Join the ANA Family
April 05, 2010

By Dave

The weekend was family time for many Americans, myself included. Conversations went one way and then another. There was the new baby coming in October. Kids are going back to school today after time off. There was the talk of tickets to a baseball game in Milwaukee today and the Boston-Cleveland basketball game that was playing in the background.

None of these conversational topics would or even should make headlines. What makes them important is that they all are part of family news.

This morning I was thinking of this and a comment Tom Post, the show general chairman of the American Numismatic Association convention in Fort Worth, Texas. made to me a week ago.

Tom did a superb job. If there were any glitches, I didn’t see them or hear of them.

But in a quiet moment Tom and I were just chit-chatting. He said that before 2009 he had never been to an ANA convention. That startled me a bit.

He was no stranger to coin shows generally, so it is not like he had to take a crash course in numismatics.

I’m a regular at ANA events. It is my job. Other regulars have to pay their own tabs and yet I see them show after show, year after year.

There are many conversations that occur at ANA conventions that don’t make the headlines. They are the numismatic version of family gatherings.

These conversations tie many people together in many small ways much as a family is tied together. That’s what makes attendance at these events so important. Certainly not everyone has the free time or money to attend every convention, but every collector should consider going to an ANA at least once to see what the experience is like.

You never know, it might lead you to become a regular, too. You might just find you have a numismatic family there.

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