For the second year in a row, Canada’s largest coin show has been cancelled due to COVID-19.
Slated for March 13-14, this year’s Edmonton Coin Show & Sale was called off “due to the current and foreseeable health advisories and government restrictions on gatherings and travel,” according to a joint statement issued by the event’s co-chairs, Marc Bink, David Peter and Pierre Driessen, earlier this month.
“We remain hopeful, with the vaccine roll-out, that conditions will permit the November 2021 show to be held,” adds the statement. “We will keep you posted and advise you in a timely manner as we learn more. Here is to keeping our spirits positive and testing negative.”
Organizers with the Edmonton Numismatic Society are now planning for the club’s next show this November.
FIRST COVID CANCELLATION
Last year, on March 12 – two days before the show was set to open its doors, and one day after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic – organizers with the Edmonton club announced that spring’s show was cancelled.
“The show was cancelled because of the changing advisories by local health authorities, who are now understanding what the risk really is,” Driessen told CCN last March, adding that risk centres on people aged 60 and over—a major numismatic demographic.
“That’s the target group, and that’s our median age. With the nature of our show drawing over 1,000 people throughout the weekend, we were forced to make this difficult decision out of an abundance or overabundance of caution, although I don’t think you can be too careful when it comes to people’s health.”
Within days, coin show cancellations came pouring into CCN from across the country. Other than a small show held in August in Cobourg, Ont. (“Cobourg show brings collectors back to bourse,” CCN Vol. 58 #12) during the province’s brief re-opening as COVID-19 cases fell, no coin shows have been held in Canada since the pandemic began.