Despite being an ANA member for a while, I have never been to a proper show. Oklahoma City was a short 7-1/2 hour drive from Houston, with a couple casinos between, so I decided to jump in the car and check it out for opening day.

First thing first... WOW! It was huge! I don't know how many vendors there were, but the room just went on and on. Whatever coins/currency you were looking for, it was there.

Now, true the number of tables exceeded the CCA convention by 10x or more, but mixed in with all the vendors were the other companies that support (feed off of) the coin hobby such as many (MANY) auction houses, grading services and insurance companies. I was actually quite surprised at how many tables were dedicated to these services.

I know the CCA was originally planning on having an information table at the show, and the decision was made to not do it. I believe the decision was made after Barry found that it did little good at the FUN show. After attending the show, I have to agree that it would have been a big waste of time.

A couple reasons:

1) I walked around every table and found a whopping ZERO chips being sold. There was one table that had two silver strikes in a case mixed with political pins, Star Wars trading cards and Masonic badges. In other words, the guy's "other stuff" case. The CCA is a chapter of the ANA, but we are decidedly different than the ANA.

2) In the back corner is where the member clubs and special interests chapters had their tables. I believe these are free to have for ANA members. There were maybe a dozen tables with regional chapters and a few clubs specializing in specific collections (such as confederate money, etc). This part of the convention was a complete ghost town. I chatted with a couple people back there, and even they admitted these tables were a waste of time. The advice I was given when I asked if we should get a table next year - bring a book.

So I have some thoughts (surprise, Ed has opinions - lol).

The days of getting people interested in our hobby by in-person greeting and shaking hands is gone. Yes, some of like to be social, but we're (how can I say it nicely), we're OLD. The attendees of the ANA were a good mix of younger and older, I would say more focused right in the middle at mid30s-40s. They don't want to be handed a pamphlet and told about the hobby by some old guy (like me).

If the CCA were to get a table, I would suggest buying a table in the main area, instead of the "special interest" tables in the back. I assume most attendees don't even go back there. Better to grab them in the popular mix. Now, assuming the ANA has some kind of seniority rule, like the CCA show, then getting a first time table might be out in the suburbs anyways. I don't know.

So, to wrap it up, the club made the right choice in NOT getting a table at the ANA show. Whatever some people think, this is not the 1980s anymore and sending out missionaries is absolutely NOT the way to find new members.

PS (another opinion) - A better way to get the word out in the ANA would be to put an article about chip collecting in their magazine. I'm told they have a long waiting list of articles backlog (how nice), but better to jump in line than wait for the line to go down. I don't know who would write it. My articles are focused on specific subjects, and this would need to be more universal. We need to get people interested in (or at least aware of) the hobby before we set up shop at one of their shows.

All opinions of course.

Ed