September 24-27, 2025: The Great American Show in Rosemont, IL

Prologue:

Excitedly, I have decided to pen a pre-show report here at my airport gate as we prepare to zip to Chicago to a venue we have been to countless times, though on this occasion it will be for an event that has never been held here before. And what can we expect at this show? Honestly I’m not sure, but that won’t stop me from making a bunch of predictions:

Based on the incredible amount of activity we’ve seen over the last few months, I think this will be a barn burner (in a good way) with XL sales.
I’d bet on at least one dinner at Gibsons during which we will be seated at a table in a doorway in a jam packed room wondering how this place has ever managed to pass a fire inspection.
On the dealer side, I think pretty much everyone who is anyone in the coin business will be here this week.
I expect excellent collector attendance, including a lot of the people who did not venture to OKC, but also plenty of people who visited that one too.
There will be at least two people who carefully consider a coin in our case, think about it for a few hours, decide to proceed and return to the table just as someone else is already buying it.
I’m thinking there will be (almost) non-stop buying opportunities, either of the outright purchase variety, or via some kind of mega-trade since we have been doing that a lot lately.

Will I be right?

Visit this spot each and every morning of the show for a detailed recap, celebratory bow-taking for my excellent prognostications and/or acknowledgement that I was completely wrooooong about (almost) everything.

Starting tomorrow.

September 24th: Day 1

After some kind of annoying airline IT-related delay leaving Boston, we eventually made it to Chicago, rocketed through baggage claim, exploded into a cab and rolled into our show hotel at about 11 AM on Wednesday.

Where we were once again delighted to find that our room was ready, so we dumped everything there, ate a mediocre lunch in the lobby restaurant, scooted over to the convention center, got our badges real fast and then headed straight for the dealer wholesale room(s).

And they were packed and active when we got there, with business being done all over the place. So we joined right in, buying 4 fantastic early type coins within the first 15 minutes. Then another cool gold coin, and half interest in two other fancy type coins.

Then it was time to head upstairs and review a cool collection we recently acquired with some dealer friends as we planned strategy and sorted out next steps.

After which I took a look at some auction lots before joining the looooong queue assembled in front of the bourse room door waiting for the start of the actual show at 3 PM.

Then headed straight to table 918, got everything mostly set up within 15 minutes, had a long, drawn out battle with an electric cable, and an uncooperative lamp clamp, but finally got it all to work well enough to actually do business. Yay!

Which would consist of selling a bunch of coins immediately, buying some surprisingly cool ones that walked up to the table randomly and generally keeping extremely busy until about 6:30.

At which time we packed up, headed back to the hotel and then over to Gibsons for dinner with some dealer friends in a room that was as jam-packed as I predicted, but still excellent. Even more so when a dealer friend at the next table unbelievably graciously paid our check.

Ending what had by then been a super active, extremely productive, totally exhausting, 19 hour day in style.

So of course we will be sufficiently rested and totally ready to do it all again on Thursday, and then write about everything that happens right here in this space in just about 24 hours from now.

EOM

September 25th: Day 2

Even though your author may have had too much to drink on Wednesday night, I still managed to get up before 5 AM on Thursday, hammer out yesterday’s RR, work on a giant spreadsheet for the new collection mentioned yesterday, go to the hotel gym and then grab breakfast on the fly as we made our way over to the show.

Where we hit the ground running, making some deluxe sales right off the bat to two dealers who were looking at some early type coins late yesterday.

Which seemed like a good omen for the day, and proved to be so, as we had an extremely busy day at the table featuring a long procession of collector and dealer visitors who almost all bought something, or several somethings.

And I can’t say it was focused on any particular area, as we sold coins ranging from ~$400 to the low/mid 6 figures, World and US, from all eras, and grades, which of course is terrific as it indicates widespread demand in an extreeeeemely active market.

In and around which we still had time to work feverishly on the collection, sorting coins for grading and CAC and then submitting nearly all of them here in carefully arranged, time consuming groups.

Somewhere in there we also managed to buy a bunch of coins, including some old holdered Large Cents, cool Capped Bust Halves and assorted US type which I personally think will look amazing on an upcoming EB.

And then received excellent news from a customer about a missing package shipped out earlier this week that magically re-appeared in good order, which was a tremendous relief for all involved, including our insurance company.

So we were in an extra good mood as the day wound down with some late sales, and a very cool new purchase at about 6 PM before we packed up and headed to dinner with some dealer friends at the ridiculous-sounding but actually quite good Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse, about which I would make two comments:

I personally would NOT have put orange juice in an Italian Margarita as they do here.
We had to consult an illustrated online pasta chart while ordering since they have a bunch listed on the menu that I had never heard of before and was frankly convinced were made up. Spoiler alert: They were not.

After which we got back to the hotel late, updated the website for sold coins and then checked the status of various auction lots we are either selling or trying to buy in multiple venues all over the world.

And if all that sounds like a productive day it is because it was at what has so far been a terrific show. So of course we’ll look forward to doing it all again on Friday since I do not think we are nearly done here. With whatever happens to be described right here on Saturday AM.

Until then, then.

September 26th: Day 3

Interesting Things that Happened on Friday

I showed a coin to a collector at the table who carefully perused it, pushed it to the side in an ambiguous gesture indicating that he either liked it or hated it, said absolutely nothing and got up and left. Predictably, or shockingly (I’m not sure which), he returned later and became increasingly agitated as he peered in the case and realized it was no longer there, having been sold to another collector about an hour earlier.

We bought an extremely cool coin here on Wednesday, put it in the case just to have some fresh new material, sold it Friday afternoon and thus missed the opportunity to photograph and list it. And believe may when I tell you it would have photographed epically.

Bought a fantastic, original, nicely toned über-gem Capped Bust Dime, the first we have had in, well, ever.

Got back nearly all of our show grading at the very end of the day with results that could be described kindly as ‘mixed’. We’ll take a deep dive into those on Saturday, see how we feel after a good night’s sleep, and then evaluate what the next steps might be for each.

I eschewed the convention center snackbar lunch options which consisted only of some sort of giant hotdog, or a slab of cake-like pizza. About which I have two comments:

The national movement of healthier convention center food offerings seems to have stalled before reaching Rosemont
If I am going to eat junk, I long for the days when this very same convention center served the world’s most delicious Sloppy Joe as specifically referenced in our 2015 ANA show report, but sadly never seen since.

As happens at a lot of shows, multiple other dealers came by during the day to ask my opinion about a coin we had in the case, a coin they had in their case, something I bought in an auction, something I bought on the floor that they had earlier passed on, what I thought something would grade, etc., etc. I have two comments about this as well:

I am happy to share information to an extent with like-minded dealers with whom we have had a good relationship buying and selling
My views are based on our business and ~25 years of learning what works for us, but there are plenty of other ways to go about it, and I’m sure some things that work for us are not going to work for others, and vice versa

Collector D.C. texted to ask what I meant when I said we “exploded into a cab” in our September 25^th RR. Since I felt like this was an important question of widespread interest, I’ll respond here by saying that as far as I know no one actually exploded, I simply use this sort of kinetic language to help convey the incredible dynamism of the coin circuit.

Late in the afternoon we were offered the opportunity to move to a booth right near the door that had been vacated by an early-leaving dealer. That probably would have been a good idea, but we just did not want to go through the hassle of unplugging everything, schlepping everything across the room, and replugging. Not to mention having to enlist the services of a freakishly tall person to remove and re-install the CRO banner.

Our last sale of the day was a $5 Indian gold coin that we bought last week, while our last purchase was a raw (!), high end Nova Constellatio Copper.

For dinner we went out to see relatives in Evanston, which was an absolute hoot, a welcome respite from Gibsons et al, but not so easy in Chicago’s famous rush hour traffic. But we made it there, and back, and will of course be ready for one more day on the bourse floor here on Saturday during which we’ll clean up all loose ends, buy and sell whatever can be bought or sold, and then blog all about all of it from the comfort of home on Sunday.

Finito

September 27th: The Airport Report

Since we’ll be getting home late tonight, and then have another show in the AM in Devens, MA, we are blessed with the opportunity to hammer out the last installment of our Great American Show blog here at lovely O’Hare airport. And it is of course a great spot for it, since they offer not just a variety of flights, but also huge crowds of people who have apparently never gone through TSA security screening before, plenty of sticky tables in the food court, non-stop children screaming from all directions, some kind of incessant beeping sound(s), and our airport gate which has now been changed 4 times in the 1 hour and 12 minutes we have been here. Seriously. So instead of moving each time, we’re just going to wait it out and see if it eventually moves back to where I am currently typing.

The good news (and believe me, there is some) is that the show was really excellent, with fine attendance, robust sales, good buying, and a general upbeat vibe which represents a continuation of the extra-strong market we have been experiencing for a while now. Including even on Saturday, when we made some late sales and finished up by buying a couple of cool, raw world coins from a collector.

Also good: My predictions, since I pretty much nailed 5.5 of them (missing only that last half point by predicting that two customers would come back to buy a coin after it was already sold, when only one did).

So of course we (and everyone else we talked to) already signed up for next year’s event to be held in the same building at the end of September / early October 2026. Which might mean that your author’s continuous 20-year whining about the need for another large fall show has finally been heeded. You’re welcome.

But before that we’ll be at the Devens show, where we’ll be doing as much business as possible on Sunday AM, delivering some fine numismatic items to various collectors, doing some CAC consulting and then blogging all about that show on Monday AM.

And yes, I am exhausted just thinking about that.