Rachel's parents, brother and sister arrived last night, and are using our newly-furbished guest room. It was homemade waffles and lots of coffee this morning, and then it was out and about for all residents. As previously agreed, my Father-in-law and I went one way and the womenfolk and little Nick went another.
While the others went to the Farmer's market, a used book store, and a furniture store, Pat and I had other pursuits in mind. Our first stop was the Midlands Coin Club Spring Coin Show. This was the first coin show I had ever been to, so I was buzzing around the room with great gusto. I am currently collecting all coins minted in the year 1899; I have six out of eight of the gold coins minted in that year, but I didn't have any of the silver coins or the penny. I managed to find a Fine specimen of an 1899 Half Dollar, and an Almost Uncirculated 1899 Silver Dollar from one of the dealers based here in Columbia. As I was casing the joint, Pat was too, quietly picking up what he could find. He came up to me after we had been there almost two hours and said "Happy Birthday", giving me a goodly amount of coinage, about one of each denominationfrom the year 1899, from penny up to half dollar. I thanked him profusely, and then with this new stockpile, cruised the room to see if I could trade any of them for higher grade pieces. I also acquired a nice 1948 Franklin Half Dollar. It was great fun and frightfully heady stuff.
We were there until a little almost 1:00pm, and then we proceeded to the gun show in the local Shriner's temple. This was Dad McCune's domain, and we walked up and down the rows of tables, and he told me about all the different makes and origins of the collectible rifles and pistols. It seems as though collecting coins and collecting firearms are quite similar, in that one can have modern pieces that have an intrinsic practical value, or one can collect older pieces that have more historical/collectible/sentimental value based on their rarity and current demand. About a third of the way through the room -- which was the size of a high school basketball arena -- it occurred to me that I had been so distracted by the silver coinage that I had completely missed the possibility of finding either of the two gold coins that I was looking for. I told Pat this, and ducked out on what ended up being a wild goose chase, because by the time I got there, some of the dealers were packing up to leave, and there was much less gold there than there was silver. Nevertheless, I picked up some flyers about coin shows coming up in Greenville, Augusta, and Charleston this summer, as well as some plastic binder pages that could contain my newly developed stash. I returned to the gun show, and had little trouble finding my tall Father-in-Law. He had seen what he wanted to, and was ready to get back to home base.
Everybody converged on the house within about an hour, and got ready for the next item on the agenda: The Kentucky Derby. Rachel's older sister Jennifer is a big horse fanatic, to the point of actually owning two of them. There was chips and salsa for the pre-race festivities, then the race which took all of five minutes, and then we had dinner.
We had been invited to a friend's house for dessert, and I got to show off my new acquisitions, as they got to show off their newly renovated house. After about an hour of pleasant conversation with yummy cake, we said our goodbye's and went home fairly well exhausted.
