Starting today, the Los Angeles Convention Center will look like a billion bucks.

Literally.

An annual traveling exhibit of rare coins and bills, dubbed the “World’s Fair of Money,” comes through Sunday to the downtown convention center’s West Hall.

The exhibit’s non-profit sponsor, the National Numismatic Association, said the event – the $1 billion contents of which include $100,000 bills and four of the five 1913 Liberty Head nickels – travels around the country, year after year.

The World’s Fair of Money hasn’t hit Los Angeles since 1975, said ANA president Barry Stuppler – and a lot has changed since then.

The 32,000 nationwide ANA members and other coin buffs can appreciate the Smithsonian’s newest contributions, which include a $20 gold coin minted during the 1849 California Gold Rush and coins given to President Teddy Roosevelt.

“These are the rockstars of the coin collecting world,” Karen Lee, a numismatics project specialist at the American History Smithsonian, said. “There’s so much history smashed on this tiny little artistic thing jingling around in your pocket.”

Stuppler, a resident of Woodland Hills, said history buffs may also find numismatics, or coin-collecting, interesting.

“The stories alone, in terms of looking at the money, will just be fascinating,” Stuppler said. “The history and the excitement… it’s incredible.”

A coin exhibit might seem like it would draw a niche crowd, but Lee said that’s far from true.

“Coin collecting is the most popular hobby in America,” Lee said. “It’s not just the crusty old billionaires who do it – it’s everyone who stashes quarters away in their sock drawers.”

Lee said the exhibit can pull in as many as 35,000 coin fans.

In the last few years, she’s seen Boy Scouts getting coin-collecting badges, grandfathers with their kids and people curious to learn the value of their coins.

Those less interested in the stories can even make money of their own, Stuppler said.

Exhibit-goers can bring in anything gold, which trades at $960 per ounce, to convention vendors, Jay Beeton, an ANA representative, said.

Beeton said appraisers will also examine coins.

“You may have some coins or money that grandparents have left to you that’s sitting around in a sock drawer,” Beeton said. “And you can bring it in and say, `What’s this worth?”‘

The show has been in the works since 2003, in a process that Stuppler briefly compared to the Olympic selection committee: picking a location, advertising the event and arranging for all the attractions to arrive.

Stuppler said vendors raised questions of safety of displaying valuables in downtown Los Angeles, which he said has a dangerous reputation among some collectors.

“Many of them haven’t been in downtown L.A. in years, since L.A. Live opened, and they’ve been concerned,” Stuppler said. “But we’ve worked with LAPD in the past and security won’t be a problem.”

Beeton said Brinks armored cars transport the exhibit contents, as well as those provided by ANA members – some quirky, but all valuable.

One exhibit, brought by a local woman, will display ancient Yap stones, the currency of a state by the same name in Micronesia.

Stuppler said islanders place the stones, which look “like donuts” and have diameters of up to 12 feet, on their property to mark their wealth: the bigger, the better.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.