Here's a new giveaway. The prize is a (very tiny) gold coin, for anyone who has never owned a gold coin before. (If you do own one, you may still enter on behalf of one of the people who hasn't.) Click the pic to go to the Contests forum thread. (I guess I should have made the virtual coin in the illustration a gold one. Oh well.)
My first gold coin was an 1857 USA $5 Liberty, which graded around Fine or so. I worked all summer when I was 16 to save up for it. (That summer job was as sound man/camera assistant on a TV documentary about 19th century timber rafts on the Altamaha River in Georgia. It was pretty interesting.)
My first gold coin adorns my mommas neck now. I was a very poor kid. Momma schooled all day and worked all night. My coin collection was built on school lunch money and was worn slick V-nickels and the like...... There was a tiny coin shop between my school and my home that I was in almost every day after school. The shop owner had taken a liking to me and would let me do chores for coins from time to time. I had always admired the half eagle in his case and he made me a deal. I could work off the cost of that half eagle if I wanted to. I jumped at the chance... I washed windows. swept floors, and cut his grass for what seemed to be an eternity... And the day he said I paid my debt, he handed me that half eagle and I ran home. Momma and me sat at the kitchen table and admired the heck out of it...... That was near a half century ago. Several years back I had that half eagle made into a necklace for mom. She called me after she received it and asked me if it would hurt the coin if she slept with it on!
I bought my first gold coin, 30 something years ago. Didn't have a clue what I was doing. Just fell in love with it and had to have it. It was a one dollar gold coin dated 1856 upright 5 and gave $100 for it. I sent the coin to PCI and it came back in the red label holder as counterfeit. The dealer gave me a refund and all was good. Looking back, I wish I had saved it. It may have been worth more as a counterfeit. Don't know but it was a good lesson to learn. After that I started on the Dansco 7070 gold page. Once that was finished, I quit collecting gold until the 1995 W gold proof set came out. All I really wanted was the Silver Eagle that came in the set. Still have the set today.
My first gold coin was a 1986 American Gold Eagle, 1 oz. bought in the late 1980s. Bought one of those and a tube of ASEs.
My first gold coin was a 1895 half eagle, Liberty Head of course. I was in San Francisco for Witter Coin U 2022, and I had been saving up money for a long time hoping to get gold while I was there. Well, gold was $1,800 an oz, and I didn't think it would go too much higher. But, having my first piece of gold was more important to me. Anyways, I paid $800 for it, not realizing I would have to pay like, 10% - 15% sales tax. I thought I would never, EVER get that money back. Well, now that coin melts at over $1000, and, I've owned a few more gold coins since then. Nothing for personal collections, but, rather just for quick flips. I did REALLY well on ex-jewelry pieces, and I will post my two favorites here. I bought this as a generic 1843 on a pin at a local pawn shop in Lewiston, Maine. Do you see something they didn't? Here is a new purchase of mine, ex-jewlery, but just a tad over melt.
2005-W 1/10 oz. American gold eagle, that I received as a Christmas gift from my parents in 2005. Many years later I got it graded by ANACS (PF-69 DCAM). I also saved the original OGP in a separate box where I save all the packaging from coins I put in albums or got graded. I did not ask for it and was not expecting it, and it's still one of the gifts I was most excited to get. It is very much on my "never sell it" list! 3 years later received a 2008 1/10 oz. American gold eagle, also as a Christmas gift from my parents, when it looked like they may permanently discontinue fractional AGEs (Mint later decided against doing so, although they did discontinue fractional gold buffaloes, making 2008 the only year they were minted, and also discontinued fractional American platinum eagles). I have sold that one, and regretted doing so. But I reasoned I still have the 2005 and that has more sentimental value to me, since it was a very special gift and the first gold coin I ever owned. First one I purchased myself was a 1976 (year I was born) gold sovereign that I've since sold. It's on my list to buy again once I can reasonably afford to do so. (A close second is a fractional gold buffalo; was almost going to buy one in 2008 but wasn't able to scrape up the money to do so. It's on my list!) I also owned an Indian quarter eagle that I forget the date of. It was ex-jewelry and I was going to put it on the Dansco 7070 gold page, but I've since sold it and decided if I could ever afford that many gold coins, I wasn't putting them in an album anyway lol. Kind of wish I at least saved the page as that page itself is quite valuable.
Still filling in gaps for my bronze and silver coins. Eventually I will have purchased most of them and will need to move on to the gold ones.
My first gold coin is also the coin that led me to this site 19-1/2 years ago. 2006 $50 gold buffalo.
My first. This had only been out for 3 years when I bought it in Sept. of 2009. NGC MS-70. I liked the perfect example of the reverse and it has a real nice satin finish. Bought at a show for $300. Still have it.
Bought one back in the day from the mint, and like you, I still have it. The first gold coin I ever bought was a $10 Liberty(1904?) Can't remember. It's tucked away and hard to get to at the moment. Raw as an infant. Bought the day after gold went from $32/oz to somewhere north of $70. That's me. Mr.timing is everything and ain't got's a clue.......
I'll repost here in case someone else didn't get to read it in the other post. My first recollection of a first gold coin was a half ounce eagle when I was invited to be part of a coin collecting club system drawn up by a group of investment people and lawyers. By system I'm pretty sure it was a type of MLM pyramid thing. Well that's what the .gov said when they Shut it Down shortly after I got in the coin club. Invest X amount of $ and get 3 other like minded individuals to do the same. At which point when the member qualified and enough time had passed a club member was given a check to reinvest for a half ounce 1986 gold eagle coin and 3 1986 silver eagle coins... When enough members were involved and enough time passed another check was supposed to come around to reinvest in a full ounce gold eagle coin and 6 silver eagle coins, and so on. It seems someone Allegedly got a check to reinvest out of turn and that caused some other member(s) to complain to someone who called in question the coin club system and the .gov got involved. Now with the .gov involvement, the club spending investors money on lawyers and bureaucratic red tape, caused the club to be disbanded AFTER this member reinvested the check but BEFORE this member was to receive the ONE full ounce gold eagle and 6 silver eagle coins. That Sucks...the .gov claimed that the club was operating like, LIKE a type of MLM pyramid thing and at some point wouldn't be able to fulfill the clubs obligation to all the members. The money invested was more than the coins were worth and deemed it a be UN sustainable. In other words didn't like the competition Not political... Many years have passed and what do you know...the coins ARE worth more than the money invested. On A Side Note: Does anyone want to start a coin club What could possibly go wrong I'm pretty sure startup paperwork is filed away somewhere.