Increased Attendance, New Product Launches
BALTIMORE—Another Whitman Baltimore Summer Expo has passed into the history books, with a significant increase in attendance over last year’s show and the introduction of a new and innovative tool called Whitman Compass™, which helped collectors find the specific coins they were looking for long before they ever set foot on the Bourse floor.
Other highlights:
- A strong Stack’s Bowers Galleries sale featured lots as diverse as the 1871 Ulysses S. Grant Indian Peace Medal, the 1652 Massachusetts Bay Colony Oak Tree Shilling Noe-10 and the die for a Rhode Island trade token.
- Author and numismatic legend Anthony Swiatek offered a presentation that was chock-full of practical tips on avoiding being taken at a coin show.
- Most dealers reported both wholesale and retail business that met or exceeded their expectations for a Baltimore Summer Expo. Attendance figures—which tallied increases in the high single digits over the same show last year—confirm the steady upward trend for the last three summer expos, despite the down economy.
“We all know that Baltimore is one of the strongest coin cities in North America, if not the world. Year after year they prove that fact by showing up in increasing numbers, even in the face of a down market,” General Manager David Crenshaw said.
Crenshaw said dealer feedback continues to firmly support the Summer Expo, even though vacation lifestyle patterns naturally make it difficult for the June expo to compete with November and March—two of the strongest shows in all of numismatics.
“In June, perhaps more than other shows, we find that sometimes one group of dealers, for whatever reasons, will report strong wholesale business while others say their retail numbers were up. But, through all of the feedback, the clear message to us is that summer in Baltimore is definitely somewhere we need to be because our dealers and collectors overwhelmingly want us to be there,” Whitman Publishing president Mary Counts said.
In September, Whitman returns to The City of Brotherly Love with its third annual Philadelphia Expo, September 15-17, 2011, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
The next Baltimore Expo will be November 17-20, 2011 when the show returns to its traditional venue in Halls A, B & C of the Baltimore Convention Center.
Whitman is the leading producer of coin and collectibles expos in North America. For more information, or to register, visit WhitmanExpo.com. For the latest numismatic news, point your browser to WhitmanCoinCollecting.com.
