Hey y'all, I wanted to share a story that a fellow family friend went through. For the dad, we will name him john, daughter we will name Jane (doe....get it) Time: Mid 90's John had a really nice collection which mainly consisted of old US silver coins. He was proud of his collection as he always showed me all the new coins he purchased and found. As a child, I always found him as a great source of information as he would tell me what my coins were worth and what to look for. I would see John about every 3 weeks or so, and every time he would show me his new coins and I would ask questions on certain types I found, he also would show me his phone card collection which always bored me to death.....I still don't get why he collected phone cards. Anyhow, His collection was beautiful even to a kid with minimal amounts of knowledge. He had a room devoted to his collections and where he would display his most prized silver quarters, dollars and half dollars. That was his favorites. I remember walking in and seeing these uncirculated coins in small show cases, just how pretty these vintage coins were just brought a smile to my face as it did with John. To the amount of money he had in these coins, to this day he will not say, but it was enough as the room was COVERED with these coins. We weren't able to see John for about 2 months as he went to job training in another state. Jane, his daughter from another marriage was staying with him at the time along with his new wife (a sweet Asian lady, yes, this comes into play later). So it was only Jane and her step-mother. John never locked his collectable room (not too smart), when he returned from his job training he was mortified to find multiple coins removed from their storage cases. Thinking he was robbed, he asked his wife what happened to his collection. Of course, the step-mother had no idea about what happen as there was no break in and she & Jane were home the whole time. He proceeded to ask Jane (who at the time was 10-11 years old) what happened to his coins. He was mortified to discover that Jane removed his coins from their holders as she wanted to walk down to the local general store to buy candy. Yep, using half dollars, quarters, dollars and along with some of his mint condition silver certificates and red seals, buy candy throughout the time he was away. The wife who is one of the sweetest ladies I have ever met was ask by John why didn't she stop her and why did she continue to let her use his collection to purchase candy. She had no idea that Jane was sneaking into his collection room and the money she was using mostly looked like American money which she was vaguely aware due to her time here in the states (less than 1 year at the time). She assumed that the money Jane was using was money given to her to spend while John was away. John went to the general store and talked to the cashier/manager, all money on a daily/nightly basis was deposited into the bank. None of his collection was recovered. The only few coins he was able to get was a few silver quarters that was still in Janes pocket along with some regular coins due to change given at the store. John to this day, now keeps all his coins in a safe, and his room locked (at least, the last I heard which was a few years ago). True story and a sad one at that. But the story may be different for the cashier if he really knew what this little girl was using to buy her candy. My opinion, coming from a guy who has done retail, the cashier knew the value as he sees regular currency every day and pocketed the collection throughout the few months. Is it the cashier fault for taking the money? Should the cashier say something? Did the cashier pocket the collection? How much money was lost? There's only a few people that know the answer and I am not one of them.
Everyone was at fault, except the step-mom. John should have done 2 things better: he should have trained his family on the importance and value of his collection, and that it wasn't to be played with. If he had that nice of a collection, his wife should have been acquainted with the value and significance. If it was such an important part of his life, he should have involved his daughter and wife, at least at a surface level. Second, John absolutely should have secured his collection. Having it out in the open where any visitor or guest could have access to it is just foolish. You're having a house party, 20 guests, one of them pops in there real quick-like and palms a few? Easy, and foolish on John's part. Jane should have known not to take things that weren't hers. Kids are supposed to be taught from a very young age not to steal, and she was blatantly stealing. I'm sure she knew it was wrong, but did it anyways. The store should also have realized that these were weird coins and questioned where they were coming from. I realize that a convenience store clerk is probably only still in high school, but come on, those dollar bills are weird. They should have questioned it.
I started collecting when I was in elementary school. My brother, who is a year younger, never had any interest in coin collecting. We had the usual sibling rivalry battles but one of his favorite ways to get even with me, was threatening to take my coins and spend them. He was pretty creative and used to say he would only take some of them and I would never know which ones were gone. Since we shared a room, it was hard to keep stuff hidden, so it worked like a charm. It would push me over the edge, and he knew he won. He recently retold the story at a family event. Our mother commented “You never spent any of them, right?”. He looked at me and said, “He’ll never know”. I don’t think he spent any, and I can’t think of anything that turned up missing, but…. Oh, well, I guess he won again.
I remember busting 80 proof sets open so my sister and I could buy food. My dad at the time was a big party guy and would leave us alone with no food or money for 4-5 day stretches, not knowing where he was. Aside from counting the stash of regular cents, we'd bust open the sets for the Ikes and Halves. What's an 8 year old kid to do ( sister was 16 at the time ) if there's no food in the house. We used the money to eat on account of dad not being around or leaving us any money at the time...
IMO the convenience store clerk, manager, cashier had absolutely zero culpability in this tragic loss. The coins/currency were legal tender. It wasn't their responsibility to do any more than make a bona fide sale. Would it have been a nice thing to question the young girl about the coins? Sure. To assign fault to the stores staff/owner, not even a little bit. John had an entire room dedicated to his collection. The stepmom/wife must have known there was serious significance to those items. Knowing the specifics of the significance was not necessary to know they were important to her husband. I put the lions share of the blame on John for his cavalier approach to security of his collection. Jane deserves lots of blame as well. 10-11 years old is certainly old enough to know right from wrong regarding personal possessions.
Only John is at fault. He didn't secure his valuables or explain their significance properly. It wasn't the step-mother's responsibility to magically know about the collection. Jane is just a kid. Whether or not she should have known better (also John's responsibility as a parent), she is still just a kid. Cashiers don't necessarily know or care about currency. They were conducting a lawful transaction. It's not their job to police where people get their money from. Can you imagine going to spend a bunch of half dollars and having a cashier accuse you of stealing them from some collection? Can you imagine the blowback here? No way is that ever going to happen. No way.
It's absolutely John fault! Sure, Jane is at fault as well for stealing in the first place but she's a child, what ya' gonna do about that?! Oh, and as far as the cashier at the store, you're damn right! He now has a very nice collection of silver coins and maybe some paper, or he put them on the bay!
John's more at fault, after all it's his collection to look after. The clerk may or may not have been knowledgeable about coins. On more then one occasion when I went to the store as a kid I got back silver dimes and or quarters. I simply asked the clerk if there were any more in the register? A few times YES, some kid came in to buy candy or play pinball. The clerk was nice enough to put them aside for me long enough for me to go home and get some more money.
Very true as well. If a collection has any kind of significant value both in dollar value or in sentimental value, there should be security of those items.
Great insight! I have met many of cashier that have no clue on old/rare currency and some that do. Some cashiers I have met look at their job as a perk of gaining more currency for their collection, to the cashier in the story, who knows. Regardless, the currency was legal tender for sure and he did do his job by completing the transaction. Again, I wish I knew if he kept the money or deposited it with the bank....forever a mystery.
Lol, it was the 90's, not sure if ebay was around then, if so, not many people were doing it. I still think he may have at least pocketed the half dollars but yet again, those were seen on the regular-ish then as well, who knows
Now that is customer service! Where can I find those kind of clerks here in Indiana, most of the kids around here are complete jerks and want to play on their phones than help me
