What coin got you interested in the hobby?

For me it was a 1909P Lincoln I got in change when I was 10 or 11.I still have it after 40 years or so.It's in my album and thats where its going to stay, even though it doesn't grade as good as the rest of them.Is it stupid being sentimental about a hunk of copper?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I was 1st seduced by 1943 Steel Wheaties back in the '50's.

They were "different": Then I started to notice Dates, not just denominations! And some wheats had Letters not just numbers!!

and Indian heads could still pop up in change.

As a pre-teen I started my penny horde, mostly from coins gleaned from lawn jobs and a paper route. Then I bought some coin holders and ruined them all.
I now have some forever enshrined in nasty old PVC tubes. Perhaps I should finally get out a hacksaw and try to recover some of those coins. :desk:

 

Three things stand out in my memory.

When I was a kid, I loved finding Canadian coins in change. There seemed to be a lot more back then than now.

I also recall that it was a big deal when my father gave me some silver dollars that his father had given to him.

More recently, the ASE amazed me when I first saw one, and really got me back into collecting again.

 

I got started with a blue book price catalog and the Whitman folders that my Dad gave me. I started with Lincoln cents so it was the Lincoln cent set that got me started as a US coin collector. While searching cents I found a nice Lincoln cent with base of bust cud (LC-69S-04). This cud error is the coin that got me started in error coin collecting.
Very best regards,
collect89

 

Dad gave me a set of old blue whitman folders and a 43 steel penny to get me started.

 

My coin collecting started when my mother pulled a 1930 Standing Liberty Quarter from change and gave it to me. It was a nice VF-EF grade, which was quite unusual to find any dated ones in circulation. That was about 1955 though.... Sorry I'm dating myself. I still have it in my collection today and even though not a rare or valuable piece in the general marketplace, it caries extreme value to me.

 

I was at the F.U.N. show in Orlando one day with my dad and we found $8 on the floor. We saw some cool lincoln Memorials at the show and I started my first collection. It's pretty cool that I started my collection by finding $8 on the floor.

 

i started collecting when i found a 1898 indian cent now i want to start collecting nickles after i got a very sweet 1992d full step today hee ha.

 

I think for me, it was a blend of Canadian large cents and the Canadian Victory nickel.
When I was a kid apprrox 5 years old my best friend had 2 Whitman Folder each containing a small collection of those 2 types of coins. I loved looking at the large cents with the obverses containing monarchs who I had no idea who they were. The victory nickels reverse was unique.
I came from a lower middle class household so there was no way i could have afforded any type of collection on my small weekly allowance I use to receive.
Finally when I reached 35 years old, and I was browsing the newly founded ebay, I discovered my interest still existing so from there it just took off.

 

For me, it was the state quarters....that's a common beginning for many new collectors lately.

 

The wheats caught my attention , reasonable to collect some had good values , then i went to liberty seated quarters .

 

My parents bought me a "Coins of the World" starter set when I was about 11 years old.(not 100% sure).
It contained many coins from around the world in a three ring binder.It had some information about the different coins and denominations and collecting hints.
There was an old coin shop I frequented and bought coins with money I had earned cutting grass and doing odd jobs.
I still have it today and I am hooked!! Mainly I collect us copper and silver coins but I have not forgotten my roots.
My wife, jokingly told me the other day,That there should be a support group for my coin addiction (like alcoholics anonymous). But I have found one right here at Coin Talk!!!
This forum is awesome.The information I have learned on CT is invaluable.

 

When my Grandmother died she left me her lucky 1900 Morgan , still got & still love it.

 

The big jump was when I seen a Peace Dollar. I thought that Eagle was quite different on the back and wanted to get other coins with various eagles...though some still remain out of reach.

 

Around 1997 I responded to a very small ad in a mag or newspaper by the Littleton Coin Co., offering to send me a coin on an "approval basis". I received an American Silver Eagle and was stunned at the coin's beauty. Soon afterwards I was collecting Morgans.

 

Buffalo nickels when i was a kid

 

My grandpa had some coins when I was a kid, nothing too special.
Lots of world coins, but a few older American coins - and that's what hooked me.

He had some steel cents, a V-nickel, some old worn silver washingtons, and a Peace Dollar.
I thought they were so cool.

Then my grandparents bought some for me, including an Indian Head Cent - and that was it, I was in!

 

As a kid it was mostly Lincoln cents. I also have an old Whitman Blue folder I filled many years ago from 1959 thru 1988 with spaces for Indian Head cents. Then about 6 months ago I went thru a small cash box left to me by my father and in it was an 1878 Morgan! Discolored and slightly worn, but it got me started again in earnest. I'm still looking for more Morgans, butam looking for error coins to finance my obsession with silver dollars.

 

"Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort."

No one coin brought me to the hobby, but rather the window displays of Federal Coin Company in the Old Arcade in Cleveland, Ohio. There were three arcades downtown and each had coin shops, but Federal's display was the best. I saw it often and never paid much attention to it until I read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Then, I understood. I found all the forms of money compelling... and yet... somehow lacking in spiritual purity. I do not know what else to call it. All forms of money that I knew and saw had some hallmark of statism or collectivism or mysticism.

As soon as silver coins were withdrawn from circulation, I began to hoard them, if only as a token of things to come.

Finally, living in Lansing, in 1973, I had my first steady job and a new relationship with a new dealer. I did not care much for numismatics, but enjoyed silver art bars for their wide array of traditional and patriotic political themes. Even today, on my checks, I have the motto from one: World Peace through World Trade.

In 1992, working for a technology firm outside Detroit, knowing what I did abot money, I recommended that we create $1 tokens to distribute at an automation fair. "Good for $1 toward an installation." Our installations ran about $100,000 so I proposed that we could afford to distribute 10,000 of these with little risk. But I also knew that unlike business cards, these would never be thrown out or lost, likely to sit in desks as constant reminders as no other advertising ever would be. The company declined my suggestion.

However, to prepare and gather facts for my presentation, I joined the ANA, MSNS and MichTAMS.

Tokens are nice and all, but seriously lacking in artistry, of course, being purely utilitarian. I tried US classic Type coins, the Barbers, etc., but something was lacking, some sense of originality, the theme of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, as these US and other coins were all cribbed from ancient prototypes. Even the vaunted Saint Gaudens $20 is a knock-off of a Greek statue the Nike attributed to Paionios of Mende. I started buying ancients.

I crossed some sort of threshhold in my mind when I was at a convention and I was looking at the cases, and passed medievals expert Andy Singer. Dr. Singer asked me what I was looking for. I replied "Ionian silver." He said, "Gold can be as cheap as silver." and handed over a coin. I told him that the attribution was wrong. The coin was from Miletos, not Samos. He said that may be, but it was not his special area and he had no way to know. If I wanted the coin, he said, I was welcome to buy it at that price. I did. I still have it. Cheap as it was, it is one of the earliest coins known.

In 2000, I lost heart for collecting material and focused on collecting knowledge. I dumped my coins except for about a dozen or so, keeping a representation of the broad range from ancient to modern, a Proof-70 Roosevelt Dime, for example, even though I hate both Roosevelt and clad issues.

My Miletos hekte or sixth-stater. Electrum. 2.35 grams. c 550 BCE. Obverse: Recumbant Lion. Reverse: Punch marks.

 

It didn't take much to get me started. My parents both collected before I was born, my dad mostly proofs, modern commems. My mom collects modern $2.00's, bicentennial 25c and states. (I know, I've tried explaining to her they're worth face). Well anyway, they gave me a 1909-1941 and 1942-something whitman and I started to fill those.