Greetings from Fleet Society President Ben Costello!
The 70th Annual Florida United Numismatists Winter Coin Show is now history. This year saw enormous crowds of people flood into the Convention Center here in Orlando to experience the wonderful world of coin collecting. I think that this year’s attendance at the four-day event (January 9 to January 12) was the largest that I have experienced in twenty years of attending shows.
Greeting us as we arrived were FUN Board Vice President Bob Hurst (Member # 150) and his wife Dreama (Member # 151). They have been big supporters and are always willing to help the Society whenever we need it.
As usual, we had a table decked out in Fleet Society material to sell. New to our usual inventory were shirts, hats, and mugs with a special logo commemorating the 310th year of the loss of the 1715 Fleet. Also, at this show were many Fleet Society members who stopped by to visit or purchase one of our new products. We did quite well as we sold over $1,000.00 of merchandise. We also want to recognize Ray Mazzola (Member # 88) whose company produced our new shirts, hats, and mugs. Ray, from Chicago, was in the area and stopped by on Friday, January 10 to say hello.
This year we were pleased to have several members who volunteered to help staff at our table. Charlie Winn (Member # 136), Terry Armstrong (Member # 9) who brought copies of his latest book “Old Treasure New Blood” which were available for sale at our table, and Matt Puleo (Member # 183). Also joining us was Sal Guttuso (Member # 226) who not only assisted but allowed us to offer his first book, “Gold Coins of the Tricentennial Discovery” which he just released in December of 2023. These books drew a crowd to our table which in turn led to people buying our products as well as these great books. Their help was invaluable, and I want to thank them for their help. Incidentally, both Charlie and Matt serve as advisors on our Advisory Board.
Several of our members also had tables offering coins and artifacts to sell. These included Mike Dunigan (Member # 50); Dan Sedwick (Member #2) and Augi Garcia (Member # 3) of Sedwick and Associates, LLC; Steve Hodges (Member # 4) and his wife Linda (Member # 5) of West Bay Trading Company; Bill Pearson (member # 24) of Forecastle; Russell Augustine (Member #200) of AU Capital Management (Rarcoa); Sean Ryan (Member # 210) of Ryan Rare Coin; Josh Scott ( Member b# 163) of Redbeard’s Relics.
Other members who stopped by were Tom Uram (Member # 23), currently the President of the American Numismatic Association; and Jeremy Watherston (Member # 145) who was here with his family (Cassie and their son Parker) from Australia. I spent a good part of Thursday with Jeremy and had a wonderful with him, Cassie, and Parker on Thursday night; Mike Perna (Member # 217 ) who not only works the wreck sites but also is one of our newest Advisory Board members stopped by on Thursday: Other Advisory Board members present were David Huang (Member # 198) and world-famous archival researcher Jorge Proctor (Member #10); Jonah Martinez (Member # 66); Buddy Martin (Member # 39); Danny Lee (Member # 38); Regional Director for the Fleet Society, Stephanie Hudson (Member # 169); Rob Barfield (Member # 161) who was a major sponsor of our 2024 Conference in Vero Beach last year; John Swank (Member # 225); Jeff Priest (Member # 199; and last, but not least, Karen McKee (Member # 29), a major supporter and coin specialist.
Overall, it was a great show. It also gave me a chance to do some marketing for the Society, to gather support for our next conference in January 2026. Financially this will be a big expense. But I believe that our members will step up with contributions (large and small) to help make our next conference our best yet.
