ANA Convention - New York City, New York - July 31 - August 4, 2002
Several PNNA members attended the New York City anniversary convention and had a good time, learned a few things, participated in important meetings, and maybe even made some new acquisitions! The convention appeared to be successful, with the host committee doing an excellent job. See the official ANA press release regarding attendance and other subjects of interest.
The following photos
show some of the activities associated with the convention.
Photography by Eric Holcomb and Larry Gaye.
ANA Awards Meeting
/ Representative's Breakfast
(1) Larry Rowe (green jacket, left) receives the ANA Medal of Merit.
(2) Kathy Rowe (light green jacket, right) receives the Glenn Smedley Memorial
Award.
(3) ANA President John Wilson makes opening remarks at the Representative's
Breakfast.
(4) National Coordinators Scott and Lisa Loos with Regional Representative Eric
Holcomb (right).
The Location / The
Bourse
Left - Billboard celebrates Broadway legends
Les Misérables and
The Phantom of the Opera.
Center - entry to the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel at 45th and Broadway.
Right - A "bird's eye" view of activity on one of two bourse floors inside the
Marriott
(view from the 7th Floor to the 6th Floor foreign/ancient dealers area).
Miscellaneous
Left - Larry Rowe volunteers each year at photo registration (one of the
reasons why he earned the ANA Medal of Merit).
Right - A meeting of the Association of
Dedicated Byzantine Collectors (ADBC), one of several specialty meetings
at each convention. Foreground: Portlander Mike Bezayif examines a coin.
Larry Gaye reports,
"Amazingly we drew walk-ins at our meeting at noon on Thursday who were very
interested in the ADBC."
Convention Medal
depicting the Statue of Liberty and the New York City skyline.
Report from PNNA Vice President Larry Gaye:
The 2002
ANA Convention in beautiful New York City is over. I must admit it was
both fun and a lot of work. As some of you might know I have been a
National Volunteer for the ANA for the past few years since the Philadelphia
Convention. This time it was a real departure from my normal chores as I
was involved in the grunt work of the convention set up and tear down.
Everyone agreed that if you can survive the New York site, the Marriott Marquis,
everything else is downhill. Ordinarily I would consider downhill as a
pejorative, in this case I’m most happy that Portland in March 2004 is going to
be downhill.
What made this convention site so challenging was the setting. Unlike
other venues, which are usually one level, the ANA occupied three levels, the 5th,
6th,
and 7th
floors of the hotel. This meant that the contents of two 80-ft semi’s had to be
moved up one freight elevator to the aforementioned three floors. The
second element was the fact that all freight had to be unloaded by the Teamsters
and a company called GES that handled all of the set up of tables, etc., as well
as the unloading and placement of all cases and such. We were really at
their mercy, as we could not start placing cables, lamps and clamps until they
were done. A real nightmare considering we were unloading on Sunday and
PNG day was on Monday. The Teamsters and GES did a wonderful job, suffice
it to say it got done.
I had the pleasure of working with Brian Miller who is the facilities manager
for the ANA in Colorado Springs and was the floor manager for the convention.
I also had the pleasure of working with Louis Villalpando, a numismatist, dealer
and all around bon vivant from Biloxi, Mississippi. Brian, Louis and I
earned our free pop.
After PNG day, we then had to break those dealers to their respective floors,
either five or six depending on their specialty (US or Foreign/Ancient) and then
set up the rest of the convention to be open on Wednesday at noon. Considering
PNG Day ended on Tuesday at 4:00 PM it was rather busy to say the least.
Needless to say we made it.
I was finally free to wander about on Thursday. Believe it or not my first
numismatic purchase on Thursday was five elongated’s … call me crazy, but they
were fun. There really was so much to do and see as well as say hello to
old friends and meet new ones. Someone once said that numismatists not
only collect coins but also friends, that is so true.
I attended as many meetings as I could including EAC, C4, Conder Token
Collectors Club and of course the ADBC (Association of Dedicated Byzantine
Collectors). Both the ADBC and CTCC were followed by food. For the
ADBC it was food at a marvelous Greek restaurant, and CTCC the traditional beer
and pizza feed, New York pizza of course. Art Fitts did a wonderful talk
for the Numismatic Theatre on the coinage of Harold and William the Conqueror
and their descendents up to Henry III.
Our club has the honor of having two of its members being awarded prestigious
awards by the ANA. Kathy Rowe was awarded the Glenn Smedly Memorial
Award, and Larry Rowe was awarded the ANA Medal of Merit. Also, Eric
Holcomb —
the ANA Regional Rep for the Pacific Northwest and PNNA Director, editor and
webmaster —
was appointed the editor of the ANA’s Rep Program newsletter. You would
all have been proud of Scott & Lisa Loos —
newly appointed National Coordinators of
the ANA Representative Program. They did a wonderful job at the morning
breakfast and club rep meeting, it is so good to see so many folks from the
Northwest involved in the ANA —
Scott & Lisa Loos, Larry & Kathy Rowe, Eric Holcomb, Joseph Boling, Ken Hill,
dealers Tom Cederlind and Mike Bezayif. If I missed anyone
please forgive me, the mind is a terrible thing to lose.
The convention ended both too soon and not soon enough. Too soon because
there was just not time to see everyone and everything, not soon enough because
by the time Sunday break down rolled around all were tired. One thing I
failed to mention, all the time we were setting up and breaking down the
temperature in NYC was between 95 and 98 degrees, we were all well done by the
time we broke the show.
The break down was the reverse of set up except compressed into ten hours.
The floor had to be cleared, emptied and loaded into the trucks by midnight.
Remember, we had Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to set up; again, it worked.
I’ll spare the details of my return to Portland as that is another story, but I
arrived a day late thanks to thunderstorms over the Ohio River Valley.
One more item that was officially confirmed; the ANA Board officially approved
my appointment as General Chairman, and Larry Rowe as Asst. General Chairman of
the 2004 National Money Show. So now the tough work comes: it’s our turn
to prepare again for the Money Show. We have the finest bunch of
numismatists in the country in our club and it will be a lot of fun to have the
ANA in our house again, and we will need all of you to make our show another
stunning success. Rachel Irish (from ANA headquarters) will be at our
meeting in October to discuss convention plans.
See the
Willamette
Coin Club web site for additional photos.
