Just a couple weeks ago I was able to attend the Summer edition of the Florida United Numismatists (FUN) Coin Show. It was held in Orlando Florida at the Orange County Convention Center.

The Summer coin show is much smaller than the Winter edition held in January and you can read about my trip to that show here. But this is far from a small coin convention as there are still a lot of vendors, clubs and events going on to keep you busy.

The FUN show is completely free to guests, the only requirement is to visit one of the welcome booths to get a name tag and a free gift if you this is your first time visiting. Then head on inside the show floor.

It’s hard to believe that this is a smaller coin show but trust me it is. There are large signs hanging from the ceiling to help you navigate the different areas. Unless you are like me and just go up and down every aisle.

No matter what your numismatic specialty is there will be someone there with the same interest, and probably some items you need for your ongoing collection. Or maybe you’ll come across something new to start collecting. It’s amazing what you will find here. Some of the tables even had non-numismatic items like jewelry, comics books and even some collectible cards like Pokemon and sports cards.

Our friends at The Elongated Collectors (TEC) club usually have a table at the Winter FUN show, but this Summer show is close to the larger ANA World’s Fair of Money show. At that show they host their annual membership meeting, auctions and other fun events. This year it’s being held in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. I’m not able to attend that show this year, and I did miss catching up with our friends at this show. To try and make up for that I wanted to try and find some elongated coins for buy and add to my collection. Spoiler alert, that would be easier said that done at this show.

There were a few tables selling rolls of copper pennies, and even individual pennies with all different minted dates.

I did find some elongated coins about halfway through the show but they were at the Kids & Coins table for younger collectors taking part in the scavenger hunt. My curiosity got the best of me and I took a closer look at the coins available to them, and they appeared to be designs from previous FUN shows so we weren’t missing out on those.

One of my favorite sections of the coin show is the Educational Exhibits, and there were some great ones.

However even the exhibits were limits to only one that I found to contain elongated coins.

There were a few vendors I came across that were selling some Disney Dollars. These were a form of corporate scripts basically a substitute for legal tender. They were first used in Disneyland in 1987. You could change out actual US currency for these colorful Disney themed bills and use them for goods and services within the parks. Over the years they added different denominations and characters to each bill. Then Disney stopped distributing and printing the currency in 2016 but as with anything Disney these bills quickly became a popular collectible. I couldn’t resist any longer and thought this one that included a nice thick acrylic display would be a nice addition to my office and was able to pick it up for a reasonable price.

The aisles of the coin show were quickly coming to an end and I hadn’t see any elongated coins for sale. Then just when I thought we were out of luck I came across the Eagle’s Rare Coins of Southwest Florida table. There on one of the cases I saw a few elongated coins laid out on top. I asked if I could see them and was given a box with the coins organized inside. There were quite a few coins available however they were all from one specific event the 1901 Pan-American Expo.

Many collectors are familiar with the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago that is generally accepted as the location of the first souvenir elongated coin. In 1901 there was a similar World’s Fair held in Buffalo New York know as the Pan-American Expo. It covered 350 acres and featured some iconic buildings and exhibits. To celebrate these beautiful new structures, commemorative elongated coin designs were created for each of the buildings. This vendor had many of the designs available for sale, and since I didn’t have any of these in my collection I wanted to pick out a good one to start off with. My choice was the coin featuring the US Government Building.

I finished my visit to the Summer FUN show happy to have acquired a couple new items for my collection, but will be anxiously awaiting the Winter show next year so we can try again with tracking now some special elongated coins.

Have you visited a local coin show lately, and did you find any elongated coins for your collection? Be sure to let me know down in the comments below, I’d love to hear all about it. Enjoy the rest of your week and as always Keep on Pressing!

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