The pair of us are just travelling back home (yes, typing and flying!) after having attended the ANDA Coin and Banknote Show in Brisbane (which we talked about here) on May 22 to 24 2009. The ANDA shows happen several times each year in various major cities around Australia and act as a major drawcard to collectors and coin dealers alike. This years show in Brisbane was held a short distance from the CBD of Brisbane in a building in the RNA Showgrounds. Getting from the CBD to the show was a 10 minute bus trip, which sounds simple enough other than the fact that the showgrounds are not sign-posted at all and we missed our stop on the first day. Still we had a lovely tour of the north western suburbs of Brisbane and met some friendly bus drivers who took us where we needed to go!
We (finally) arrived at the show just before the midday opening on Friday, there was a queue of perhaps 100 people waiting to get in. A representative of VP Coins (from Mount Gravatt in Brisbane) was handing out bags containing a discount voucher and promotional material for coin clubs to the people waiting in line, a smart move on their behalf. We were pleasantly surprised when we got in by the number of dealers that were present, with perhaps 20-25 individual sellers having tables. There were coin dealers, banknote dealers, stamp dealers, Renniks (coin collecting supplies), and one dealer who had made the trip over from New Zealand. There were a couple of coin and stamp club displays with show attendees voting on the best displays presented by the respective club members. We dont collect stamps so we didn't end up looking at the stamp club displays, shame on us. The coin club displays were very interesting, the highlights of the displays for us were a display showing the evolution of the dollar in Australian currency and another showing various different types of trade dollars which we've written about previously.
As usual ANDA had some promotional activities organised, these included lucky door prizes of $50 drawn each hour, the ANDA 'overprint' 2009 Australian mint set, and a Perth Mint 2009 Kookaburra coin. ANDA had to go the 'extra yard' at this show because of the non-attendance of the Royal Australian Mint at the show. The portable press that the RAM drags along with them to a lot of shows to produce the 'mint mark' show dollars is a huge drawcard and not having it at the show can only have had a bad effect on the attendance. A quick note on the 'overprint' mint set, each entrant was only allowed to buy two of these sets that were prepared by the Royal Australian Mint. The 'overprint' was just a sticker on the slipcover, which was disappointing to say the least. We learned later in the show that the ANDA organisers were also not happy with the RAM doing this instead of overprinting the mint set covers properly. Amenities at the show were fine, with the cafeteria open most of the time the show was running, the food served up was fine just as long as you liked your fare deep fried. Prices were reasonable too, something we found with most of the food we bought in Brisbane.
Enough of non coin related matters, let's get onto the coins. Our plan for day one of the show was to look through selected dealers stock as closely as possible, and on the second day to have a more casual browse around and catch up with various people at the show who we knew or wanted to meet. We lasted nearly 5 hours at the show on day 1 sitting down looking through folders and books full of coins and pestering dealers to take their 'show piece' coins out of glass cabinets so we could examine them more closely. There were some dealers who made this process very easy and others who handed out coins one at a time from the cases. It makes it very difficult to view one coin at a time from a cabinet, it was just so much easier when dealers had books or trays they could remove easily for our perusal. Our compliments should go to dealers Steele Waterman, Mostly Small Change, International Numismatics, VP Coins, and a couple of others who we've forgotten for making their stock easy to view and for being both friendly and polite to show attendees. We understand security can be an issue but with ANDA hired security guards roaming the aisles and doorways you'd be stupid to try anything dodgy. There was a sign upon entry that stated that ANDA had the right to refuse anyone entry or eject anyone at their discretion.
In part 2 of this coin show report we'll cover the quality and types of material available at the show and talk about some of the people we spoke to while we where there.
Posted by mnemtsas at May 24, 2009 5:25 PM
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