By Joshua McMorrow-Hernandez, Editor
The American Numismatic Association (ANA) World’s Fair of Money convention held in Philadelphia August 14-18, 2018 was a rousing success by many measures. The ANA just released the total attendance figures for the coin show, and we now know 9,939 people walked through the doors of the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Center City to enjoy one of the biggest East Coast numismatic events in years. And it wasn’t just big attendance numbers that helped make the ANA World’s Fair of Money a success, but also record figures for some rare coins and currency that crossed the auction block there and several incredible displays on the bourse floor that turned many heads.
“Philadelphia, birthplace of our Constitution and coinage, lived up to all expectations,” said ANA President Gary Adkins. “We had record crowds. The bourse and auctions were very lively, and the many seminars, talks and meetings held during the convention were extremely well attended. I think you can safely say the City of Brotherly Love proved a great backdrop for what might well have been our best World’s Fair of Money in the last few years.”
Here at CDN Publishing, we had been talking for weeks leading up to the show about several exciting rare coins and paper currency lots that were to hit the auction block at the Philadelphia coin show. Heritage Auctions and Stack’s Bowers offered thousands of coins and notes in a variety of sales that cumulatively hammered for tens of millions of dollars. Heritage took $40 million for their best ANA event showing in three years. Leading their lots were the extremely rare 1854-S Liberty half eagle graded XF45 by Numismatic Guaranty Corporation and dubbed “The Discovery of a Lifetime” that commanded $2,160,000. Also grabbing headlines was a unique 1792 Washington President gold pattern that sold for $1,740,000. Meanwhile, Stack’s Bowers realized more than $41 million and notched its fourth most-expensive coin sold when the hammer fell on the finest-known 1913 Liberty nickel, graded by the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) as PR66 and verified by Certified Acceptance Corporation (CAC), at $4,560,000 – a record for the coin. Paper currency also bought big numbers for Stack’s Bowers, including the sale of two million-dollar notes in Part II of the