By Doug Winter – www.RareGoldCoins.com

Amazingly, it’s time for yet another Summer ANA Convention. This year’s edition is going to be held on August 5th through August 9th at the Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles and if past shows are any indication, this will be one of the best coins shows of the year.

If you’ve never been to a major coin show before, attending your first ANA can be pretty intimidating. The display area is enormous and there are hundreds of dealers from all over the world. What things should you absolutely not miss at the ANA?

The first thing I’d make sure to do at this year’s show is to view the exhibits. The competitive exhibits are always fun but it’s the Smithsonian’s display that has me very interested. This year’s star coin is the unique 1849 Double Eagle; a coin that, if it were to come to market, would set a record for the most valuable United States issue. There will be other amazing rarities on display as well but the chance to see the 1849 double eagle is just about enough to make any serious gold collector get on the plane and go to L.A.

The next thing I’d do is hit the Whitman Publishing display, buy copies of all their wonderful books and try to get as many as possible autographed by the author(s). Whitman is planning on having many of the authors attend the show and they will be signing their books throughout the show.
I certainly wouldn’t miss any of the specialty club meetings in the area(s) that were of interest to me. As an example, the Liberty Seated Collectors Club will be holding a major meeting during the show and if I were a collector of Seated coins this would be an event I absolutely wouldn’t want to miss.

And, of course, I’d be going to look for coins. Even if you don’t plan on making any purchases, you’ll be amazed at what you see at an ANA show. Some dealers will have incredible rarities that they will be happy to let you hold and examine. Other dealers will have deep inventories of coins that you collect. If there was ever a place to find the proverbial “needle in the haystack” it’s at an ANA show. (more…)

The American Numismatic Association’s 2009 World’s Fair of Money® gives visitors the chance to see some of the world’s most beautiful and valuable coins, interact with top numismatists, and explore one of the country’s most exciting cities. The event will be held Aug. 5-9 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, and will feature more than 1,100 dealers and vendors, world-class exhibits, 15 mints from four continents and education presentations for every age and interest level.

“This show promises to be the most spectacular numismatic event you’ll ever see,” said ANA President Barry Stuppler. “The exhibits will be the ANA’s best ever, the educational programs and events offer something for everyone, the dealer activity will be high, and the host city ensures great attendance and an exciting atmosphere.”

The Museum Showcase makes its inaugural appearance in Los Angeles, and will be a centerpiece of the convention. Among the rarities on display will be 20 coins from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Numismatic Collection, including the first (1849 pattern) and last (1933) double eagles ever produced, as well as a 1907 Saint-Gaudens ultra high relief pattern that President Theodore Roosevelt gave his daughter Ethel as a Christmas gift in 1907.

Also featured from the Edward C. Rochette Money Museum and private collections are the finest known – and possibly first minted – 1794 silver dollar; America’s first gold coin, the EB-on-breast Brasher Doubloon; an 1879 gold pattern four dollar “Stella”; four of the five known world-famous Liberty Head nickels; and a rare, 490-year-old original copy of the first illustrated, printed numismatic book, Illustrium Imagines (“Images of the Illustrious”). (more…)

(Los Angeles, California) – Award-winning numismatic author, acclaimed researcher, well-known dealer, Q. David Bowers, chairman of Stack’s and numismatic director of Whitman Publishing LLC, will be the featured speaker at the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG) Share the Knowledge seminar during the American Numismatic Association (ANA) World’s Fair of Money convention in Los Angeles.

“An Hour with Dave Bowers” is the latest in the continuing series of free PNG educational seminars for collectors and dealers being conducted at shows around the country. The program featuring Bowers will be held at 11 a.m., Friday, August 7, 2009, in room 511-B of the Los Angeles Convention Center West Hall, site of the ANA convention. A complimentary light lunch will be available for audience members.

Bowers will take questions from the audience and discuss his involvement with the hobby starting in 1953 as a teenaged coin dealer, a role that landed him as a young guest on the NBC-TV Today Show in 1957 as well as subsequent appearances years later. He’ll provide interesting recollections about his extraordinary work helping to build and then catalog for auction some of the world’s most prominent coin collections. He’ll also discuss his decades of prolific authorship and ongoing research and writing for Whitman, publishers of A Guide Book of United States Coins (the “Red Book”) and many other titles.

Voted one of the “Numismatists of the Century” by COINage Magazine in 1999, Bowers is the only person to ever serve as President of both the PNG (1977 – 1979) and the ANA (1983 – 1985).

He has received the coveted Friedberg Literary Award from PNG a record seven times, and his books have won the Numismatic Literary Guild’s Book of the Year award more than those of any other author. Many of the auction catalogs he and his companies have produced have become important reference works, such as those for the renowned collections of Louis E. Eliasberg Sr., Harry W. Bass Jr., Ambassador and Mrs. R. Henry Norweb, the Childs Collection and the John Work Garrett Collection sold by order of The Johns Hopkins University. (more…)