What Coins do you Remember Seeing in Circulation in the Past?

I recently got in to coin collecting, but as far as I can remember I haven't really seen any coin that isn't still in circulation (maybe i've seen silver without recognizing it). Also I was wondering how easy it was to find silver back in the day considering that it is still possible now.

 

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My most vivid recollection (as a youth) was of the Walking Liberty half dollar. Lovely design.

 

I also remember seeing 'Standing Liberty's', but the dates were all worn off.........

 

I guess I do remember my mom being able to get kennedy's and Ike's from the bank (every time the "tooth Faerie" came). I used to save them but as far as I know the ones I got back then are all gone

 

I remember seeing lots of Barber nickels in the slot machines in Maryland before they were outlawed in the mid-60's. I could also get Morgan dollars from the bank at face value in the early 60's.

Chris

 

I asked my dad (grew up in the 70s) if he ever saw any old coins and the only ones he can remember seeing are Franklin Halves.

 

On my paper route was the first time. A few very old spinsters who had run a boarding house had a small maple syrup container full of silver coins. When I delivered their paper they paid me out of the jug, always a silver dime. The same when I started selling them seed packets for a dime each. When my grandma paid me for a day of lawn work, she gave me a 1923 Peace dollar and then showed me a oval bank with a lock & key that was a bank promo item and continued to pay me with Mercury Dimes, Wash. Quarters and WL halves until they were gone. All happened around 1966. I was hooked forever.

 

Wheatie, Buff, Merc, Standing Liberty, Walkers and Peace. I was a paper carrier, too. I wish I could have saved all of that silver I would collect on Fridays.

 

My earliest memories were in the mid 1950s. Regularly saw wheat cents, buffalo nickels (even then they were usually worn slick),war nickels, mercury dimes, standing liberty quarters (again very worn - most slick), walking liberty halves. Of course the silver Roosevelt dimes, Washington quarters, and Franklin halves were current circulation coins. Peace and Morgans were available at the banks, but didn't circulate much.

 

Back in those days, whenever a Morgan or Peace dollar ended up in a cash register because some spinster spent it, people were more than happy to take it to the back and exchange it for paper. To think of how much we love these coins today...

 

Barber nickels?

 

Probably Liberty Head Nickels. They can be called "Barber nickels" because of the designer. Did I mention this is my 420th post?

 

I guess the only silver I've ever got in circulation was a 64 dime. It was quite a coincidence that I kept it too because at the time I didn't know about silver coinage I just marveled at how old it was and it wasn't until much later, once I started getting into coins, that I realized I had kept it.

 

Wheaties , Franklins and Roseys were being made when I was a kid , but my Dad did buy my a Mercury Whitman to put the occasional Merc we found in circulation . I did see a few Walkers but they were rare as I hardly ever saw a 1/2 dollar . My friends Dad did get the odd dollars paid in Morgans and Peace dollars . But that's a story I heard as I never saw his pay envelope . Those were fun times for collecting from change as I always thought I'd find a '09-S-VDB in change . I'm still waiting on it though . That's when money was still worth something and coming home from school with a quarter I could buy a comic for 12 cents and a can of Ravioli at the corner store and still have a nickle to buy a large candy bar .

 

I Remember the Ike,s and Franklin half dollars. Of coarse the bicentennial year coins were cool finds occasionally you would come across a buffalo nickel.

 

Franklin and Walking Liberty halves. Some Buffalo nickels here and there. Mercury dimes. And an occasional silver dollar. A worn out Indian Head cent would make an occasional cameo appearance.

 

Designer - Charles Barber

 

Growing up in Michigan... I saw a lot of Canadian change.

 

Started collecting in Maryland in the very late 1960s. I was just a little kid, so I didn't see a lot of money in circulation, but I remember the occasional Canadian dime (still mostly silver), and wheat cents weren't that unusual. Most of the US silver was already gone by then, though, so it was pretty much Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Washington, Kennedy. I do think that war nickels were still floating around a bit at that point.

When the Ikes appeared, my grandparents starting giving them as birthday money. I think the last "bank full of dollars" I got from my grandmother was SBAs. (In fact, I think I came across it in the attic a year or two ago -- it still held 20 SBAs, and 50 dimes. Oddly, all the dimes were 1972, I think, and appeared uncirculated.)

 

For me it wasn't so much the seeing as it was the hearing. The sound was always the first thing that attracted me to the coins. Growing up in the early and mid 60's as a kid with a paper route and coming home with pockets FULL of change, is where my coin journey began. As a kid, the sound of the silver compared to the clad always dazzled and amazed me.