March 13, 2014 – The Central States Numismatic Society’s 75th Anniversary Convention will be held April 21-26 at the Schaumburg Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center in the northwest Chicago suburb located roughly ten miles from O’Hare Airport. Amongst others, the convention will offer several auction sessions, an almost 300 booth bourse area as well as educational seminars, for instance on Women in Numismatics or on the Civil War.
Convention activities get underway on Monday, April 21, when the security room opens for early arriving booth holders. Heritage Auctions, of Dallas, TX will hold two multi-session Signature Sales, one focused on rare coins and the other specializing in collectable paper money. The auction sessions will be held on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with auction lot viewing opening on Tuesday, April 22.
Bourse area and auctions
The bourse area will open on Wednesday, April 23 for the Professional Preview / Early Bird Day from 12noon-6PM, when collectors and dealers without booths can gain early admission to the bourse area in advance of the free public hours for a $75 registration fee. During the regular public hours on Thursday, April 24 from 10AM-7PM, Friday, April 25 from 10AM-6PM and Saturday, April 26 from 10AM-5PM, there is no admission fee.
Patricia Foley, Bourse Chairman for the event, said of the commercial opportunities available at the convention, “Heritage has been our official auction company for more than 20 years. During that period the Dallas firm has conducted some especially memorable sales in conjunction with our CSNS events. We recently awarded a three year extension of our official auction company designation to Heritage and are especially pleased to have them with us now through 2017.”
Foley continued, “In addition to our multi-session Heritage Signature Sales, our convention also includes a 275+ booth bourse with dealers from 25+ states. No matter how advanced a collector may be, if they can’t find what they are looking for in either our Heritage auctions or our almost 300 booth bourse area, their needs must be exceptionally specialized.”
Convention Chairman Kevin Foley added, “While the commercial aspects of our convention place us in the upper tier of numismatic events, we’ll also have an exceptional educational component. Leading off our educational seminars will be a program presented during an open meeting of Women in Numismatics at 8AM on Thursday by National Bank Note authority Allen Mincho. His topic will be “National Bank Notes – an Overview”. We’ll also have a series of book signings for recently released books on various numismatic subjects. The book signings will give our attendees an opportunity to meet face to face with serious numismatic researchers and get personal insights into the research that culminated in their newly released books”.
Book signing sessions
Mark Ferguson will hold signing sessions at 12noon on Thursday, Friday and Saturday for his new release, “The 1804 Dollar: the U.S. Mint’s Hidden Secret.” Ferguson’s book is the culmination of more than 20 years of research in the subject area of his book and will be released for the first time at the Schaumburg convention.
Michigan’s Kathy Freeland will hold signing sessions at 1PM on Friday and Saturday for his new release “The American Red Cross in World War II: A Collector’s Guide.
Well known researcher and author Neil Shafer will hold a session at 2:30PM on Friday featuring his recent release “Panic Scrip of 1893, 1907 and 1914”. All three book signings will be held in booth 100, the John Burns Memorial Remembrance Booth, which would have been occupied by the North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania literature dealer who passed away during the January, 2014 Florida United Numismatists Convention.
Bourse Chairman Patricia Foley remarked about the book signings, “John Burns loved books and scholarship. Having a book signing booth bearing his name will, I hope, contribute in at least a small way to confirming for the numismatic community the admiration and affection that our convention staff felt for John and the respect we all had for his specialized place in our trade. John Burns deserves not only to be remembered, but to be memorialized, as well.”
Civil War Educational Forum
CSNS Education Director Ray Lockwood also drew attention to the Civil War Educational Forum that will take place on Friday and Saturday. Lockwood said, “We have a lineup of real Civil War scholars and I expect that the third edition of this popular feature of our convention will attract the same exceptionally large audiences as participated in 2012 and 2013. The forum will get underway at 10AM on Friday, when Dennis Boggs, an Abraham Lincoln interpreter, will hold forth on “The Significance of the Month of April Throughout the Four Years of the Civil War”. Boggs will be followed at 11AM that day by Dr. Amy Murrell-Taylor a University of Kentucky faculty member, speaking on “The Civil War After the Civil War, Emancipation and the Long Road to Freedom”. Author Peter Cozzens will present “The 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign” at 12noon and will be followed at 1PM by Lance Herdegen, speaking about “The Exploits of the Iron Brigade”. Friday’s installment of the forum will conclude at 2PM with a talk by Robert I. Girardi on “The Midwest During the Civil War.”
Saturday’s forum programs will open at 10AM with an additional presentation by Peter Cozzens, “General John Rawlins – the Brains Behind Grant?” Robert Girardi will follow at 11AM with “General Impressions of the Civil War.” Dennis Boggs will be the final speaker at 12noon with “Lincoln and the Challenge of 1864.”
Lockwood remarked of the Civil War Educational Forum, “Numismatics is at its heart about history. It is about much more than the historical artifacts – coins and currency – that so many of us collect. Our Civil War Forum is an effort on our part to enhance the historical knowledge of our membership about a period in our history that has many numismatic stories to tell, the development of a national banking system, the issuance of Fractional Currency, the Legal Tender cases, to name just a few. Judging from the attendance at our past forum sessions, I believe that we’ve hit on a popular formula and am looking forward to personally hosting our forum this year and bringing the especially qualified presenters to our convention who will be joining us for this special anniversary for CSNS, our 75th.”
He also mentioned about the book signings, “All three of the books that will be featured in our John Burns Memorial Remembrance Booth were partially supported by CSNS authors’ grants. I’m especially proud to see to this tangible evidence of the fruits of our grant program.”
Fran Lockwood, who serves as Educational Exhibits Chairperson for CSNS, joined her husband Ray in remarking, “I also encourage our attendees to visit our 200+ exhibit case educational exhibit area, an aspect of our convention that provides an exceptional learning opportunity. We’ll have 45+ exhibitors sharing portions of their collections with our attendees. I can’t think of a better way to spend a few informative and educational hours than viewing the exhibit area at our 75th Anniversary Convention.”
Although the bourse area is sold out, dealers can be added to the waiting list by contacting Bourse Chairman Patricia Foley.
More complete details about the convention can be found here.
You can find additional information about the Heritage auctions on this page.