Nice set of busts , show yours

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Some of you have nice collections, here's my one and only!

 

Finally after a long delay: I found my 1797 gripped edge large cent which I had purchased for face value -- 1 cent. No, not a trade, I bought this critter at face around 1973 from a retired MD: Dr. James Kay of Pennsylvania.


The edge is shown as I believe this is the gripped edge 1797 large cent.

A bit of a story. Dr. Kay had a collection of mostly foreign coins, largely Canadian, + 3 old Bust silver dollars and this large cent + some other US. He lent someone the key to his safety deposit box and next time he checked, the 3 Bust dollars were gone! But this large cent remained.

I didn't buy it then and went home and mistakenly recorded the date as 1799. I then looked up the 1799 large cent and realizing it was a rarity, I made my Dad drive me back to Dr. Kay's house next week.

Unfortunately, when I got there I found it wasn't the 1799 but only a 1797. Dr. Kay felt sorry for me apparently and let me buy it for only 1 cent to make up for the trip. I also bought almost all of his remaining coins. It seemed a relative of his went on a trip to Canada ca. 1900 and he had almost a half roll of Canadian quarters and some half-dollars from the 1870's to 1890's. The 1890's pieces were borderline unc's. I bought the whole lot of them for 1.3 x face or spot silver for the time.

Too bad the 3 US Bust dollars had been stolen: I definitely would've tried to talk my Dad into buying those as well. At the time a silver dollar was worth around $3.

Pix made with a Sony RX100-V: manual settings including focus
1/100sec, ISO 250, F2.8.

 

I skipped some numbers... and some years...

 

Very nice story….That’s how you get started, by someone who is generous.

 

I got this at the ANA show

 

Nice 24/1...from the pics, a 58 that actually deserves the name for a change.