CoinTalk Member Reports Buying a Bust Half at FUN After Three Years of Only Selling
On the collector forum CoinTalk, a member posting as ldhair said that after three years of only selling, he bought a coin at the FUN show. According to the post, it is a Bust Half, a variety he already owned in a lower grade. Replies included a note that the two coins are different die states (O-108 and O-108a) and comments on the cost of attending the show.
Correction (Oct 13, 2026): We corrected the headline, summary and body to match the source. We made clear that the source is a forum thread, removed unsupported passages about an industry shift to in-person trading, the pandemic-era market, counterfeits and price effects, and rewrote the article as the posters' own statements. The previous headline was "FUN Show Return Marks Shift to In-Person Coin Trading."
This article is based on posts in the CoinTalk forum thread "After 3 years, I bought a coin at FUN." The content consists of the posters' own statements and opinions and has not been verified by GNJ. The thread as retrieved does not show a posting date, so no date is given here.
A First Purchase in Three Years
The original poster, ldhair, wrote that after only selling for three years it was time to start buying again, and shared images of a coin he bought at the FUN show.
He said he already had this variety in a lower grade and that the two coins look great side by side. He wrote that the clash marks and die cracks drew him in. He also said he bought one other Bust Half but had no images of it yet.
Duplicate or Different?
Another member, physics-fan3.14, said the two coins are not duplicates: one is an O-108 and the new one is an O-108a, two different die states. physics-fan3.14 wrote that serious Capped Bust Half collectors would consider them different enough to keep both.
ldhair replied that collecting by Overton number is not his thing. He is not looking to build a set of anything; he did that for almost 60 years and stopped when his collection reached 8,000 coins. He wrote that he still has about 6,000 to sell. He also said duplicates do not bother him, and that if he likes a coin and can see it in hand, he will buy it.
Views on the FUN Show
GoldFinger1969 wrote of probably being out $2,000 before buying a single coin, but said the show is really worth it. GoldFinger1969 also wrote that coming from the New York area it is nice to be in Florida in January, that there are lectures and workshops during the week, and that the bourse is the top event of the year, adding: "I don't think ANA or Central States or Long Beach match up." physics-fan3.14 wrote that, between travel, hotel and restaurants, attending has to be thought of like a vacation, and that the coins are just the attraction.
Source: CoinTalk, "After 3 years, I bought a coin at FUN."
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