On Saturday the 6th of July 2013 we arrived at the venue for the 2013 ANDA Coin and Banknote Show in Melbourne after a short train ride from the Flinders Street station in the city to the Caulfield station. The show was held in the members enclosure at the Caulfield Racecourse as it has been for the last few years. The show this year was a little different because both of the major Australian mints, the Royal Australian Mint and the Perth Mint decided not to attend the show. As a consequence the queue at opening time was a little....small. See the image below for photographic evidence.
The Long Queue at Opening Time (NOT!)
As usual the door was attended by smiling members of the Numismatic Association of Victoria along with members of the Melbourne Numismatic Society and the Morwell Numismatic Society. Various members of these numismatic societies had an interesting set of displays in glass cases at one end of the room. The rest of the room (actually half the room) was taken up by the attending coin, banknote, and stamp dealers. Attendance at the show by dealers was quite poor and some of the dealers who did attend didn't bring as much material as we've seen them bring in the past. We believe there are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, with the RAM and Perth Mint not at the show it was expected that attendance by the general public would be poor. Secondly, there's going to be another coin show in Melbourne in October (the Melbourne International Coin and Banknote Show) and perhaps dealers are planning on attending that in preference to this regular Melbourne ANDA show.
Kudos to the dealers that did attend. We saw the usual suspects, among these being Steele Waterman Coins, JPW Coins, Sterling & Currency, Prospect Stamps and Coins, Salamanca Rare Coins, Monetarium Adelaide, International Auction Galleries, Peter Strich, VP Coins, and Klaus Ford. John Eccles from Wellington, New Zealand made the trip across the pond as he usually does at this time of the year. Dealers we're not used to seeing attend shows included Pacific Rim Coins and Classy Collectables. There were a couple of dedicated banknote dealers in attendance (Trevor Wilkin and Tony James) and one stamp dealer (MPN Stamps). As usual the quality of material on display was excellent and we came away with several interesting purchases. Of note was the pile of inexpensive PCGS graded coins being sold by Chris Buesnell of Pacific Rim Coins. These were a great way of dipping your toe in the TPG coin market, with coins available at $28 each or 4 for $100. This is well below the current cost of getting a coin graded so there were bargains to be had.
Some of the Dealers in Attendance
Despite the RAM and Perth Mint not having stands the number of people attending the show was pretty good from about 10.30AM through to 3PM or so. During this time it was a struggle to find folders of coins to look through and especially hard to find (and keep) a spot to sit at a dealer's table. We spoke to some dealers later in the afternoon and they reported a reasonable day of trade on both the buying and selling side of things. If you did attend the show you would have found a small canteen in operation where drinks, coffee, tea, and a light lunch was available. We partook of the coffee, a hot pie, and a sandwich and the quality of each far surpassed the rather dismal dinner we'd had in Melbourne's Chinatown the night before we attended the show.
We'd like to thank several people who were extremely hospitable during our trip to the ANDA show in Melbourne this year. Firstly, Darren, the president of the Numismatic Association of Victoria who looked after our suitcase during the show and made us feel very welcome the whole day. Secondly, our good friend Peter, who always makes our trips to Melbourne a pleasure (sorry for the bad Chinese on Friday night mate). And finally thanks to all the dealers who gave us time to talk to them, allowed us to go through their coin albums with a fine toothed comb and let us to what we enjoy most about the great hobby of coin collecting!
Posted by mnemtsas at July 7, 2013 12:01 PM
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