Earlier in the summer when I attended the Summer FUN Coin Show in Orlando I had received a pamphlet advertising another coin show later in the year. That was the inaugural Great American Coin & Collectible Show in Tampa Florida at the Tampa Convention Center hosted by Coin World Magazine. I’m always on the look out for new events and ways to try and find elongated coins for my collection and figured I would make the trip to Tampa so I could check it out.

I decided to visit during the week hoping to avoid some of the larger crowds that would most likely happen over the weekend. The only draw back was that there was an admission cost to enter during the week. There was also a parking fee for the nearby garage so that was also something to know before you go.

I’ve never been inside the Tampa Convention Center before and it was very nice. I’m use to the larger sprawling campus of the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando but everything was laid out nicely and was well organized. I had no issues figuring our where I needed to go. There was an online preregistration that I took advantage of for a bit of a discount, plus it helped expedite getting checked-in and my credentials once I arrived. With my lanyard around my neck I headed into the bourse floor.

I mentioned that this was the inaugural GACC show and it was advertised as having over 700 vendors. It was in a large area with plenty going on. I’m not sure if I think this was actually 700 vendors but I’ll take their word for it.

The vendors had everything you could imagine available for sale, and many of them were also looking to buy if you had anything available they were interested in. Some vendors had a wild selection of all different items, while many more preferred to just have a more limited niche set of items. I chatted with quite a few vendors trying to see if anyone had any elongated coins for sale but didn’t have much luck.

I made some new friends at the Lincoln Cents and Canadian Coins table shown above. They had a large selection of U.S. Cents (pennies). Quite a few large bags of pennies, as well as individual coins all available for sale. No elongated coins here, but they were wonderful to chat with and I hope they had a successful show. I look forward to seeing them again at future shows.

As I continued to wonder around the show floor and did at one point come across a table with a few elongated coins available. One was the above slabbed 1902 Pan-American Expo Elongated coin.

They also had a few others available that inquired about. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in them, but their prices just seemed higher than I thought the coins were worth. I did try to talk them down a bit but wasn’t able to get to a price I was comfortable paying. So I just had to leave them behind.

As much as this was probably more considered a coin show, it did adveterise that there would be other collectibles available. However I didn’t see too much of that around.

I did run into a few booths with some Pokemon cards, and even a couple small piles of comic books but that was about it.

Another section of coin shows I’ve always enjoyed are the education exhibits. At the Orlando show there is a separate designated area for all those exhibits to be displayed, but at the GACC show they seemed to just be displayed at the vendor or club tables. So they were a little harder to find. As always the exhibitors did a wonderful job and I know from first hand it takes a lot of work. One that I really enjoyed was about Disney Dollars and had some very early bills I’d never seen in person before.

Now I knew that our friends at TECNews wouldn’t be attending this show so I wasn’t expecting to find any free elongated coins. However at one point during my visit as I walked through the club tables I saw some familiar faces John and Nancy Wilson at the ANA table, and sure enough they had an elongated coin they were giving out and even offered a second elongated coin for being a TEC Member.

The coins were not themed for this GACC show but that’s okay I still was happy to have them for my collection. The elongated penny was honoring Kenneth Bressett at the 2024 World’s Fair of Money, and the second coin was an elongated nickel celebrating the ANA’s 126th year anniversary and was also from the World’s Fair of Money show.

Other than these two elongated coins from the ANA table I wasn’t able to acquire any other coins during this visit. That’s okay and just something that happens from time to time. When we have a very specific niche like elongated coins unfortunately not many of the more traditional collectors carry them. A few that I spoke to mentioned they had some back at their shops and gave me contact information to reach out. I’m just hoping maybe by asking over and over again, in the future they may be more apt to bring some of them along and we can take a look at that them.

The GACC did announce future dates for their next couple shows. April 2025 will be held in Fort Lauderdale Florida, and then September 2025 in Chicago Illinois. I’m note sure if I’ll make that trip to Fort Lauderdale next year, but you never know. If they do have another event closer to the Orlando area I definitely think I’d check it out again. These shows are always a lot of fun, filled with wonderful people all enjoying the hobby in many different ways. Keep on Collecting!

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