I took the kids up to see my Dad last weekend (in Maryland), and took a spare hour or two to visit a couple of local stores. I drove out to Halfway, a very old suburb between the very old towns of Hagerstown and Williamsport, and named that because, well, you know. There's a legit coin store there, Halfway Coin Exchange, that I'd never visited. It's very small, but impressively packed; supplies of all sorts, all the Danscos, all the tubes and boxes, a wide range of slabbed and raw US coins. I'll go back when I've got an actual shopping list. Across the street from it, right next to where my father worked decades ago when we lived in the area, was a "We Buy Gold and Silver" place. I stuck my nose in, and asked if they had any coins. They pointed me toward the back, apologetically saying that a guy had come in the previous week and about cleaned them out, to the tune of $600, including buying all their old silver dollars. They had the usual range of painted ASEs, birth-year sets, and whatnot, but also a tray or two of oddities -- some three-cent pieces, a half dime or two, some Barber stuff. They also had a box of unsorted Buffaloes (50 cents with dates, 25 cents dateless), and another of V-nickels (50 cents). We've all seen boxes like this at stores and shows, picked-over boxes with only heavily-worn coins and common dates. I wasn't going to bother, but something about the shop told me I ought to take a look. I spent about half an hour, probably, going through several hundred nickels. Here are the proceeds: From the upper left: 1908 V-nickel, possibly high VF? 1914-P Buffalo, VG, possibly F 1919-D Buffalo, G, maybe VG 1924-D Buffalo, G details, some unfortunate recent rub 1883 No Cents V, soft dark gunk appears to conceal some nice detail, I'll try a water soak first 1883 No Cents V, VF or so, possibly cleaned 1929-P Buffalo, XF-AU woody, appears to have some luster in the fields no-date Shield nickel Neither I nor the shopkeeper got rich this day, but I had a good time, and I'm thinking I could likely flip any one of these on eBay to cover my $4 cost, although I'm in no hurry to do that. But what did that guy get the previous week?
