A coworker and i were discussing coin collecting recently and he related a scary story to me. It seems that he had a friend a number of years ago that collected proof and mint sets etc. Apparently the friend had a brother whose life was on a downward spiral with drugs and alcohol. To make a long story short,the brother ended up stealing this guy's whole collection,breaking open the sets and spending the coins on beer. OUCH!
Not even sold them, just spent them. That is horror. The thread title reminded me of a horrible, sad story I found out about a friend of mine. When he was about ten, he was interested in coin collecting, and he saved up money to go by some interesting coins. He got on the public bus and rode it to the coin store, where he bought some Buffalo nickels. On the ride home, he missed his stop, but he didn't know what to do. He was a little scared, and he stayed on the bus until it reached the end of the line. Then the bus driver told him he either needed to get off there, on the other side of town from home, or pay fare again. All he had were the Buffalo nickels, and he paid with them. A horrible experience for a ten year old who doesn't know how to deal with a situation like that. His wife says that's why he's now always very nervous about missing connecting flights, missing bus stops, running late, etc. Terrible!
I've been near or at both of those. My uncle, an MIT dropout, lives in Maine as a full-time alcoholic and has lost his coins to theft, booze money and change. It's sad, I would have greatly appreciated to even have seen his collection. And taking the bus nightly after work, one time I had to give up my newly acquired silver quarter (a 1950 in F I believe, nothing really special but it was nice!) for the busride home. It was a sad night for me :-( And I've given away countless $1 bills with nifty serials because I 'hide' them in my wallet... I stopped doing that after the 3rd time it happened, when I lost 4 consec crisp star notes
I know a guy that used to drink alot and then he desided he needed to quit so he started collecting coins and now he can't spend any money on booze because he wants more coins!!.... Speedy
