How did you get started?

Hello,
I'm new to this site and thought I'd give an introduction.
My name is Ibraaheem Mason. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada.

I got into collecting coins in 1998 after finding a $1000 peso coin in the grass of my schoolyard. I liked the design of the eagle with the snake, and I still have that same coin.

Now I'm a world coin collector with favourites to collect being coins with boats, animals, or odd shaped coins.
And favourite countries would be New Zealand, ancient Rome, ancient Greece, and Egypt.

I currently have over 600 coins..

How did you get started?


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I got started in, well, 1966, when silver coins were beginning to disappear from circulation in the United States. My grandmother had a passing interest in coins, and she realized that silver US coins would be worth more than their face value, and some other coins that were in circulation at the time also had some numismatic value. So she gave me an old Stack's buying price list and tried her best to get me interested in coins. I think she would be surprised at the collection that I have assembled since then

 

Welcome to the neighborhood, "Ibby"!

Geez! You would ask that question. Everyone else will start to moan when I tell this story again for the umpteenth time.

I became interested in coins when I was 10 years old in 1957. No! I didn't have anyone in the family who collected coins. I wasn't left a collection by a distant relative. I actually got my start in a poolroom.

I started playing pool in 1956, and I had a natural talent for the game. That next year, I was gambling at the local poolroom with another kid, Joe, who was 16. We were playing "nickel & dime" 9-ball. In those days, gambling was frowned upon, so we always kept score on the wire. When he finally quit, he owed me $5, and he gave me four dollar bills and a Morgan silver dollar. I didn't know what it was, so I went to the bank where I had a savings account and asked one of the tellers if she had any more of these, holding it for her to see. She spread a bunch of them across the counter, and I picked out four more with the rest of my winnings.

After that, it pretty much became a ritual. I would win at the poolroom (I rarely lost!) and go to the bank to get more Morgan dollars. By the early 60's, I had accumulated more than 800 Morgan dollars. Unfortunately, pool was taking up so much of my time that I decided to sell that collection, and I got $4,000 for them.

I took a 20-year hiatus from the hobby and returned in the 80's. By then, coins were being certified by the grading services, and I had to learn all about the Sheldon Scale. Naturally, I started all over again with Morgan dollars. Although I did branch out to other denominations and even French medals, Morgans will remain my first love. I've had to sell some of the raw specimens and most of my CC's, but I still have 140 or so certified Morgans which are worth a WHOLE LOT MORE than those first 800 coins from the 50's & 60's.

The downside to this story is that I wish that I could go to the bank, today, and buy Morgan dollars at face value.

Chris

 

I hadn't heard your story before, Chris, so I'm glad you posted it.

When I was a kid, you could still find small silver in change, and an occasional Buffalo Nickel - and once I even came across a Shield Nickel. My brother and I had some Whitman albums to which we occasionally added coins.

Later, in my 20's, I dabbled with a US Type set, but never took it seriously. I only returned to collected in the last couple of years and started out with moderns, but moderns didn't satisfy me beyond the fleeting pleasure of collecting bright shiny objects, which incidentally my cat does just as well.

So I hung around the ancients forum until I got sucked into the dark side by those Sith Lords medoraman and Doug Smith.

Welcome to the forum, Ibraheem.

 

welcome to CT Ibraaheem. I got started in coins with the boy scouts. but did not think anything of it until later on in life. I have been seriously collecting for about 16 years now. my main focus is topical themed collections. "coins with insects", coins with hands, "coins with certain stars", "coins on coins", rainbow toned coins, odd shapes, and a very small U.S. coins (mainly mercury dimes, sac dollars, statehood quarters, American the beautiful parks quarters.) and a "pop out" collection. I have been wanting to start a type U.S. gold set but that will have to wait a little while. I have a large miscellaneous world coins collection. I mostly collect world coins. I would like to see pictures of your odd shaped coins collection and any other of your favorite coins.

Craig.

 

I remember mine like it was yesterday. My mother had one of those cheesy "vault" piggybanks from the bank. In it she kept some old coins she had. One of them was a walking liberty half, (maybe xf condition with nice contrasting toning). It was simply the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I soon learned how to pick the lock on it and open it up just to stare at that coin. The beauty of that coin single handedly got me addicted to coin collecting.

To bad modern coins do not have that level of artistry. The closest I see is some national parks quarters, but being in low relief they lose something.

 

My father-in-law had a box of coins that he would bring out now and again for us to look at. As a history buff I was always amazed at holding s piece of history in my hand. When he passed away my mother-in-law gave the coins to me. I started doing research on them and attributions. The coins were a mix from Judaean right up to 19th century British, a couple hundred in total . I was hooked and have been collecting since.
My interests have changed over the years as far as what I want to collect. Roman, Byzantine, Middle ages, Judaean, Nabataean and so on. Each collection has meant hours and hours of research for the attribution and historical backgrounds of each coin. I never grow tired of it.
Btw I have joined other coin forums in the past but this one is by far my favorite so welcome!
Al

 

Welcome to ct. I started with those blue Lincoln cent folders in the early 80s and a copy of the redbook I think ca 1983. And then I started buying ihc and buffalo nickels. then I met an older gentleman who collected coins and also sold them I asked him if he had any large cents for sale for low money as I was 7or 8 he brought a few by and I bought a 15 stars 1817 for $5 he'd also sometimes give me his old copies of coin world. I remember he had a flowing hair silver dollar in his type set he prized I said someday I'll have one too!! I collected off and on through high school and later and being in the antique business I'd often see coins at auctions and would often buy them (the early ones) I'd kinda followed coins but not too serious then about 4 years ago I joined the 21st c and got an iPhone one night while bored I'd got an ad for ha coin auctions and clicked on it and saw all the coins I wanted but never saw local. A monster was created it lit my passion for coins again and I haven't stopped. I've started to get more involved with the coin community here tho nobody's ever met me in person someday I'll make it to coin shows and be more social but it's hard when I got 2 businesses to run

 

Ever since I was a young child coins interested me for some reason, and I'd get really excited whenever I'd find anything unusual in my parents' change, such as a wheat penny, a bicentennial quarter or a Canadian coin. I always saved these. At some point my dad pulled out the coins he brought back from his time in the military and gave those to me, and my grandmother gave me some foreign coins she had accumulated over the years from when she owned a tavern.

About five years ago I started dating someone who later became my wife, and she knew I kind of liked coins, so she bought me a few Whitman albums for the U.S. presidential dollar coins. I wanted to fill these up, then get others and fill those up. Pretty soon I had all the cheap spots filled and the ones I still needed were too pricey, so I turned to foreign coins, which could be had for 25 cents apiece from a big bin at the coin store. Now I probably have about 5,000 foreign coins and hardly even think about U.S. coins anymore.

 

When I was 8 years old, my aunt came back from a trip to Europe and gave me all of her leftover change/coins. It was a variety of common coins from England, Switzerland, France, Germany, Ireland and Austria. I was absolutely hooked. The next year she traveled to Asia and brought me coins from China and Japan.

I still have every one of those coins to this day. My mom bought me a large book of world coins (which I also still have) and I spent countless hours looking up the coins and cataloging them. By the time I was 10 years old I had quite the collection. I then started asking relatives for coins instead of toys/games and began receiving Proof sets from the US mint and other coin sets. By 12 years old I sold almost all of my toys at our family garage sale and used the money to buy some Morgan Silver Dollars (with my grandfather at a local flea market).

Since my family is originally from Germany I have specialized in German coins over the past 10 years or so. But if it were not for my Aunt giving me some common coins, I might not have taken an interest in collecting.

Morale of the story - give a youngster some coins! It may inspire them to begin collecting.

 

My coin collecting interest began in the early 1960s when I was filling the 3-fold Whitman folders with USA dates & mint marks. I found error coins during the roll searching. Here are some Mexico error coins. Sorry, I couldn't find any photos depicting an error 1,000 peso coin.

 

Likewise. Do you still do it? A part of me wants to get US coin albums of older series, like the Indian Cents and Buffalo Nickels and fill them up with worn, but respectable coins, if for no other reason than to finish something I started in my childhood.

 

Wow these are great stories of how everyone started. I'm only 25, so I suppose collecting for about 15-16 years is only just starting out lol. I only recently got into collecting ancient Roman coins, very fascinating to learn about the history and having a piece of ancient history with you.


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I've always collected some sort of coin. When I was very young (8 or so), I searched along with all my friends for a 1909 S VDB, but, of course, I never found one. Then I moved on to Barber Nickels and Liberty Dimes. In my teens I was very interested in literature, especially Shakespeare, and was hooked on Roman history from the play The Death of Julius Caesar. I even named my son Mark Anthony (how geeky is that?). While living in Germany in the mid to late 70's, I visited Rome and Trier to mention a couple of Roman historical places, which also re-energized my interest in Roman history. Finally, in 1981 I purchased my first Roman coin. A Mark Anthony Legionary Denarius which I still own today. Needless to say, the rest is history. I now have a fairly large collection of Roman Imperial coins, and I've branched out recently to collecting Roman Republican and Greek coins when I can find any I can afford.

MARCUS ANTONIUS AR Denarius
OBVERSE: ANT AVG III VIR R P C, Praetorian galley, thyrsos behind prow REVERSE: LEG XI, eagle between standards
Patrae 32-31 BC
3.05g, 16mm
RSC 27

 

That's a marvelous coin, Bing. I wish I could afford a legionary denarius in such a high grade.

 

Thanks. When I bought it in 1981 it wasn't so expensive as today. However, I do not recall the price I paid, but I know I did not have a lot of money at the time.

 

i started when i was seven, sorting coins for my dad. he is not a collector, he is a pre 1982 cent hoarder though. thats how i got started. three-four years later searching for the coppers i found my first wheatie. a 1945. after that i was always looking for em'. i found a few more in my spare change over the next few months. then i found a dime, which brought me to this site in 2012. and ever since then i have been hooked. line and sinker.

 

I started as a kid, putting pennys in a whitman folder over 50 years ago. I still have some of those old folders.

 

I am in the UK. My father returned from work as a builder one day having been removing a staircase from a hose that was being refurbished. Under one of the stairs he found a small group of bronze coins which he brought home to me to have a look at. I was around 10 years old at the time and was immediately fascinated. These turned out to be pennies, half pennies and farthings of George III dating to 1806. I then started saving any money I could put aside and accumlating a small collection of English farthings dating back to Charles I.
I no longer actively collect English coins and am an avid collector of ancients but still have those bronze coins around and will hand them to my son in the fullness of time.

Martin