said phone at the ticket counter where some anonymous Good Samaritan had left it.

Which was of course a significant relief, and IMO a sign that this was going to be an excellent show here in Schaumburg.

Where we arrived at about 7:30 AM, checked into our room, headed down to breakfast and then made our way straight to the show for the 9 AM start of PNG Day. Kind of an early set up period during which we could do some business with dealers and serious collector attendees.

And while we thought there would be plenty of activity, we did not expect the epic onslaught which started right away and continued on until the late afternoon. During which we sold a veritable ton of coins to collectors and dealers alike, from a few hundred dollars to the mid 5-figures, US and world, soup to nuts, including coins which had been on the site for a while, and new items unleashed here. With several more big ones still “in play”.

We also managed to buy a bunch of cool coins from dealers around the room, and from collectors at the table, hand in a bunch of grading and generally be super productive from start to finish.

So by 6 PM we were wiped out from the non-stop activity, and from the fact that we had woken up at 2:40 AM to catch that first flight from Boston to get here. Wow, that’s a long day.

Leaving us just enough energy to make it to dinner with some collector and dealer friends before getting back to the hotel and immediately collapsing in a heap.

The good news is we will be better rested on Thursday and ready for John Q. Public who we expect to arrive in force here at 10 AM.

With whatever happens to be described here in just about 24 hours from now.

Prologue:

Greetings numismatist and welcome to our first RR from the 2026 CSNS show being penned from my gate at beautiful Logan Airport in Boston, MA.

And this is a great time to be here, especially if you like hoards of screaming teenagers, since it is of course school vacation week in Massachusetts. Meaning that every ticket counter, security line, restaurant, kiosk, bathroom and water fountain is utterly jam-packed with poorly chaperoned school kids heading somewhere in matching T-shirts.

Apparently not to Chicago, though, since it is extremely calm here at our gate and thus suitable for writing a blog in which I will say that we are extremely excited for this show at one of our favorite venues on the circuit.

Starting today with PNG Day where CRO will be at our usual table #703 buying, selling, trading, grading and of course schmoozing like crazy, all day.

So if you are in the area we hope you’ll stop by see and us. But if you can’t make it, you can still follow along with all of the action as described right here each and every morning of the show.