My pleasant experience was when I showed my coin collections to a new friend..She was really glad of seeing them that she told me that she was once into this thing..Then came my birthday, and guess what was it? It's her collections,all of it.. from coins to notes and a new coin album tooand a note that said: "it may not be worth that much but hope you'll give them a new home".. That was the greatest birthday gift (about 2 years ago). It maybe hard to believe but it really happened;-)
A little over a month ago, I went to my local coin shop. However, I remembered, as I pulled up, "Crap! he's closed on Mondays" and it being a Monday, I was just going to turn around in the parking lot. However, the door was opened and someone was taking in a lot of stuff. I walked into an estate being appraised by my dealer. O Find of finds! They had just finished going through US Mint sets in the Mint's original mailers as I walked in. (So for your Postal fanatics, you could see the price of postage through the years.) Anway, after the estate was appraised and done, there were 25 rolls of Wheat Cents that were now for sale. I promptly purchased them for $1 each. Because they had not been searched by my dealer and were directly from the estate. Now, over 4 weeks later, I have a pile of 1940's wheat cents, a LARGER pile of 1950's Wheat Cents, and about 5 rolls worth of 1959 and 1960 Cents. The oldest coins were three 1919 cents. I have been tempted to see what PCGS or NCG would charge to grade 1250 cents...
As a small child sitting with my grandpa - counting, and rolling the coins from his change jar, then collecting my "fee" of 50% of what I rolled. He taught me to count, save, collect, and share. With his change jar. My favorite current passion is finding Proof halves when I go through boxes of halves. Of course I keep the silver one's I find, but I'm enjoying trying to put together a complete set of halves from circulation.
Great contest. I've really enjoyed reading everyone's story. I posted my experience a couple months ago when it happened, but here it is again; It was about my third time ever searching rolls of nickels, and one of the first ones I pulled out was a 1939. I showed it to my mom, and she said, "Oh, that reminds me. I was helping your grandmother clean her house and we found this, and she said you can have it." My mom then handed me a large box of coins, which were probably tucked away by her late father about 20 years ago. I spent all night going through them. Found ALOT of wheaties and other U.S. coins, and alot of foreign coins as well, spanning from the 1870's to the 1980's.. Also some historic things like J.F.K. campaign buttons, etc. Nothing worth a whole lot of cash money, but a valuable find to me..
My best experiance with coins has got to be when I was 9 in 1991. My parents took me to the Philadelphia mint. That was so exciting...something you never forget. I returned to the mint just last year. I had to take my fiance for her first trip to the mint. Coins will always come and go but your first time to the mint is truly unforgettable.
A little over a year ago I was reunited with my biological father after 35 years. I wanted to have something for him and my stepmother so I put together a year set for each of them for the year that they were born. My father was born in 34 and my step mother in 41. My fathers coins were mostly circulated but my stepmother set are BU. Now every time we speak she tells me how much she enjoys looking at these coins. I'm still working on obtaining a BU set for my father and I will, I'm sure.
I used to save up a dollar or two and buy a couple of coins from an older collector on my street. Sometimes it would take me an hour or so to decide what to get. one day, he gave me 5 AG dimes, barber, merc and one bust 1820 for 50 cents, as long as i promised to keep them forever. I still have them. I believe that was around 1969.
When I was a kid every year when someone in the family found the new cent for that year my Mom would pull out her Whittman folder and fill a hole. Its what got me started in coins. Thanks for the contest.
So many times, spending time with my mom looking at her silver coins that she held onto. She's not a serious collector, but she kept them because they were silver. And because of that, I've become more interested in the hobby.
For my birthday two years ago, my wife presented me with a hand-painted box she crafted so that I could store and display my little "coin-collection." The collection was nothing more than a few wheaties, maybe a Mercury dime, and some old nickels, and a few world coins. Little did she know that such a gift would re-prompt me to collect again (which I hadn't thought about since I was 14 or so). Now my U.S. type set is fast approaching the $1000 mark, and I've also acquired a taste for ancient/medieval coins, much to her dismay, haha. :whistle:
A Bittersweet Triumph COINS Magazine publishes only factual articles, but many decades ago, it would run one piece of fiction each month along with 12 to 14 articles. In 1966 I was a young man learning how to write and trying to get published. I had sent manuscripts to magazines and gotten them all back with rejection slips. I had also become an enthisiastic coin collector and I was struck by an idea for a story on that topic. It was pure inspiration, like a bolt of lightning. I wrote the story, sent it off to COINS, and after about six weeks received a letter of acceptance and a modest check. I was going to be published in COINS magazine! And a couple of months later, I was--there was my byline for anybody to see. But the viewing of my first byline in a magazine was kind of bittersweet because about a month before the story came out, I got a job as a newspaper reporter, and by the time the story appeared, I had already had about 30 bylines in the paper. Of course they were bylines on news stories that to me lacked the prestige of fiction, but still, there was my name in print. I was a professional writer--and a numismatist.
one of my favorite things that happend: I started collecting in 1996. One of the thinsg i got as a start was an 1896 Morgan, and 1922 Peace dollar, in a little set. I enjoyed it, but put it away for a long time, and kept adding coins on top of that, in the box. It was ealier this year, that when i finally knew more about coins and condition, i looked at the Morgan and Peace dollar set again, and realized how good coindition they were in! the Morgan is about an AU55, and the Peace is something a little less. I was very happy at the choice my grandma made when buying me some starter coins
I remember a week before my grandpa died, he gave me an old box of US coins and explained them to me and showed me what they meant and how they were important to him and how he recieved them. I loved just listening to the stories and just learning and hearing his voice. He hooked me for a lifetime! Peter
Finding a rare coin from my home country, at a local show, that thank god, is not listed in Standard Catalog of World Coins
We all remember the great dumping, the the Treasury, of rare date silver dollars in the 1960's. Well, I found a 1903 O that the red book listed at hundreds of dollars. I took it to Gimbels coin department that week and the guy behind the counter told me that if I had found it six months earlier he would have been glad to pay me $400 for it, in 1963 that was more than a mortgage payment for my parents. Then he explained the story of the release by the Treasury. I came away fascinated. My father thought that it was all a scam. I preferred to believe and still enjoy collecting.
