World's Fair of Money comes to L.A. By
Bob Pool - August 6, 2009
About $1 billion
in rare coins and currency are on display at the Convention
Center. Promoters hope to attract 10,000 visitors over
the show's five days.
Flip a coin: In a tough economy is it
worth spending $18 to see other people's money?
The American Numismatic Assn. hopes
to find out this week as it stages the World's Fair
of Money at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
A billion dollars' worth of rare coins
and big-denomination currency is on display, including
part of a seldom-seen Smithsonian collection. And rare-coin
dealers are offering free appraisals to amateur collectors
and piggy-bank-toting visitors hoping to cash in.
The association, whose president is
Barry Stuppler of Woodland Hills, sounded bullish about
the opening day turnout Wednesday as about a thousand
visitors milled around locked glass display cases loaded
with Liberty Head nickels, silver dollars, antique gold
pieces, state quarters and foreign coins.
Jake Danna Stevens / Los Angeles
Times
Kevin Brown of the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing
displays $100,000 bills from 1934 at the World's Fair
of Money in L.A.. Each bill would now be worth about
$1.6 million.
They expect that more than 10,000 people will
attend the show before it closes Sunday.
But there were plenty of empty chairs in front of dealers
with magnifying loupes hanging from their necks waiting to
sell and buy coins.
Jim Marshall, a collector from Hollywood who specializes
in Ethiopian coins and currency, blamed the economy and the
state of the collectibles market.
"It cost $12 to park and $6 to get in. So far I've only
seen one item I don't have, and they were asking $500 for
it. They're out of touch with reality," said Marshall,
who said he had come with $80 in his pocket.
Across the Convention Center's West Hall, coin expert Steve
Contursi of Dana Point carefully handed a plastic-encased
1794 silver dollar to Mark Schenter of Chicago and a 1787
gold doubloon to Bruce Zweiban of Panorama City.
The silver dollar, the first produced by the U.S. Mint, is
insured for $10 million. The Brasher Doubloon, made by a neighbor
of George Washington, is valued at $7 million.
"Don't drop them," Contursi, president of Rare
Coin Wholesalers, cautioned the amateur collectors.
"You drop it, you've bought it," Schenter told
Zweiban.
A few steps away, professional and amateur numismatists crowded
around a coin exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution featuring
such national treasures as historic coins given to President
Teddy Roosevelt and a Gold Rush-era $20 gold piece, known
as a Double Eagle.
At a U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing display, visitors
ogled glass cases holding pristine $100,000 currency notes,
Treasury bonds and Gold and Silver certificates.
The big bills, featuring President Woodrow Wilson's engraved
portrait, are part of what officials call their Billion Dollar
Showcase. In reality, the display is pricier: Each 1934 $100,000
note would be worth about $1.6 million today.
"We haven't printed anything larger than $100 bills
since 1945," said Kevin Brown, bureau division manager.
Nearby, the bureau's chief engraver, Christopher Madden,
demonstrated how he creates portraits for U.S. currency, and
chief printer Michael Beck showed off a hand press used by
the government in the Lincoln era.
The bureau's head currency restorer, Roscoe Ferguson, used
tweezers and razor blades to show how he painstakingly reassembles
cash that is burned, hardened into blocks by water, nibbled
on by rats or cut into pieces by vengeful mothers-in-law.
Anyone who sends in damaged bills will get a full replacement
check if at least 51% of the currency is still there. There
is no charge for the service.
"Since we make the money, we stand behind our product,"
Ferguson said.
