Your first coin?

What coin started you collecting? Age? Details, etc.?

Mine was a 1917 Lincoln. I think it was '68, I was 9, found it in change from an Arby's in Baltimore MD.

I have no idea what made me look - I had no exposure to collecting whatsoever before.

You?

 

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hmmmm.... Great Aunt died. I was probably 13 and she had some silver coins. Mostly dimes and quarters, nothing fancy. I got a few and it went from there haha.

 

My first coins were 1970 proof sets that my parents bought when I was born - and my uncle stole from me when I was a teen. My first coin that I still have is a 1922-S silver peace dollar from Grandpa. Now if I had only saved all the other silver dollars that Grandma gave me. (doh! doh! doh!).

 

I robbed a bank in 1957, and when they opened the vault, I found bags and bags of Morgan silver dollars. After that, I went back every week to make a withdrawal.

Chris

 

I found a 1914 wheat penny on the ground the day I turned 14. Thought it was neat and got suckered in to the hobby.

 

It wasn't a coin that got me started, but rather, a set.........a proof set. 1960 'small date'. The old man had bought a few proofs from the mint that year and they all turned out to be 'small dates'. He gave me one and the rest is history.......

 

I found a 1957 D Wheat penny in my change bin about 2 years ago. Still have it even though it's not "valuable".

 

I always liked coins, but it wasn't until middle school in 1996 that a kind, old, and presumably wealthy collector, started a coin club in our school. He started most of us on wheat cents and gave us lots of coins. He invited us to a coin show and when we got there, we all got an ASE in mint condition. I promptly put the coin in my pocket and only remembered it AFTER it went through the wash. I still have it

 

Wheat cents in the late '50s . My grandmother would let us play Bingo with cents as markers , letting us keep what we won . Most went to the downstairs store for penny candy but when my Dad and Uncle gave us some blue Whitmans that was it .

 

A 1941-P wheat penny started it for me. Its reverse is actually my avatar picture, and it has a pretty good story attached to it.

I think it was in 2002 when I was about 6, and my mom had taken me to a doctor appointment and we were sitting in the waiting room. There was one of those coin donation boxes where you put a coin in and it goes rolling around and I asked my mom for some change to put in it. One of the coins was the 1941 cent, which to me looked very weird and old. I excitedly showed the coin to my mom and she gave me a different one to throw in the box in its place.

When we get to the exam room, I was still excited (since most 6 year olds are pretty excitable) and I tell the doctor about my find when she comes in. Her son happened to be a coin collector and she told me about the 1943 steel cents and said she'd mail one of her son's duplicates. Sure enough, the 1943 cent comes in the mail about a week later. This one was the second coin in my collection.

Both have sentimental value far beyond their monetary value and still reside in the same page of my Dansco Lincoln album.

At least five other pennies in that album have some pretty good stories attached to them, but the 1941 & 1943 trump all the others.

 

My parents gave me one of those blue Whitman coin folders for Lincoln memorial cents (1959-) for a Cub Scout project. I was 8. This particular version had many varieties, like the 1970 S small and large dates, 1960 S small and large dates, and all the varieties from 1982 (were there 7 of them???). I think I was in my 30s when I finally finished that, and by then had moved everything to Dansco albums.

 

17 years ago this very interesting (world coins) beetle cross design from Slovakia got me started in to coin collecting... been collecting coins ever since.




from which I started collecting topical/themed collections. "Coins with Insects" being for personal favorite to collect. and also "coins with certain stars", "coins with hands", "coins with small coins as the design on coins itself", pop out coins, toned coins, and a large MISC. world coins collection and some U.S. type coins.

 

What started it for me was a chance finding of an 1874 Victorian shilling which I found under a floorboard in an old country house where I lived in the English Midlands on a Summers day in 1969. Since then My collection has grown, and I now enjoy researching the subject and have a collection of over sixty books and I'm grateful to wonderful sites like these where I can share my knowledge with others.

 

Collecting coins is not always about adding valuable one's to a collection, it can sometimes be about acquiring them because you like them, and that's a good reason to collect them.

 

I dont have a picture of my first coin but I can tell you the story. I grew up in Ohio and used to spend alot of time looking in the fields for Indian artifacts. My father and I spent countless hours going out and looking for them. We often came across where old houses had been and were torn down, you could tell from all the glass and pottery around the site, usually on a hill. I was probably about 7 years old when we were looking one day and I found a very dirty and corroded 1851 large cent. I thought it was interesting but didnt think too much about it. A couple weeks later we were looking in another field and I found a 1907 barber dime. I thought it was neat and a few days later went to the local antique store and found some mercury dimes that I bought at 50 cents each. I liked them alot and just kept buying coins I could afford on practically no money and kept collecting through high school. I bought alot of coin collections in my area while I was in junior high and high school and kept collecting through college. I still buy some nice coins every now and again but focus now on saving for a house and retirement and such.

 

My family has been in the hospitality business for many generations. When my father received an unusual coin, he kept it in the legendary and typical old cigar box. As a child, I was fascinated to look at the odd accumulation. I remember a couple of large cents from the 1840's and 50's especially. There were a pair of earrings made from matching 1853 $2 1/2 gold pieces with contemporary heavy gold mounts soldered to the backs. The coin that started it all, however was an 1889 CC Morgan in VF. Very lightly scratched on Liberty's cheek were the initials "JJ". My father must have gotten a kick out of telling me those stood for Jesse James and perhaps it was his personal pocket piece. (no matter that Jesse was shot by Bob Ford in 1882, I believed it!). All this happened in the mid 1960's.
I still have the Quarter Eagle ear rings and the Carson City Dollar is in my cases and I haul it around to coin shows all the time. With a price tag of $2750.00, I have no fear of it leaving my possession any time soon but it gets looked at and I greatly enjoy telling it's story every time. (And then offering a similar, undamaged piece at a reasonable price!)

 

Over here in the UK we always access to Whitman folders, and it was always fun looking for coins to fill the spaces.

 

I went to get the mail and saw a nice 1928 Lincoln cent on the ground and that was when I got interested and it was sometime in 1971 & I was 11 yrs old.

 

This 1872 half dime was a present from my dad many years ago. It was my first of too many.

 

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