by John Butler
Day 1
My vacation was ending, and the tail end of it was spent at my home in Florida. I went to pick up my rental car at the Tampa airport around 10:00 am so I could head off to the FUN show in Orlando. After reviewing several vehicles, I finally found a rental car that smelled like an actual “smoke-free” car. I’ve frequently found that these so-called “smoke-free” cars have a distinct cigarette smell embedded in their seats and ceiling fabrics.
Once through the vehicle check-out process, it came time to drive the ever-adventurous I-4. Today was my lucky day. The only slow area of traffic was while approaching Disney World, which is typical for driving during their business hours. I was just about to turn onto International Drive when I received a phone call from my friend Mike Olsen of Bar Harbor Coin asking if I would like to meet for lunch. He brought a postcard deal down from Maine that he had sold to me. Thanks to his impeccable timing, we were able to meet at Maggiano’s restaurant for a nice lunch.
After lunch, I had time to check into my room at the Rosen Centre Hotel before heading to the convention center to get my show badge. Unfortunately, the Rosen Centre Hotel had other ideas. They wouldn’t let me check into my room until 3:00 pm, so I checked my bags. I found my timing to be impeccable again, as I walked outside, the shuttle bus to the convention center was pulling up. On the bus, I had a great conversation with collector Jeff Kelbie about a series of articles he is willing to write for our website. I let him know that I will put him in touch with Brian Kint so that he can inform him how to proceed.
The approach to the FUN Show Dealer Badge check-in was swarming with coin dealers from all over the world. After many hellos and happy New Year, I finally made it to my proper line based on the company name. While in line I was wondering why this system hasn’t really been improved since my first FUN Show in 1980. The visibly apparent improvements in 2025 that I could come up with that are different from my first show are the fact that there are far more FUN Show workers to check us in plus that if we are sharp enough to remember to bring our badges, we do not need to go through the process of getting a new photo ID badge.
While in line I enjoyed conversations with Max Brand and Warren Reeves, while also introducing them to each other. Max is one of the upcoming future superstars of the coin business who sells a lot of CACG coins. Due to the fact I was smart enough to remember my FUN Show Photo Badge this time I was quickly processed once I arrived at the front of the line. I must admit this smartness can be fleeting as I seem to have several of these badges floating around my office at home.
Once again, I was a beneficiary of great timing as the show was going to be open in 5 minutes. This gave me some time to have a brief conversation with Bonnie Sabel of Sabel Rarities who was going to have some beautiful CACG coins available at the show. Once the doors opened it was time to be part of the human wave of Numismatists who were anxiously excited about the great opportunities that would be found on the bourse floor of the first major show of 2025.
My first instinct once arriving on the bourse floor was to go to our table. I looked around for our signage. However, I did not see any CAC Grading signage along the walls. Now you would think I would take a few moments to figure out what our table number was before arriving, but this wasn’t the case. So, with a 50 percent chance of picking the right side of the room I missed on my first guess. This led me past the tables of John & Sandy Gulde, John Dannreuther, and others, where I had brief conversations. Once arrived at our table I realized why there was no signage. I was the first one from our company to arrive on the bourse floor.
While engaged in a conversation with Ed Wielawski I noticed a dealer swapping out one of our cases with a case he must have been unhappy with. This alarmed me so I proceeded to move all our showcases to the back tables to secure them. I decided to stay at the table to keep an eye on things until some of my co-workers arrived. While sitting at the table waiting, I had several dealers stop by to ask questions about submissions and CAC Boxes. I had a great conversation with Larry Powell AKA “Merc Madness” owner of the greatest Mercury Dime set, almost entirely approved with CAC stickers.
My first co-workers to show up were Keegan Goad and Dana Simon. This allowed me to head out on the bourse floor to engage with our customers. One of the first dealers I sought out was Seth Chandler and Joe Pielago of Witter Coins to get an update on the launch of the Witterbrick that was to be released Friday at the show. After leaving their table I ran into Ernie Cochran of Texarkana Coins who had questions about a submission he had sent to us. Then while walking by Corey Duke’s table I noticed he had some interesting early Large Cents with CAC stickers. I spent a few minutes there listening to Corey about the collection that he had handled recently, where most of the coins had CAC stickers. Then I found that I had unknowingly walked into the World Coins section.
One of the first tables I stopped at in the World Coin section was Boardwalk Numismatics where I had a nice conversation with Justin Meunier, Justin Willette, and Ellery Deprey about World Coin grading. I had previously had Justin sign up to be a CAC dealer last year in anticipation of eventually grading vintage World Coins. He was curious if we had made any progress on that front. While we currently grade some modern World coins, we have not started grading vintage World Coins. I then moved onward to speak with Andrew Schachter who works with Joe Palmieri at Beantown Coins in St Petersburg, Florida. Ironically, he also showed me some World Coins he was wondering if we would grade in the bulk program. Unfortunately, they were too early to qualify for World Modern. As the Beantown booth became busy it was time to move on to other dealers where I had brief conversations with Harry Laibstain, Don Bonser, Wade Spencer, and DLRC’s John Call & Jason Smith.
I ran into Mike Greenwood a dealer from Arizona who is starting a Silver Bar & bullion coin grading service. I got a rundown of how that was progressing. It’s an interesting concept. I will be eager to see if this service catches on with the collecting public. It started to get busy on the bourse floor, so I headed back to our table to see what was happening on the home front. While at the table I got to have a conversation with my former PCGS co-worker Andy Vickery who is a dealer in Alabama now. Mike Fuljenz stopped by our table for a quick chat and to drop off copies of an article he had written about CAC Grading in Coinage magazine.
I had a chance to catch up with Scott Reiter & Abbot Low of California while they were submitting coins for CAC to review. When the day ended, I started to walk back to my hotel, allowing me to walk and talk to Tom Waggoner from Kansas. Tom and I share a passion for vintage postcards. His focus is mainly on the early pre-prohibition breweries. We also share a mutual good friend, Gordon Wrubel, who is one of the founders of PCGS. A little serendipity struck after getting checked into my room, as I ran into Gordon in the lobby. I asked him to join me for dinner at the lounge bar. After finishing dinner and grabbing a bottle of water, it was time to head up to the room for a good night of rest to get ready for a full day at the show on Thursday.
Day 2
Usually, I sleep in too late when attending coin shows, so I do not have time for breakfast. However, I found myself waking up earlier than normal on Thursday, so I stopped by the restaurant before going over to the coin show. I decided to try a larger-than-normal breakfast in hopes of not needing to eat anything at the convention center since most shows are a bit lacking in quality food options. Rosen Centre Hotel only offered a buffet breakfast which helped with my plan. After eating too much for breakfast, I went over to the show.
When I walked into the show, I stopped by several dealers’ tables on the way to our own. Once I got there I sat down and started answering questions from dealers and collectors that stopped by our table. Our table quickly turned very busy, so my time there turned out to be much longer than anticipated. While there, I had collectors Greg Shishmanian aka “Seatedman” and Steve Feiertag “Winesteven” stop by for conversations. Mark Brockhardt from Heritage stopped by to introduce me to a half-cent collector who had an amazing Proof Red Half Cent. Chris Napolitano from California brought over the collector who owns the ultimate premier coin encapsulated by CAC Grading which will be announced later in the week via a press release.
When the action at the table began to ease, I went off to the other side of the bourse floor to see what was happening. I found Kriss Hammond of NumisAddicts available for a quick conversation between customers. Amongst the other dealers I talked to briefly on the busy bourse floor were Matt Kleinsteuber, Liz Coggan, John Dannreuther, Richard Jaffe, and Seth Chandler. I found the bourse floor a little tough to get around because the crowds of collectors were swarming everywhere, so I returned to our table to help there where I could. I would answer numismatic questions or look at collector’s coins if they had questions.
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Day 3
On Friday I slept in a little later than usual, so I skipped breakfast. After getting to the bourse floor, I decided to take advantage of the time before collectors arrived to have some conversations with dealers. Most of the dealers I had talked to said they were having a fantastic show. I stopped by to visit with Greg Allen from St Paul, Minnesota, to view his display of CACG Proof coins from the 1950s-1960s. He was excited because he had sold a large group of our CACG coins at the show on Thursday. I was delighted to hear that he was successful in moving a lot of our products. I was hearing from more dealers at the FUN show how they were buying and selling more of our product. One of our regulars stopped by to let me know he was happy that he was able to find more CACG options on the bourse floor compared to past shows.
Another dealer who specializes in wholesaling coins wanted to talk to me about setting up an account so that he could start trying to crossover coins to our holders since he’s found that he can get more money for some issues in our holders versus leaving them in the holders of other grading services. I had scheduled a meeting for a dealer to stop by and speak to Ron & me about an issue he had with a recent submission. He wanted to resolve this issue before proceeding with submitting coins from the same collection. We worked out a compromise that would satisfy both parties and then had Keegan take down his submissions.
After that, I hung around the table for a few hours because we were very busy handling a steady stream of customers for submissions. I don’t participate in receiving coins since I will be grading them. However, if a customer has a quick question about whether they should submit a coin, I don’t mind answering some of those questions., although the lighting on the FUN Show bourse floor is treacherous. All opinions are qualified by the fact that the lighting is significantly different than what I see in the grading room, so the opinion is not binding in any way. The one problem with giving opinions is sometimes you must tell a customer something they didn’t want to hear or expect to hear. There was one customer who showed me a Saint-Gaudens $20 that I told him was counterfeit, but he insisted it was real. I then told them it wouldn’t really matter in the current market anyway because if it is real it’s still worth less than melt in the grade that the coin would be if it were real.
Another customer made me chuckle after I told him the scratch would likely reduce his chances of getting a sticker at CAC in New Jersey. He said he likes to gamble so he was going to send it anyway. I tried to get back out on the floor but found it frustrating trying to navigate through the crowds so my visits were brief until the crowd began to recede to a level where it was easy to walk again. Witter Coin was holding a meeting for the Witterbrick launch at 3:00 pm, so I made my way to that room to listen to Seth Chandler and Ron Drzewucki, Jr answer questions from the audience. I thought they both handled the excellent questions from the crowd very well. The meeting seemed to be well received.
Getting back to the bourse floor around 4:00 pm, I found it much easier to navigate the floor. I had some time to talk with dealers Leonard Standley from Colorado, Tom Phillips with A Coin and Silver Shop from Memphis, Ken Byrd, Tom Hallenback, Bob Campbell, and others. Tom Hallenback showed me a stunning coin that he was sending off to CAC stickering in New Jersey. Near the end of the day, I went back to the table where I had a chance to talk with a collector who specializes in Bust dollars and Early dimes about our complete variety set registry. I had to suspend working on registry sets around the middle of November so that we could focus on getting as many coins out the door as possible by the end of the year. Our goal was to have as many coins as possible on the bourse floor at FUN. It did seem like our coins were in more dealers’ showcases than any of the previous shows I had attended.
Day 4
The final day of the show is always bittersweet. As much as you enjoy conversation with your fellow numismatists, all good things come to an end. I had a light breakfast and headed off. While it was the last day of the show and crowds tend to thin around that time, it seemed our table wasn’t slowing down.
I spent most of the morning helping customers with submission questions. Afterward, I had a chance to help several dealers organize their selection of coins to be submitted during which time I had a good conversation with Liz Coggan. More or less I was quite occupied until around 12:30 pm. I took one last stroll around the bourse floor to take it all in one more time before my departure.
Overall I once again enjoyed my time at the annual FUN show. The conversations, the chance encounters, old friends, new friends, and of course, the incredible coinage on display all around make this a truly special event. As CAC Grading continues to grow, I’m thrilled to see the excitement that has grown with us.
Until next year, Orlando!
