Hello all,

        Marcus is right...this week at COA might just be the best week of your
year. If you are an avid collector, if you can't get enough of seeing
shells, a COA convention is almost (note I say ALMOST! I can take it!)
sensory overload. What is it all about, you ask? Well, have a look:
        You get a dozen or more great programs by experienced shellers at
exciting localities, or on a particular group of shells, or on how to
care for or curate your shells, or on the sea itself, or on any other
shell related topic.
        You get daily silent auctions of great specimens donated by dealers and
other shellers, books, shell craft, art, jewelry, fabric, all at bargain
prices. If you don't see anything you like, great amusement can be yours
just by watching "duels" between (or among!) other bidders.
        You get bargain tables of shells, all at .25 .50 or $1.
        You get an opportunity to buy chances on very special shells and shell
peripherals. One year we had a gorgeous display coffee table auctioned!
Carole Marshall, do you enjoy it as much now as you seemed to then? I,
the luckless one, own two Mathilde Duffy shell paintings!
        Seemingly limitless numbers of door prizes are a constant little source
of excitement.
        This year you get an opportunity on Friday and Saturday to visit the
famed Florida fossil beds and collect (Pliocene and Pleistocene) fossils
of the antecedents of the shells we know today. Last time I did that, I
collected:
        BIG fossil Siphocypraea cowries with a golden color and lots of gloss.
        A fossil pearl that is rather baroque, and a rather pearly gray in
color.
        A Cyphoma finkli Petuch, 1987
        A Strombus leydyi
        The utterly gorgeous Murex (Subpterynotus) textilis (Gabb, 1873), just
as I                    stepped out of the bus!
        Vasum horridum Heilprin, 1887 and V. locklini (Olsson and Harbison,
1979)
        The strange, spiny Busycon echinatum (Dall, 1890)
        The big and beautiful Xancus regina (Heilprin, 1887)
        Tons of big sinistral cones in the Conus adversarius complex
        Slews of bivalves, from oysters to pectens to Venus clams.
        The most GORGEOUS clump of huge barnacles you ever saw.
        Any number of elegant turrids and ceriths and turritellas and
marginellas and                 more!
        A big lightning whelk and two huge horse conchs from the Pleistocene
        And that is just what I remember without opening my fossil drawers. And
I was           a beginner.

        There is a really super welcome party that has loads of delicious food,
entertainment and shellers of all walks of life and collecting
specialties. A great place to meet old friends, make new friends and
stumble upon Conch-L correspondents.
        There is the chance to meet all the dealers you have corresponded witha
nd purchased from for years...they're all there! Theyt come from all
over the world.
        There are field trips galore, especially this year! Some are collecting
trips, and others are for the whole family. Sarasota offers so much! And
so will the Seattle WA area next summer!
        There is the annual auction. Here is the event that makes COA solvent
every year. Collectors and dealers from around the world give their all
for this one. Really special stuff, and not just shells. Dr. Gary
Rosenberg's mother makes gorgeous shell quilts now and then, and so does
COA's own Linda Koestel. Books and other treasures go for big bucks, or
slip by for just small bucks!
        The most anxiously awaited event comes toward the end of the week, the
annual COA Bourse! Thirty or forty dealers from the US and around the
world fill a huge exhibition hall with their best, their most exotic,
and their most beautiful shells. Competition among both dealers and
buyers is keen and, well, you just have to see the glitz and glitter and
gastropods to believe it! It is the premier shell event in the world (so
far!) Plus there are books and art works and shell stamps and coins.
        A super banquet, usually with a distinguished guest speaker, winds
things up. Past speakers have included Tucker Abbott, Peter Dance, Ruth
Turner, Russ Jensen, Barry Wilson, Emily Vokes, Hank Chaney, and one
year we even had a speaker on Shell money. Fascinating! Do you have any
idea how many shells it takes to buy a wife? And if she is also a
sheller, the price goes way up from there. This year, I understand we
are having a very special entertainment instead of a speaker. Can't wait
to find out what it is!
        Now I have no doubt forgotten lots, but the most important aspect of
the convention for most collectors, the part that is definitely
unforgettable, is the cameraderie. There is always something going on,
someone new to meet, something new to be learned, or contributed by you.
You make so many friends. Attend one COA and fall in love! Two and you
become an addict!  Try it! Sneak away this weekend to Sarasota or start
planning now for Seattle in 2003. See you there. (I have not missed a
convention since 1987!)

For more information go to the COA website
http://coa.acnatsci.org/conchnet/
and choose the icon for conventions.

Lynn Scheu
Louisville, KY
Retiring editor, COA's American Conchologist