APS StampShow 2012

The APS StampShow was in Sacramento this past weekend, and I was there for both Saturday and Sunday.  On Saturday, I arrived at 8am for the SIP General meeting.  I was disappointed with the lack of attendees.  Off hand, I think there were fewer than a dozen people  in the room.  It was nice meeting witht he few people who attended, but I think only one of the other attendees would be considered a local (from Davis), the others all flew in for the show.  I did suggest we try and meet using some of the online meeting tools that are so prevalent now, so let's see if that happens.  After the meeting ended, i went downstairs and registered for the show.  The lines were long, and the volunteers were not very efficient, so it took about 30 minutes to drop off my registration form and get a badge (not sure why it took so long).

After that, I took a quick trip home to pick up the kids.  They both wanted to attend the stamp show, and were driving Mindy crazy asking when they could go.  We got back to the show around 1:30, and spent the next 3 hours in the youth area, the buckets of stamps area, and walking around seeing what else was at the show.  We visited the cachet makers bourse, where I tried to convince Julie to see what it takes to put her artistic talents to use making cachets.  After purchasing a few special covers for the girls, we wandered around the show a bit, but I couldn't really look at much since the kids were there.  I did manage to see the 3 auctions that were at the show, and was able to inspect the lots I was interested in.

We left the show around 4:30, and headed home.  The kids had bags of stamps (and other goodies) that they got at the show.  I needed to go back on Sunday to look by myself.

I got a late start on Sunday, showing up around 1pm.  I was able to find 1 special cancel I needed in a box of Israel covers at a random booth.  I spent some time chatting with Ed Rosen at his House of Zion booth, and was able to actually sell him some stuff.  I stopped at the IGPC booth to see the Israel items they were selling.  Unfortunately, the Israel sales booth was staffed by a guy selling Norway stuff, and he didn't know anything about Israel stamps, but I was able to look through the stock they had sent with him to find a sheet I needed.

I went tot he Harmer auction and found that I had won a lot of about 700 Israel first flight covers in the auction the night before, so I was able to pick that up instead of paying for shipping on it.  I now have a bunch of work to do to figure out what I have in the box, and more importantly, what is missing.  Most dealers were packing up by 3pm, so I bid the show good bye and headed back home.

Not sure when the next big show I will get to is.  Maybe AmeriStamp expo in NY?  That is in 2016, so it is a bit far away, but who knows.