12/7/2010 - I will be going in the hospital for Major Back Surgery on Monday morning Dec 13th, 2010. I will be in the Hospital for 5 to 7 days recovering from the surgery. Afterwards I should be able to go home for the Christmas Holidays. I will be unable to travel for 6 to 8 weeks. Brandon will still be setting up at the FUN show in Tampa, Fla. on Jan 4th to the 9th 2011. Sorry I will miss the FUN Show for the first time in over 12 years. However we will be setting up in Feb at the Long Beach Show and hopefully I will be there. If there is anything you need I will still have my notebook and will be able to communitate with you. It will be business as usual as Brandon will be doing all the shipping. Happy Holidays to everyone and I will see most of you next year....if all goes well!

12/7/2010 - HoustonThe Money Show of the Southwest took place at the George R. Brown Convention center in downtown Houston, TX this past weekend and I attended with a friend of mine. Since we are close enough to drive, we took off from Dallas on the 4 hour car trip on Friday morning and made it to the show in time to scan the floor for material. The weather was fair with some unstable cumulus clouds forming then breaking as the gulf moisture is dragged inland by an incoming front that was looming just north of Dallas. It was around 75 degrees on Friday.

We stayed at the Residence Inn downtown because their rooms are awesome having a living area with a sink, fridge, microwave, and a TV and two separate closing door bedrooms with their own bathrooms and TVs. Also, the windows opened in all the rooms. The only thing that stunk about the hotel was the renovations going on reducing the restaurant menu to basically cheeseburgers and 8 inch pizzas. Breakfast was no better with the available items being soggy toast (French toast I believe it was), reconstituted eggs scrambled with runny powdery juice in them, sausage patties that were edible but I got the last one, and a glamourous selection of pre-made muffins alongside the make-your-own waffle maker that happened to be out of batter were the centerpieces of this complimentary breakfast. Oh well, at least the room was nice.

The show, much like our hotels menu, was lacking in substance. Walking the floor the first time through set the tone for the entire experience with a few coins catching my eye but nothing knocked my socks off. Overall, I only bought a handfull of coins out of the show and Heritage sale combined but the most important thing is that I am happy with what I picked up, sold enough coins to cover any expenses, and got see all of my friends in the coin market.

The general mood in the show was steady but not a ton of public showed up so the best reports were by wholesalers (especially in generic $20s) and the worst reports were by those who were expecting more public to show up (mainly the retail guys). However, there was the occasional retail dealer with a positive report showing a glimmer of silver lining that gets my hopes up for the FUN show in Tampa, FL where we will have a table set up.

We left the show on Saturday afternoon and after trudging through the Houston traffic, we made it onto the open road back home to Dallas. Leaving the humidity and warm temperature of Houston, we arrived in a chilly Dallas with temperatures in the 50s. The looming front from yesterday had already passed through Dallas and not a drop of rain was seen. Oh well. I will have the new purchases up soon so check back frequently.