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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Chris B, post: 7931187, member: 87179&quot;]I vaguely remember hearing when I was younger that my grandmother had a gold coin stowed away somewhere. Her husband, my grandfather, is the one that got me started collecting about the time I was able to sit up on my own. We would sort pennies for hours and I would block out everything going on around us. It is some of my fondest childhood memories. </p><p><br /></p><p>Despite that, I never really paid much interest to the gold coin story because I was concerned with stuff you found in circulation and it was impressed upon me that gold coins were expensive, thus, out of my budget. </p><p><br /></p><p>I hadn&#039;t even thought about the coin for many years. Then, my mother moved in with us last year. She gave me some coins of my grandparents that she had held back. Mostly, low-end circulation stuff that she had held on to for sentimental reasons. Then, she mentioned the gold coin. Being a more seasoned collector now, I was interested. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1371373[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Then she told me the story of how my grandmother had acquired it. </p><p><br /></p><p>This starts with her mother, my great-grandmother. Annie Enders was born in 1883 and after marrying George Enders she relocated to his hometown of Enders, Pennsylvania. Enders is a tiny town, with current driving conditions is, about 30 minutes north of Harrisburg. She gave birth to my grandmother, Sara Jane Enders, in 1920. At this time in her life, she would do odd jobs to make a little extra money including being a wet nurse for underprivileged families. This would frequently take her on the road. A common destination was Baltimore, MD, which is about 110 miles away. </p><p><br /></p><p>Honestly, this kind of blows my mind. Even then, Baltimore was a large city. Why would they bring someone in from that far away? It had to be a long uncomfortable trip. My grandmother said she would usually be gone a week or more on these trips. </p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, back to the gold coin. The story is that the first time she ever received payment for her services, she was paid with this gold coin. In addition, she is the one to have it mounted in this bezel. Our family has never had money so her decision to save it is significant, at least to me. It is common for people today to save their &quot;first&quot; dollar earned, but it does not create a financial hardship to do so. </p><p><br /></p><p>Her payment came in the form of this 1851 dollar. My lousy photos do not show this well but it is still in good condition. If I had to guess, it should grade AU. I know it would get tagged with a details grade if submitted to one of the TPG&#039;s but since it is never going to leave this mount, it doesn&#039;t matter to me. </p><p><br /></p><p>At some point, this will get passed on to my daughter and granddaughter but for now, I will be the custodian of our family history. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1371374[/ATTACH] </p><p>[ATTACH=full]1371375[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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