WAYNE'S NUMISMATIC DIARY: JUNE 1, 2025, PART THREE

Here's the third and final part of my account of my enjoyable visit last week to Pittsburgh and the Spring 2025 PAN Show. I remark often that the PAN Show just keeps getting bigger and better. When I ran into PAN President Pat McBride early on my first day, I told him that PAN and The E-Sylum have something in common - we both started small and never quit. Decades later we're still here, still improving, and bigger and better than ever. Here's how dealer David Kahn described the show's evolution in his June 2025 DKRC News and Newps email newsletter.

The PAN show is truly remarkable, and I'd like to take a moment to tell you a little about it. I've been attending the PAN show in the Monroeville PA Convention Center for many years. The show went thru some very difficult times quite a ways back with serious management issues, construction, etc, and there were times when the "small" room was less than half full. But, the organization made tough choices, persevered, got the right people in place, planned the way forward and kept working hard, and now, the show has grown into a regional monster, where they are not only filling the "big" room, but they are using the entire facility! It is really phenomenal to see a show grow and prosper like this one has, under incredibly able, responsible, proper leadership, with outstanding, hardworking staff and a just-get-it-done attitude. Congratulations and sincere thanks to everyone involved.

Yet there is a dichotomy that fascinates me. Lots of coin shows are doing well. Really well. Especially big ones like Central States, Winter FUN and ANA (except maybe for this August in OKC...we'll be there, of course, but it will be interesting to see who skips it). Exceptions? Sure, from minor to major. Baltimore, while still a large and vibrant show, has contracted a little bit. Long Beach appears to have, at least temporarily, called it quits. But a lot of smaller shows are not growing - they are still good, but some are cutting back from 3 days to 2, or from 2 days to 1; still others are having trouble filling small rooms. So, there's a fairly wide range.

You know what I can't do though? I can't think of another show that has grown by a factor of (I'm guessing here, but I'll bet I'm too conservative) 6 to 8 over the past 10-15 years other than PAN.

'Nuf said. Consider coming to the fall PAN show on October 16-18, 2025. I hope to see you there! For more information, see: https://pancoins.org/

SS Central America Exhibit
I saved the best for last - the PAN Show's exhibit of material from the wreck of the SS Central America. See "Treasure Talk with Bob Evans" elsewhere in this issue for more on the mind-boggling numismatic treasure find - one ton of gold coins, bars, nuggets and gold dust sitting at the bottom of the ocean after sinking in an 1857 hurricane.

The PAN exhibit was manned by SS Central America co-discoverer, geologist and historian Bob Evans and collector Greg Darnstaedt. To me, this was like visiting an exhibit on the early Philadelphia Mint manned by Adam Eckfelt and Joseph Mickley. First, the coins.

For many numismatists, it's all about the coins. But there's so much more to the story.

Look closer - two stereoscopic viewers provide a 3-D view of gold coins and bars as discovered on the ocean bed. Wow!

These artifacts don't glitter like gold, but their stories are priceless. Bob explained to me that this white washbasin served as a beacon each time their ship returned to the recovery site and the crew maneuvered the robot toward the wreck. The basin was eventually recovered as well and Greg Darnstaedt purchased it at auction. It took a lot of self control to obey the sign and not reach out to touch it.

The second artifact is the base of a whale oil lamp. There were no electric lights in 1857, and it wasn't until two years later that Edwin Drake started the modern oil industry with a well in Titusville, Pennsylvania, so there were no oil lamps on the SS Central America either - they burned whale oil. Bob recounted how he soaked the lamp base in a solution to remove a century of ocean encrustation. Stepping back into his lab hours later, he encountered a strange smell - it was the remaining whale oil that had leached out and now floated atop his solution. Bob skimmed it off, and a bottle of whale oil from 1857 accompanied the exhibit. Amazing.

The shipwreck was too deep for human divers to survive the pressures, so robots were used to survey the site and recover the gold and artifacts. Robots are clumsy even today, so to reduce the potential for damage, wherever piles of coins were found they were covered in a block of silicone to hold them together and protect them during recovery.

The photo on the left shows silicone being poured over a large pile of double eagles. At right is the exhibit of a block of hardened silicone after the coins had been extracted for conservation, with impressions of the coins clearly visible. Neat item. If someone would use that to cast a copy of the coin pile, it would make a great conversation piece. Where's the SS Central America gift shop?

Back to the coins. Here's an album of photos documenting each individual coin recovered from the wreck.

This was an amazing exhibit. No glittering gold bars, but history by the ton. Thank you, Bob, Greg and PAN for making this happen. Again, be sure to see Bob's article elsewhere in this issue, and follow the links to earlier ones. It's the numismatic story of the century.