Hubby had gotten me $60 in pennies. Going through them now and then. He knows I don’t care for new ones lol.
When I was young, back in the late 70s, my brother and I would get $50 in cents every Saturday morning when my folks would go out for a weekly breakfast at the local diner. We'd run to the bank and get the coins to search for LWCs. Since we were both paperboys at the time, we both got into the hobby because of the change we were collecting from our customers. My folks would take about 90 minutes to have a leisurely breakfast, so that was the time we had to get into the bank, search the coins, and then return them for cash. We were pretty fast at flipping cents to the reverse. We didn't care for the 'new ones' either. Flash forward 35 years, I re-engaged with the hobby, and CRH. What struck me was the varying amounts of LWCs available from box-to-box. Pitiful findings really. Not like it was way back then. Even the odd IHC was a likely event in a $50 bag. Not at all the case today. So, I started to look up stuff on line, and what I found was that there were so many modern varieties to look for out there that I could improve the odds of catching something interesting if I broadened my searches. And a variety hunter was born. I had an old Dinkleacre barrel, maybe 2 gallons of beer fit in it, but was ideal for tossing cents into. While I took the break from the hobby, I didn't totally abandon my interest in coin collecting, so I had accumulated about 15 years of cents in that can. All 'new' modern cents...LMCs. As I went through that can, I found a number of DDOs/DDRs, RPMs and other variety coins (WAMs, Transitional cents). Most were nearly uncirculated. And when looking up values, it was clear: the most valuable coins a CRH enthusiast is likely to find are amongst the 'new ones'. So, hopefully I've given you something to consider for your own CRH events. That said, I still love finding LWCs/IHCs during a CRH event. Exciting to find coins over 100 years old!
Thank you! I got into it the old ones because of how many dad had. I’m not sure how far I will go and I would look at the newer ones, but I just like the oldies lol. I have kept my dad’s finds for my son. It is interesting how people start their coin interests.
You had collected just by tossing them into your barrel and later you found your calling. Thank you for the story.
That’s about right. When I went off to college and later as I started my career, I didn’t have time to collect seriously (or play golf). More than a decade passed. During that time I did ‘collect’ but it was mostly just scanning my change for anything old or interesting. Only after buying my first home and starting a family did the conditions re-emerge. Two things happened. My dad wanted to make my old bedroom into a computer room/office so he had me retrieve my collection which had sat under the bed for nearly 30 years. It was safe there. But by this time I had youngsters in my own home and aware that if they didn’t know the importance of the collection, could grab some extra change for spending money. A scary thought that my collection could finally be at risk. Teaching them that the collection has value renewed my own interest in collecting again, on a more serious level. Unfortunately neither of my kids got bit by the bug, but at least they learned why certain spare change is valuable to me.
Well you never know. I’m just a couple of years into coins and you may have read that it is my dad’s coin jars made me start looking at the dates, etc. One day, your kids may just remember something from just one coin they touch along the way, look at it and think of their dad.
