Another ANDA coin fair has passed by and with it another round of show product from the Royal Australian Mint. Of particular interest to us is the A Counterstamp Shilling Ram $1 where visitors could strike their own A counterstamp onto the one dollar coin. We saw many young show visitors grinning from ear to ear as they struck their own coin. 800 mobile press coins were handstruck by their new owners each day of the 2 day show held in the Adelaide Festival Centre in the heart of the city. The remaining of the 5,000 show mintage were counterstamped beforehand and distributed throughout the show.
A very quiet show and one not often held in the City of Churches we think it was tough getting South Australian's out of bed on a Sunday. The show opened at 10am both show days (the shops don't open usually until 11am on a Sunday) and concluded at 6pm and 5pm respectively.By the 10am opening on Saturday a reasonable queue had formed with a treasured Goldseeker near the front. Our own mate Peter had nipped in first and beat Goldy to the post for the first counterstamp of the day. Almost all of the queue from the front door joined the portable press queue. It seemed that's what the collectors wanted. The Royal Australian Mint also had a second show product with the fifth in the Capital Bridges 1 ounce silver series.
There were fewer dealers than usual at this show. Present were the show organisers VP Coins and Sterling and Currency run by the ANDA president. Among others were Canberra Numisco, Salamanca Rare Coins, Rare Coin Co, Universal Coin Co, Watermans' Coins from Melbourne and local sporting memorabilia enthusiast Gerry from At the Toss of a Coin who has a shop just down the road at Unley. The Perth Mint was absent from this particular show.
After just a few hours into the show the crushing need for a counterstamp dollar had subsided and activity wound down. We were lucky enough to be helping out at the At the Toss of a Coin table so we got to mingle and chat to collectors and also browse dealers books as well.
The entry queue was big on Sunday - Hi Eric! Yes, the queue numbered just one lonely person and people wandered slowly through the door in dribs and drabs in what was a very uneventful Sunday. The lovely Helen at the Royal Australian Mint stand and Guy, the portable press guy were happy to have a chat and share Mint mints with us whilst we browsed the new and exciting coin issues. We gathered from buyers in general that there was a keenness for decimal mint product and not so much for pre-decimal, world coins or even slabbed coins.
The show drew to a close and a tired blog crew went home.
Posted by harrisk at October 16, 2011 10:09 PM
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