Des Moines Marble Show Report. "a Success"

[Killermarbles]

My two cents

Well I arrived at the hotel on Wednesday afternoon. The hotel is located straight Across the street from the Des Moines international airport. You won't need to rent a car for this show because the hotel is pretty much self contained. You can walk to the hotel from the airport or call the hotel shuttle. The hotel has a descent restaurant/deli open from 6:30 AM to 10:30 PM

Serving good food from cold cereal to prime rib. And a in house store/snack shop.

On Wednesday there were lots of rooms open for marble hunting, by Thursday there was about 40 or so and I think Friday there were 50+ rooms.

Chad had the details down and deserves a round of applause for all his hard work.

From what I could see it ran smooth as silk. Thanks Chad

There were lots of great marbles available.

Seems like pelts are very popular and I was told that handmades are too.

I was able to ad several handmade marbles to my collection including a pair of 2-1/4 same cane latts with great color, a 1" black and white clam, not to mention a few others.

I will try to get some pictues up this week.

Also I will be in the south west part of Minnesota all week if anybody has any handmades for sale and want to get together please email me at [email protected] to see if we can put a meeting together.

Randy Conway

[b-80]

The Des Moines, Iowa show was very well organized and ran extremely smooth.

Handmades seem to rule as many high end pieces changed hands.

The ball room had easy access for all the vendors and was busy most of the morning despite the rain.

Chad Cline and Scott McBride kept everything moving with door prizes and a marble shooting contest.

Notable absentees were Claire & Stan Block, Elliot Pincus, and Bernie Benvinediez (sp) among others.

Even the legendary couple Judy and Gary Huxford who ran the Amana show for 30 some years made an appearance.

Chad announced that he is forming an Iowa Marble Club to keep the local interest up which should help attendance.

I'm sure Chad will have pictures up soon.

This is definitely an up & coming show that all should try and attend next year.

Roy Katskee

[BobBlock]

My dad became ill on the way out, so my parents turned around and came home. They arrived home safely yesterday afternoon. - Bob

[Steph]

Hope he is feeling better!

[Ric]

Bob, Chad told me about your Dad. Thanks for letting us know they arrived home safely. I hope he's back at it soon!

[romanoak]

Bob,

Sure hope your dad is doing better. Always a pleasure to talk with him. Look forward to it every show. Got a surprise at this show, I can sell marbles. I couldn't get out of my room to really hunt for the traffic coming in and buying and it continued at the show. Congrats to Chad and company for a well run show. Thanx to all who bought from me. Only complaint was cold bacon at the restaurant for breakfast:-) Bill

[b-80]

Romanoak,

Everybody has been patiently waiting for you to open your treasure chest and sell some mibs.

I hope it didn't hurt to bad.

I too was very busy and didn't get a chance to get beyond the second floor.

RK

[IowaMarble]

Well, the 2nd Annual Des Moines Marble Show is over and I think it is safe to say that it was officially a success! In-room trading began on Tuesday night, 6/3 with a couple of collector’s coming in early and quickly grew to 16 rooms by Wednesday night, 6/4. Thursday’s, 6/5 in-room trading was fairly strong with 47 rooms and Friday, 6/6 got even busier with 52 rooms! There were about 6 or 8 folks who unfortunately had to stay in hotels down the street due to our room block selling out almost 6 weeks early. Our block for next year has been increased to 85 rooms so we shouldn’t run out of rooms going forward but I can’t stress enough how important it is to call early and make your room reservation. There were several collectors in attendance who had recently made new marble collection acquisitions which allowed for some great marbles to be had at very reasonable prices. Friday night’s adult ringer tournament was opened up by Dave Brauhn’s grandchildren, Miles and Grant singing their song “Marbles are Fun”. Congratulations to the winners, Tom Morse (1st Place), Larry Svacina (2nd Place), and Charles Williams (3rd Place). Saturday’s, 6/7 show was not to be missed and also experienced a great turnout with a children’s ringer tournament and 36 exhibitor tables being setup for display and last minute deals. The formation of the Iowa Marble Club 501©(3) was announced and started out with about a dozen new members. Annual memberships are still available for $25.00. The first club meeting will be later this fall, a specific date has not yet been determined. There are still white, black and smoke gray Des Moines Marble Show t-shirts available in all sizes for $20 and $22. The Des Moines Marble Show website (www.DesMoinesMarbleShow.com) should be updated by the end of the week and will have about 300 new photos of the in-room trading, adult marble tournament and marble show!

Thanks to all who supported this year’s show!

Chad

[BuckEye]

Sounds like it was awesome and something not to be missed inthe future!

[IowaMarble]

The photos from this year's show have been posted:

http://www.desmoinesmarbleshow.com/photos.html

Enjoy!