Vintage Coin Vets, What was it like?

I would like to hear from our Mint-State 1950's-70's Coin Veterans. What was it like? In 1965 did everyone go crazy loading up on silver? What was it like to sit down and play a slot machine that paid out 90% Silver? Did everyone pretty much wear suits? What are some of your fond coin memories? Any great stories? I read quite a bit of Harold Robbins books, and enjoy traveling back in time. What are these stories about bags of morgan dollars? If you had a paper route, did people really pay with silver certificates? How has the coin world changed since then (besides the internet). What were some of your major scores on coinage? Any scandals? (I read somwhere that a lot of coins were counterfeited in the 1950's). Any sharing would be highly appreciated. I could go on and on with questions. Please share.

 

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Yes, I too remember those golden days of yore.
Every morning I'd roll out of my cave and feed my dinosaur then go to work at the rock quarry!

 

The big thing when I was a kid, wasn't so much collecting silver but looking for old dates (on coins) and foreign coins. In the 60's, it was still fairly easy to find coins from the 20's and 30's, not commonly but still got them in change every so often. Silver dimes were far more plentiful than quarters but I remember having almost of full set of quarters from the 30's to the 60's excepting the key dates.

 

Jason, I am not old enough to help you but have a suggestion. If you like coin stories like this, I think you would really like David Bowers books, "Adventures with Coin Collecting" or something like that. I own a couple but they aren't handy. Lots of fun stories about the "good old days". In case you aren't aware, he started in the 50's being a dealer as a kid, and helped found many organizations in this hobby. For the last half of the 20th century, he truly is a great numismatist and leader in the hobby. I actually find all of his books well written. His writeup in the colonial coin book on the background of the hobby for these is fascinating.

Also, Frank Robinson has a good book on the same subject, "Confessions of a Numismatic Fanatic". I find bouth authors books worthy of rereading every few years.

Chris

 

If you want to read a true story about two young boys growing up in Depression-era Baltimore, this book is very interesting...........

http://www.wizardcoinsupply.com/treasure-in-the-cellar.html

Chris

 

Probably exactly like what it was like until just a few years ago playing a machine that paid out in clad coins. You have to remember that back then ALL of the coins were 90% silver so they were nothing special. In fact you would want to get RID of them at the bank for paper money because they were too heavy to carry around. Who wants to carry around all those heavy silver coins? For us today having a machine pay out in 90% would be wonderful. Back then it was a nuisance.

 

I wish machines still paid out in clad at least one time I'd like to play one that does.

 

That must have been an uncomfortable feeling for Kennedy, to have a 60 year old man sit on his knee!

Just kidding of course. I doubt you could have been older than 35...40 at the most at the time
Guy

 

There's actually a few casinos in Reno & Vegas that still have lots of coin operated slots. I can actually name a few off the top of my head. Circus Circus, Eldorado, Carson Valley Inn... And its still common to find 2 or 3 silver war nickels out of a $20 cashout from one of those machines.

 

Didn't play any slots, but can tell you that most cash drawers in proper businesses went to zero silver almost overnight.

 

Any vintage photography you guys can share?

 

I haven't been to Reno since 2005, but back then, Cal-Neva had three 25c slots that paid out in 90% or better silver. The max bet was 75c, and you could win from 1-5 REAL silver dollars. At that time, only one of the machines paid out Morgan and Peace dollars, and the other two paid out SAE's.

Chris

 

I miss the blacken'd gloves you used to wear, so your hands didn't get dirty from handling the silver coins.

 

I don't recall counterfeit coinage, but folks did use slugs in pay phones and vending machines. Early 1960's A pack of smokes were a .40 from a machine. Everyone wore suits from a clerk on up. Tie clip and cuff links were average attire.

Slots paying in silver dollars meant nothing, except a heavy haul to the cashier to quickly convert to paper. People went nuts during the Hunt bros era. Me included.

No hassles asking for rolls of whatever from tellers. They were happy to give them to you, and accept them back after you searched them. Banks encouraged kids to open an account, and to make small transactions. They would invite a whole classroom in to open a savings account for $1.00, give you a passbook, a piggy bank, and a thank you from the bank manager (this was in Los Angeles in the 50's). Lots of paper routes, and do gardeningfor neighbors equalled tons of change to look through. Many times you had older customers who paid with their old hoard of unsearched change. I had a neighbor who had a big juke box route (3 records for a quarter). He would take me into the bars to collect the change with him during summers. Great time to be a coin collector.

 

Hi ! Jason,

I stated collectiing in 1955. In those days, silver coins were very common. I remember going to Las Vegas and buying rolls & rolls of Morgan silver dollars with no sense of what the future would bring. Many, many went back into the slots.
In my work, there were several coin collectors and I would give these Morgan's away to fellow collectors as the value in those days was only about $ 3.00 each. I would go to the banks in those days and buy $ 50.00 bags of penneys and spend the next week going through each coin which were all wheats at that time. The sad part about my collecting was that because coins were so cheap, there was no insentive to buy the rare coins that are listed today. The object was mainly to just fill a complete book collection of certain coins.

 

I started in 1957 but all the good coins were gone by then. All the key dates and high grades were long gone. If you plotted out the grades for something like 1925 dimes you'd see that it defined the bottom half of a bell curve because collectors had removed the higher grades. The only thing that would be of value today in circulation would be varieties and gems but, of course, no one collected these.

None of the coins were very old at all. Halfs went back to 1916 as did dimes. Quarters went back to 1925 and nickels to 1917 (older had the date worn off). Cents only went back 1909 so the oldest coin you could find was a mere 48 years old and most were much newer. Worse is all the coins in circulation had been set aside as uncs so there tended to be ample quantities of everything.

Collectors now days just don't appreciate how good they have it. Rarities circulate side by side with common VG 1965 quarters. No one checks the coins and only a handful of collectors look at them. Almost anything has a finite chance of showing upin change.

 

edited

 

JCB, if you're looking for a deal on that book, half(dot)com has it a little cheaper used. If I had a copy, I'd loan it to you though! Seems like a cool read.