Chicagopex (Chicago, Il) Nov. 22-24, 2013

My favorite show of the year. Always a fun time!

November 22-24, 2013
Westin Chicago Northwest
400 Park Blvd
Itasca, IL 60143

Friday: 10AM-6PM
Saturday: 10AM-6PM
Sunday: 10AM-4PM

Free admission and parking.

For room availability and reservations, please contact the hotel directly at (630) 773-4000, or through Westin reservations at (866) 716-8104, http://www.westinchicagonorthwest.com. Mention CHICAGOPEX for our special room rate ($111 per night + tax = $123.21). The hotel may quote a $10 per night facility fee, which will be waived for CHICAGOPEX guests.

Show website http://www.chicagopex.com/chicagopex2012.html

(Yes, they appear to be using a URL with last year's date for the current show.)

Society Meetings

United Postal Stationery Society
United States Stamp Society
Illinois Postal History Society

Dealer List

I have taken the bourse diagram from the CHICAGOPEX website and put the dealer names into their booth spaces as best as I could determine (I personally find that more usable as a single sheet than cross-referencing numbers). The numbers in the dealer list are somewhat at odds with one another when it comes to some of the new or moved dealers; there are multiple dealers for some booth numbers and none for others. I've put question marks in the booth spaces I cannot verify.

New dealers for 2013 (I've highlighted them in yellow in the list below, and in red on the diagram):

Paul Aschenbrenner (Wisconsin)
Clark Philatelics (Massachusetts)
Michael Eastick (Australia)
Wayne Gehret (Pennsylvania)
H.B. Philatelics (Missouri)
Walter Kasell Stamps (Massachusetts)
Kirk's Stamp Co. (California)
Jim Leer Stamps (California)
The Post Road Co. (Wisconsin)
Village Stamp & Coin (Indiana)
Torsten Weller Postal History (Australia)

2012 dealers not participating this year:

Castlerock Stamps (Florida)
Christopher/Richard Covers (North Carolina)
Gutter Pairs (Nevada)
Hunt & Co. (Texas)
Matthew Kewriga (Massachusetts)
Brian Moorhouse (United Kingdom)
RKA Covers (Indiana)
Robert Sazama (Illinois)
Summit City Stamps (Indiana)
Toga Associates (Connecticut)
Triple S Postal History (Ohio)
Antonio Torres (United Kingdom)
Don Tocher - U.S. Classics (Colorado)
Bob Weisz Stamps & Postcards (Illinois)
Worldwide Philatelics (Missouri)

I live in Chicago, and getting to Itasca would require a long train ride. Do you know if there are taxis at the train station in Itasca?

Revenue- thanks for sharing all the information. Your floor plan is much easier to follow with the names typed in.

I'll be there with my boys. The kids' room always has so much good stuff, that we don't really spend much time at the dealers' booths.

I'm afraid I can't help with that, as I don't live in the Chicagoland area. I would call the Westin in Itasca or the train station.

Just a reminder that this show opens a week from tomorrow.

Revenue,

Did you find anything good? The boys and I went today. The kids' room had moved down to the exhibit room and was a big disappointment. BUT, I did find a cover that belonged to my great-grandfather.





The 2-hour drive was worth it for that.

Wow! Finding something from a relative at a stamp show must have been quite the rush. I'm still looking for something that connects Grandma with Amelia Earhardt. Nothing yet ... but I'll keep looking.

Sorry for the delay in replying. I just got home about 15 minutes ago, exhausted and beyond broke. :)

I knew going in that this was going to be an expensive weekend, as within the last several weeks Richard Friedberg had acquired Mike Morrissey's huge 2nd and 2rd issue revenue exhibit, along with all the supporting collections of stamps and documents (the myriad of duplicates, as well as the material not quite good enough to make the exhibit... the dregs being better than the material found in 99% of revenue collections).

Richard had sent out an email blast announcing he had the material, and there were several of us waiting for it when the show opened. Tim Wait and I both went crazy on the stuff; luckily we don't compete for the same material.

The depth and breadth was awe-inspiring. I don't know that another compilation of 2nd and 3rd issue material that extensive and of that quality will ever be seen again. If I took a 2nd mortgage on my house and put $30K into purchases from the collection, it would have barely made a dent. I know that the acquisition cost of the collection was well into six figures. That's nominal compared to big name front-of-book collections, but when you think about this collection covering a range of only 48 major catalog numbers (R103-R151), it's absolutely stupendous.

Partime, what was your grandmother's connection to Earheart? If you have any information, you should post it here. wt1 is the one that located one of my great-grandfather's covers on ebay. That's what got me started on this journey!

Revenue, I can't believed I missed all the excitement, lol. I bet that was an amazing experience and a difficult one- trying to decide what to get and what to pass on. Once you've rested, you've have to post pictures.

Grandma used to tell us various things, especially after a few Hot Toddies. My memory fades, but I had thought that she was a roommate of Amelia's at College. I got interested and checked where Amelia went, and located Ogontz School for Girls. The school was friendly enough to do some research, and it was confirmed that they both attended at the same time, though a year apart (Amelia was the class of 1918 while Grandma was the class of 1919). They couldn't confirm them rooming together, so I'll assume that they didn't. I haven't found any covers in her collection from Amelia, so they probably weren't very close friends. However, if something comes up that ties Mary Lewis to Amelia Earhart, I would love to get it.

That's a great story, Partime! Maybe something will come along soon. I'll certainly keep that info in the back of my head and let you know if I ever see anything.