The first coin i ever collected...

Had to be about 1986. I was about 10. My dad had a baby food jar in the closet he kept change in. There was a 1942 mercury dime sticking out the side, obverse visible. I asked him what it was and he told me and gave it to me. Over the next couple years I collected a few other circulated coins. Then I hit my teens and forgot about coins. He died around 94. Fast forward to a couple years ago. I had moved to New Hampshire from Illinois and was going through the few things I had left that I brought with me. Found those old coins. Even that dime. That I have had over 30 years now. It's in my safe in an envelope with that story for my kids. Not sure about the mint mark. And I need to check to just make sure it wasn't a 1942/1 overdate. However I didn't know until after I had cleaned it that you don't do that. I was ten! It's the only one I ever cleaned though. Just thought I would share this story...

 

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Hey , nice story . 1986 , huh ? I was 19 . lol . I remember those years. I too was a young collector , so I can relate to you. Still have my childhood coins too. Thanks .

 

Mine was a 1939 Washington Quarter my ma got in change at Michaels.

 

I guess I was kind of spoiled. My uncle owned an antique refurbish store up in the backwoods of Maine. He knew I loved history and such. He was refurbishing an old dresser he had purchased and came across a small sack of coins. He gave them to me. They were all Hibernia coins from the 1600's. Most were completely unreadable, except for the major part of the design of the coin. I fascinated over those coins for years. Unfortunately, through age and many moves, I have no idea where the coins ever ended up. I wish I still had them.

https://d31a7zxp1oft1z.cloudfront.n...6ba62a8c9fa71fcd119f940ba3092ef7c-13466_0.jpg

 

Very nice story, @Derrick Combs ! Congrats finding that cool Dime!

Although, I am an Ancients Collector, many of us started by collecting coins from our childhood. I grew up in the USA, so my starting coins were from America.

I started collecting when I was 8 or 9. Started with Moderns. Believe it or not, I found a US Civil War Token in my Grandparent's change jar. I asked my Grandmother if I could have it, and gave her a dollar bill so I felt that It was mine. We went to a local coin shop, Mr LLoyd Fudge’s Coin Shop in Mountain View, AR. He explained the coin and all the history behind it. I WAS HOOKED! In fact, I would spend my summer's savings from working (yeah, farm work, cutting grass, cleaning out barns, etc. to make money), on other US Modern Coins. In fact, I gravitated to the Odd Denominations (1/2c, 2c Ni and AR, 3c, 20c), Trade Dollars chopped or not, Fractional Currency, Civil War Tokens, Hard Time Tokens, etc. as it was cool HISTORY. Yes, of course, I collected some of the other denoms, but that was boring. No real HISTORY.

After 25 years, I dumped 90% of my Modern Coin collection, and really pursued my passion of Ancient History. I captured 4 Athens Owls and an Alexander III Makadonwn Drachm.

I immediately chased my real historical passion of the Roman Republic and those Entities that interacted with the Roman Republic.


This is my COIN #1 for my Coin Collecting Hobby:




Probly my first Roman Republic.

RR M Furius LF Philus AR Denarius 119 BCE Janus Trophy Carnyx Cr 281-1 Sear 156

 

I love first coin stories. I have told this before. My first was a Franklin half my mother gave me to buy my lunch with at school one day. I had never seen a big coin like that before and I went hungry at school that day. My coin fires have been burning ever since.

 

When I was 5 my aunt gave me an 1885 nickel and that got me started. It was in 1948 and was worth $5 at the time. The other favorite would be the Twenty Cent piece I got in change from an old man that peddled vegetables in the neighborhood. That would have been early 50's.

 

Nice story, welcome back to coin collecting, and fond memories.

 

20 cent piece still circulating in the 1950's, 100+ year old obsolete coin. Maybe it was the old guy's lucky pocket coin

 

My story is a little funny . When I was very young , I use to help dig and plant my Uncle's garden . Every year from 1976-1989 ( when he died) , I would dig and turn over the dirt exposing a coin or two ( usually wheaties and Nickels ) . I thought it was strange so I asked him, why all the coins in the dirt ? He said that was where they dumped the spent coal . I never thought much about it until I started Metal Detecting in 2001 .
The coins were all pre-1964 (Mostly early 1900's - 1950's ) and some in nice condition . After Metal Detecting a few times I had a revelation ? Figure it out ? That's right . He was the one , planting all those coins my child hood. LOL. No other reason why they were in NON-DUG condition . LOL. He didn't have to do that, I would of done it for nothing because he was a War Hero who lost a leg and I looked up to him for that .

 

No. It was the standard for the day. Virtually any coin ever produced for circulation was available in change. To the general population of the day a coin was money. Indianhead pennies, Liberty nickels, Standing Liberty quarters, Barber coins, Morgan and Peace dollars were available every day. The Twenty Cent piece was very close to the size of a quarter. People were recovering from a war and all coins were still silver. And, it was only 75 years old in 1950.

 

That's amazing, back then did you ever see the large pre-1929 dollar bills still around. They would have only been 30 years out of circulation.

 

Hello Group,
The above stories have really shared some interesting & charming memories.
My 1st coin was a gift from mom's step-brother & my uncle Leslie Parker. I was only 12 and we were visiting he & my aunt in Santa Fe NM. Uncle Les had retired from working on the RailRoad and was showing me the coins he had collected at his work. Allowing me to pick any coin I fancied, I chose an 1854-O seated liberty quarter. If memory serves, it was in VF-XF condition & the design was awesome, to my eyes anyway.
That was all it took, as I have been an on-again/ off-again collector now for 64 years.
Unfortunately, I no longer have the quarter but have seriously considered buying an MS example.
J.T.

 

Not the large bills. I had seen some but not in circulation. There were a lot of Gold Certificates and Silver Certificates in circulation. I have some "...redeemable in gold..." bills.

 

He was from a previous generation where people enjoyed being part of giving without looking like it was giving. I remember the man who delivered ice to the neighborhood. Many people still had Iceboxes. In the hot summer the truck would stop in the road and the ice man would take a block to the back of a house. We would sneak up to the back of the truck and snatch a chunk of ice to suck on. Many years later I thought, why was there always an ample supply of hand size chunks within reach at the back of the truck?

 

I hold my story deep within my heart, and would like to share it. Coin collecting began in my family with my great-grandfather when he was in WWI and WWII, and he liked to trade coins with his platoon. He had a massive collection, with many American coins and a pouch full of foreign coins he traded. He may not have been focused on rare or expensive coins, but he marvelled at the diversity of the coins, and the stories they told. This was given to my grandfather when he died. One day, my grandfather travelled from Illinois to Florida for my birthday, and brought me a gift. It was a replica of a golden double eagle, an incredibly interesting coin, as I would later find out. At the time, though, I couldn't understand the coin's importance. Soon, I became interested in any coins I could find. I often kept my eye on the ground, especially at airports where I could find foreign coins.

Soon, for my 14th birthday, my grandfather sent me a heavy briefcase full of american coins, along with the pouch I mentioned. There must have been hundreds of coins in the briefcase when I recieved it. Inside the briefcase, I found plenty of coins, most of which I hadn't seen before. I also found an eye loop, which my grandfather used in his years studying to be a watchmaker. This instilled within me a deep love for coins, and I like to use the loop to examine what intricate designs I can find. I have fond memories of speaking with my grandfather and great-grandfather, being told stories of the war, and of how he and my great-grandmother met. Though I might not have been studying these coins like most folks on this website, I can tell our shared love of coins is something that brings us together.

 

That's the thing here . We have teenagers all the way to people who are seniors who are doing just that, enjoying the love of coins together ( or partly so , lol ) .

 

I was born in 1941 and began collecting Queen Victoria copper coins - pennies , ha'pennies and farthings when I was about 11 years old and continilued for many years.
The UK copper coinage had been given a make over in 1860 with the introduction of the 'bun head' coins. All my friends collected coins and we all knew the rare dates: 1860, 61, 69 etc, not from any catalogue or handbook, but simply because they rarely turned up in our change.

We continually upgraded our collections when a better specimen turned up, or swapped a duplicate with a friend who had a missing date that we needed.

I still have most of those coins now - but their grades are rock bottom for the most part. What can you expect of a coin that has circulated for almost 100 years?

 

Well my collecting started as a kid with a friend of my who was "coin nuts" but he got me interested and in the end that childhood collection helped me buy my house 25 years ago. Well about 15yrs ago my brother found a box in the basement.. one of my old "treasure boxes". In the bottom of that box was my 1857 Flying eagle cent, given to me by the above mentioned friend. Well that penny seemed lonely to me so i bought it a few friends and started filling the eagle/indian folder i bought... we all know how that goes, once bit by the coinbug, you never escape again lol

 

My very first coin that I didn't buy was when I was probably around 10 years old (1975). My brother and I used to stay over some weekends at our Great Aunt & Uncles farm when we very young. They had one creepy room upstairs in their house that we rarely went in...it was being used for storage. We got brave one day and went in there snooping around. Our Pap...thats what we called him, served in the American Expeditionary Forces during WW1 and he had a trunk in that room filled with his uniform, helmet, boots and a cigar box with 2 Morgan dollars, 3 French coins and a few other miscellaneous things. The silver dollars fascinated us...big and silver! One was an 1878 7 tailfeather variety..I can't remember the other. That is what kind of lit the fire for me.