Coin collecting before the internet.

If you were a collector back in those days, what was it like for you?
The hobby was much different for me.

 

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When I was a kid, I would use my lunch money many days to stop at the little coin shack between my house and my school. I would get wheat cents for my Whitman book. Three for a nickel as I recall........ Much later when I was overseas in the Army I looked forward to getting my Littleton envelope more than letters from home. They were overpriced, but I didn't care. I never knew what that "coins on approval" envelope would hold.

 

Collecting was done more from circulation and local coin shops, as I got more involved I did do some purchases from ads in coin magazines, but I still prefer to see and hold before I buy.

 

Went to a lot of small coin shows. They're all gone. Went to a
bunch of LCS and only 2-3 survive. Can't remember buying much
from magazine ads. Did complete Merc dime set except for 16-D.
Same for other sets. All but the often counterfeited keys.

 

Mail Order for me from magazine ads. I can't think of a LCS around here at that time becz I started when I was about 10. I would get mailings and then call, mail a paper check, and receive my coins at some point.

For over a decade I used to buy from a small shop I think in Missouri. I may have a inventory sheet somewhere but I recall mostly calling, reserving, mailing a check and then getting it in the mail.

 

I was lucky. There was a coin shop near me. The owner took the time to teach me and let me work in the shop a bit. He was a great man and loved to teach.

 

Early on we had a group of kids my age that had swap meets. We didn't buy or sell. But we did trade according to scarcity. There weren't any local coin shops that I can remember. We Wouldn't use them anyway. Every coin ever released into circulation was, potentially, still in circulation and a possible find. So, most of my coins came from circulation or traded for circulation finds.

 

First coins that I can remember getting were in the mid 1950's. A Canadian painter made a Winter trip down to New Orleans, and I would watch him paint these swamp scenes, while conversing with him. I was 6 or 7. Anyway, before he left, he gave me a few Indian Head cents, as well as some Canadian cents. First coin I bought was in around 1958 - 59. It was a silver 2 mark Hindenburg coin. Paid a kid 40¢ for it. A year or two later, I sent a buck or two to Jolie Coins in Roslyn Heights, NY for a few foreign coins. In those days, there was no numerical grading.

 

I think that is the one thing I appreciate most about being a coin collector before the web. I had to learn to trust my own judgement when I bought a coin.

 

Like Randy, and I'm sure many others, I did the Littleton "coins on approval". Bought whatever coin magazines were in circulation. Also, bought my first US Mint products starting with the 1986 Statue of Liberty commemorative coins.

 

One thing most of us didn't do was spend money on magazines and other periodicals. The extra money we had went to coins.

 

I posted what became a Featured Post some time back. If anyone is interested in what it was like back in the late 40's and 50's I am posting a link to it.
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/building-a-twentieth-century-circulation-collection.385921/

 

Me, too. Not so much the owner but his wife. She liked kids and would patiently let us look through the cheap stuff and make our small purchases and take them home on our bikes. I moved away decades ago but the coin shop is still there, although the original owner and his wife both passed away. They now cater to high rollers.

 

Hammer and chisel?

I ran a paper route back in my formative years so I pulled most of what I needed right out of circulation. The paper was 30 cents a week and most folks gave you a 50 cent piece on collection day. Lots of 'walkers', Franklins, and no date standing liberty's.........

 

Those were surely after your time, I know for a fact that you were paid in denarii.


and you saw what Doug got paid in.

 

As a high schooler, I bought the cheap coins out of the ads in Boys Life. College stopped that pursuit but I still had the yearning. When I got out into the working world, I soon found myself working in the lesser developed countries of the world. Not only was there no internet, but my first homes also did not even have telephones. It wasn't long before I was frequenting the street sellers or going to the villages and visiting with the money changers, squatting on the mat with them. I still have many of the date sets I was able to put together of the local coinage. And it's surprising what strange coins can show up at money changers in an off-the-beaten-track village in Africa or Asia or the Middle East. Some were quite scarce and are still some of my favorite coins today.

 

Back in the 60's dad would get bags of cents from the bank. These were from parking meters. We would go thru them and fill in spaces in our coin books. We'd wrap them before returning for another bag. Sometimes dad would get a bag of dimes. We found lots of interesting coins back then.

 

My grandparents got my older brother and me interested in collecting back in the (very) late sixties. I was very young (well under 10), with something like a 25-cent-a-week allowance, so I didn't do a lot of buying.

I remember my brother going through the tiny classified ads in the back of one of the coin magazines. As I remember, they charged by the line, so things were very compressed, something like "Poor man's 1955 DD, 10cS + SASE, <address>". Translated, that meant "send me a silver dime and a self-addressed stamped envelope, and I'll send you a 'Poor Man's 1955 Doubled Die' cent". Lots of others, like a dated Standing Liberty quarter for 35 cents in "common" silver change.

It's funny, but I don't remember ads listing flat dollar prices, only the ones "trading" for silver. I don't know if that was a policy thing, or a "don't send cash through the mail" thing, or if I'm just not remembering clearly.

 

Back in the late 70s- mid 80s when i was in HS and college, getting information on varieties, the minting process, and older world coins was very difficult. I can remember looking at the Sandford Durst classified ads trying to find any book that I could afford. By the later 80s, good reference books were being published and I started building a library

I bought coins from the LCS, at Coin club meetings, and ads in the numismatic publications. I also went to the local coin show a twice a year. Going to big shows was difficult because they were a few hrs away and I was a teen with no other family member interested in coins. Imagine asking "mom, can you drive me to a coin show 3 hrs away."

I also ran some classified ads in Numismatic News and Coins Magazine when i was in HS. There was always that anticipation waiting for the paper or magazine to show up so I could see my ad, and more anticipation waiting for orders. It was nothing like eBay when your items are active in just a few minutes. I had a lot of fun doing the classified ads