January 7-10, 2026: The FUN Show
Prologue:
Good morning coin collector, coin dealer, coin grader, coin stickerer, coin show administrator, travel agent, banner maker, auctioneer, IT consultant, accountant, coin book publisher and Brian at the post office and welcome to your 2026 Numismatic Year!
Starting at the FUN Show in Orlando from where your author is typing this blog right now. And based on the momentum which has been building for months and months, we think it’s going to be kinda epic.
And why wouldn’t it be? Pretty much everyone who is anyone in the coin business is here this week, the weather looks favorable (i.e. it is not snowing), wholesale activity is cranking (in a good way), there are a gazillion auction lots to view for our own stock and for customers, our show grading has already been been submitted, we have received our credentials (including replacing our badges which I realized I forgot to bring about 7 minutes after we left for the airport), we are loaded to the gills with cool coins and ready to buy as many more as we possibly can.
With whatever happens to be described here in this space just like we always do, starting with this Prologue and continuing all week, including highlights of amazing bourse floor activities, snapshots of wicked cool stuff we buy and/or sell, exciting auction outcomes, and vivid detail about our social interactions which are of course the spackle which holds these events together.
With our Day 1 installment to be posted right here first thing tomorrow AM.
January 7th: Day 1
Team CRO was up a civilized hour on Wednesday, hit the expansive hotel gym, had breakfast in the room and then headed out for the looooong walk from the hotel to the convention center.
Normally this would be via the mile-long elevated skywalk purpose built for convention attendees like us, but on the drive in from the airport we passed the building and I noticed wide swaths of the walkway were missing. As in not there at all. Which immediately had me picturing a numismatist very much like myself not playing close attention, walking along pleasantly and absentmindedly careening off the side, plummeting 40 feet to the ground and thus ruining my entire FUN show before it even began.
Fortunately, your author had noticed this minor issue, and so I took the sidewalk instead and discovered that it was actually easier to do that and, even after this skywalk thing gets repaired, I doubt I’ll use it in future years.
Unscathed, I walked into the convention center and proceeded directly to Heritage lot viewing where I parked myself for the next several hours reviewing lots for customers, and for stock, taking copious notes and then migrating out into the bourse floor ante room and talking coin business with collector and dealer friends until the 2 PM start of dealer set up.
Eventually retrieving our coins from security, joining the massive queue migrating down the stairs, escalators and elevator to the show level and walking straight to our well situated table #612.
Where we found everything totally in order, plugged in our lights, hung the CRO banner, laid out our coins and pronounced ourselves ready to do business at 2:11.
And then proceeded to sell like crazy for the next, oh, 4 and a half hours, including coins we just acquired and put out here for the first time, and others we’ve had for months, to collectors and dealers alike. In all totaling what I think had to have been our largest volume set up day in FUN history, though honestly we don’t actually keep records of that stuff and so I can’t be sure. Felt that way though.
Whenever I had the chance I ducked out to peruse the floor, finding a few cool coins scattered about, some early gold, a neat seated dollar, our requisite old holders and at least one colonial note a person might not have expected to find here.
So by the time the dust settled at 6:30 or so, our collective heads were spinning, we were totally wiped out, and it was time to head out for dinner which meant the long trek back to the hotel (which always seems longer when you’re schlepping multiple catalogs), dropping off everything and then heading to a restaurant we’ve not been to before which one of our dealer friends had announced as a plan this week, i.e. to go to only new places down here and thus get out of our FUN dinner rut.
And I have to say that worked out great, and way cheaper than some, and also ending early enough for us to get back so that your author could summarize my auction lot notes until late in the evening.
Finally turning in at about 1 AM so I could be sufficiently rested to tackle what I am sure will be another extremely busy day on Thursday with many collectors coming to the table to variously pick up pre-arranged coins, check out new ones and offer us cool stuff. Followed by live auctions in the evening being held here like in the olden days.
So of course we are excited to see what happens, and then to describe all of it right here in just about 24 hours from now.
Until then, then –
January 8th: Day 2
The Top 10 Most Interesting Things that Happened on Thursday at FUN
We walked to the show with some dealer friends who showed us an even better route to take through the back side of the hotel, which is of course consistent with our kaizen philosophy of constantly seeking out incremental improvements in the CRO operation.
A collector came to our table #612 just as the bourse opened to the public, quickly scanned the cases and was immediately distraught to discover that the one website coin he came to see was not there, since, it turned out, it had been sold on Wednesday. Causing your author to react as follows:
1. Tell the customer that I wish he had called to tell me of his interest in advance so I could have set it aside, and
2. See if I could get the coin back from the buyer which I thought was a tremendous long shot, but actually ended up working, then selling the coin to the customer in a triangular transaction I would describe as the sort of win-win-win that pretty much never happens, except here on Thursday.
MaryAnn and I split a taco salad for lunch which was the healthiest option we could find on the bourse floor, provided you do not eat the enormous and enormously caloric tortilla bowl it comes in.
I bought two world coins from a U.S. dealer who has never, ever had a single one in their case in the 20+ years I have known them.
We bought a mid 5-figure coin from a collector on the floor, brought it back to the table, put it in the back case and within less than 5 minutes a specialist collector came by and asked if we had anything that might be for him, so I showed him the coin, he looked at it intently, called his friend over and that guy bought it right there on the spot. That might be the fastest transaction I can ever recall from acquisition to settlement, particularly for a coin that was not even on display.
A world dealer explained to us his philosophy that numismatic activity in and of itself creates a positive energy which he finds personally fulfilling, even if that activity is not especially productive or profitable. And since this is the same dealer who once explained his business model using the famous hagfish analogy described in our 2016 Year in Review article, I always listen intently when he talks.
Multiple attendees told us that the queue to enter the show was the longest they had ever seen here, and based on the crowds on the bourse floor all day, I definitely believe them.
We got our first round of grades back early Thursday which was waaaaay faster than I thought possible, so I of course wish I had submitted everything else I brought at the same time. I didn’t because I figured I wouldn’t get them back until the end of the show and I would thus miss any sales opportunities here. Oh well.
At the end of the day it was a mad dash to finalize our auction bids for the live sessions being held in the evening, something we have not had to worry about since before auctions moved to the week after the show.
Your author headed to dinner with some dealer friends at the Hilton during which we discussed a variety of numismatic topics, and I learned that pre-historic camels lived in Florida. Who knew? I did not. Good food too, though it did take them about 30 minutes to make me an Italian Margarita which I think we would all agree is excessive, especially since I provided them with the recipe. True.
And now we look forward to more interesting things happening on Friday, and then blogging about them right here on Saturday AM.
EOM
January 9th: Day 3
Friday at FUN began in what numismatists unanimously agree is the greatest way ever. No, not with free breakfast in the dealer lounge* (though that would be good too), I refer of course to getting a text at 7 AM in your pajamas which says that the expensive coin you offered to a customer yesterday is now confirmed sold.
So with a tremendous hop in our step, we headed back over to the show looking to add to what was already an impressive sales total.
And I am happy to report that we did in what turned out to be very steady fashion, with a nearly non-stop procession of collectors visiting the table during the day, checking out coins, and virtually every one of them buying something, or several somethings. Interestingly, nearly every single customer was new to CRO, though many told us they had been visiting the website for years. So that was terrific.
Also terrific: I was able to buy a number of cool coins on the floor individually, and as part of larger deals, from many different buyers, US and world, from the relatively affordable to the hifalutin, mostly without a hitch. Though there was the one deal where I picked out a cool coin in a dealer’s case, we agreed on a price and as that dealer was holding the coin and writing me an invoice, a random stranger at the table said “Let me see that” and grabbed the coin right out of the dealer’s hand. About which I would offer the following comments:
Don’t do that. Injecting yourself into someone else’s business at a table is of course poor coin show etiquette at best, downright rude at worst, and if you do that in front of someone less congenial than your author you might have your head taken off.
There was no further drama, though, and we cruised to the 6:30 finish in fine form, with further sales and purchases culminating with our last sale of a Liberty Nickel just before we packed up and headed out to dinner at Uncle Julio’s with some collector and dealer friends.
Before returning late and catching the tail end of the IU-Oregon shellacking.
And of course we’ll be back at it again on Saturday, looking to do more business, clean up loose ends, drop off grading and CACing and, we hope, get home at a civilized hour with none of the travel delays which have plagued us at this event through the years.
With whatever happens to be described here on Sunday AM either from home, or possibly some hotel somewhere which I sincerely hope is not the case.
* Editor’s note: There is of course no such thing as the dealer lounge.
January 10th: Day 4
As it was get away day in Orlando on Saturday, we packed up our stuff in the AM, checked out of the hotel and then grabbed an Uber to the show since no one in their right mind wants to haul their luggage a mile down a sidewalk. I know I don’t.
Editor’s note: My aversion to hauling luggage down sidewalks originates from a business trip to Hamburg in 1997 where my flight landed around midnight, I took a cab to the hotel, went to check in and discovered to my horror that I was at the wrong one. But the helpful front desk clerk there insisted I could walk to the correct hotel even if I was unsure of the route as it was “only” 3km away, in an unfamiliar city where I do not speak the language, at 1:30 AM, in total darkness, hauling two large suitcases.
Anyway, when we got to the show we were geared up for a mad dash to turn in coins for grading and CAC before the various companies cut off submission receipts in the AM. Which could have worked in theory, except that there were customers at the table to buy and sell for most of that time which was of course more important. So we worked with them, submitted whatever coins we could here, and will have another chance to submit the rest to the grading services this coming week.
In the meantime, we sold a bunch more coins, including one that had been the most looked at item in our case over the last 2 days, with multiple guys coming by, studying it and then making us an offer. With one particularly persistent customer making us the same offer at least 6 times, which we rejected 6 times telling him what our bottom line was. So he finally came back for round 7, upped his offer, we accepted, and then he suddenly produced a coin he wanted to trade toward it which was simply not a CRO style item, and not what we agreed to. But just when it appeared this deal was dead (extremely so), he switched to part Zelle, part cash and all was right with the world.
After which I raced over to discuss a potential partner coin with another dealer and stumbled into the table of a guy I had never met before, saw some cool world coins and bought ‘em – which became something of a theme on Saturday, since I found a bunch of wonderful world coins around the floor being offered by unlikely and/or previously unknown sources.
In between that I tried to run out for lunch several times, but kept getting derailed, settling instead for 6 grapes. But they were very good grapes.
While running around I also bumped into the tables of dealers I know for the first time this week. That was surprising, but maybe not too much so, since 1) The room is huge, 2) I never had the time to systematically walk up and down each aisle and canvas the entire bourse, and 3) The dealers are always arranged somewhat randomly here.
Speaking of other dealers, I watched with interest the various business models in use at this show, with some guys buying coins at the show and then selling them immediately, while others had coins on display that were not for sale yet and were being previewed for upcoming website sales, and still others who put coins in their case with NFS (not for sale) stickers on them which I never really understood. To each his or her own though. We generally buy coins at shows and then put them in the back case so we can list them on the website, unless we buy something specifically for a customer want list in which case we’ll ship them off when we get home.
In total we managed to buy about 60 coins, medals, tokens and notes here. We probably could have bought more, but we also had to save some money for the US auctions this week and the show and related auctions in NYC.
We gave away a bunch of CRO hats here, but not one to the customer on Saturday who insisted that wearing a hat (not one of ours, thankfully) had caused his hair to fall out. Bummer.
Several dealers at the show mentioned to me on Saturday that this might have been the best coin show ever in terms of attendance and non-stop action. I can’t definitively say that that’s not true, but I do remember plenty of wild events through the years with jam packed aisles, and sales through the roof. One thing is sure though – it was a barn burner from start to finish, including on Saturday. And while we had to leave to get home, I did hear about dealers who delayed their departures from Orlando to stick around for Sunday (yes, the show is open on Sunday) and keep the good times rolling.
We left for the airport in the mid-afternoon with some dealer friends cramming 8 bags into a van that was billed (in both senses of the word) as XXL, but by my estimation was barely XL. We made it work though.
And then were delighted to catch our flight home with no delays, but less delighted to go from 80 degree Orlando to an ice cold rain falling in Boston. It sure is good to be home, though. Even if it’s only briefly, since we’ll now have to unpack, repack, reformulate our inventory and head to the NYINC from where our next RR will be written an astonishingly short two days from now.
But before that, your author is going to enjoy 12 solid hours of R&R. Starting right now.
