Welcome to our Ocala Coin Club Webpage
Enjoy Meetings, Auctions, and Resources Dedicated to Coins,
Currency, and Exonumia
Welcome to our Ocala Coin Club Webpage
Enjoy Meetings, Auctions, and Resources Dedicated to Coins,
Currency, and Exonumia
Winter FUN SHOW Debrief
ICYMI
71st Annual FUN Convention
Orlando, FL January 8-11,2026
WOW!! What a show. We had a new record of 740 dealer booths. Public attendance was over 11,000. There were 477 Early Bird badges sold. There were 2082 dealers and FUN staff with1017 Dealer badges issued at Photo I.D. Public registration was absolutely swamped on opening day with 4500 people coming in. This year’s theme was “Paper Money, Portraits of History”. At the opening ribbon cutting, Bernie Ososky and Joe Zelinski received the FUN Presidential Award. Greg Rounds received the “Polly Abbott Award”.
Several dealers sold over $1 million on the first day. Everyone had a wonderful show. The U.S. Mint was there, eBay, all the grading services, Wizard Supply, Coin World, Numismatic News, Coin Dealer Newsletter, Mike Bean with his Spider Press, Piedmont Gold Panners, Cindy Calhoun with her Elongated machine, Heritage Auctions, Coins & Kids booth, Young Scavenger Hunt, Pat McBride as Ben Franklin & David Chaltas as Robert E Lee.
The Public Affairs group from the U.S. Mint made presentations to both the Scouts who were working on the Coin Collecting merit badge, and the youth who attended the Kids Program on Saturday afternoon. The Mint gave all the youth who attended each program a “Discovery Coin Kit” to help them start their coin collection.
There were 10 educational programs that were all well attended. The Exhibit area had approximately 60 exhibits (6 YN exhibits) using 215 show cases. A collection of over 100 New York National Bank Notes, all Serial #1 were on display, and the largest Kentucky National Bank Note Collection of 650 notes. This was maybe the only time these two collections will ever be displayed.
Exhibit awards were presented to the following individuals. Best of Show was “Our Founding Fathers” by Jamie Halupka; People’s Choice Award went to John Miller for “My Error Coin Set”.
There were multiple coin club tables & specialty club tables & seminars.
Running down the aisles of the show were 14 Pages who helped the dealers. The Scout program had 36 participants, and there were 16 in the YN program. The Coins & Kids booth had 402 kids for the first three days.
There were 5 Club Buses sponsored by FUN with 176 total club members on board (Citrus County-36, Greater Jacksonville-37, Ocala-43, Palm Beach-27, Venice/Sarasota/Manatee-33). The FUN Coin Club Get Together had 52 in attendance, representing 25 clubs and the Numismatic Ambassador Award Breakfast had 55 attending, including 8 ANA past presidents. New Ambassadors are Len Augsburger, Carol Bastable, Mike Bean, Donna Nunez, and Gerald Tebben. Current FUN membership is 4692.
Our Adult FUN Summer Scholarship winner was Eric Gulledge, The FUN YN Scholarship went to Clark Davis, and the Bill Calderazzo YN Scholarship was awarded to Noah Zorne. The FUN Literary Award was won by Tom Scopp for “What was the First U.S. Coin?”.
All in all, it was a tremendous show. Katie Williams did a great job, along with the FUN Board and volunteers.
We will see you at the 20th Annual Summer FUN, July 9-11, 2026, Orange County Convention Center, Hall WC.
Tony
Ocala Coin Club Board Meetings:
Our next official board meetings (TBA), at the
Denny's Restaurant, 3801 West SR 40, Ocala
Meeting begins 6:30 PM.
All Club Members are welcome to attend!