Coin collecting before the internet.

Basically all my collecting was done from change. Plugging holes was fun and enjoyable. And yes, silver was not only being circulated, it was still being minted.

 

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I can also remember catching the bus to go to the library to learn about my coins. I remember being able to buy my first Redbook with paper route money and being very excited about not having to ride the bus to the library anymore.

 

Be glad you had a bus Randy. We lived out in the country. If I couldn’t get there on my bicycle, I didn’t go. Paper routes required a car so I picked blackberries in the summer and apples in the fall. I made it work. It took a bit but I saved up enough to get a $15.00 Maximilian gold coin from Mexico.

 

My first gold coin was also from Mexico, I bought it there. It was a 1959 10 peso that I paid $14 for. At that time it was illegal in the US. I had an old Kodak Instamatic 100 camera that had a pop-up flash, and I hid the coin in there to fool Customs. Don't tell, I'm too old to do time .

 

Spare change, some Littleton orders, some Coin magazine orders, some coin shops, and the rare coin shows at the Fontainbleau Hotel in New Orleans. Got my Red Book and Blue Whitman folders from the book store (Waldens?).

 

I did a lot of purchases from Scott Semans. I still have the catalogs and recently found a bunch of the order sheets and envelopes that were stuck in a box in an attic closet. Makes me wish I had a time machine when I browse the catalogs. Before that it was Littleton. I recall my first order was from the ad on a matchbook cover.

 

Your secret is safe with me but I can’t speak for everyone else you just told. LOL

 

I can hardly remember that far back, but there was NO instant gratification like today. I had one store near me that had some coins, but I think it was a 2nd hand store, not a coin shop. I collected 95% from change and my paper route money, with a few from the coin store or Littleton. Those ads in the back of my comic books usually hooked me, but I had to wait forever to get my coin(s). Still have many of my littleton world coins in their original envelopes.

 

I recall in college getting a phone call from a broker trying to sell me Kuggerands. I asked him if they were illegal in the US ... which they were.

 

I just wish future me would send back some money and a cheat sheet of which items to buy today. So far, he hasn't gotten off his duff and done it. (Whatever so far means in the context of time travel...)

 

I subscribed to CoinAGE Magazine and spent a lot of time at flea markets and local coin shops. I also joined Littleton's mail service for a while, but it didn't take long to figure out that was a bad idea.

 

I started in 1973. Wheaties were still pretty easy to get in circulation and I sometimes got a silver from my paper route. I bought Coins Magazine and ordered from the coin dealers advertising there and also from small time dealers I found in the backs of coin magazines.

 

I remember mailing bids in for coins from auction catalogs. It took a week or two after the auction ended to learn if I won anything. When my payment cleared, they sent my coins. Long process but it worked really well for me.

 

There were also fake Yap stones which were cast in concrete. It was easy to detect the re-bar in them though using one of those junk yard magnets for lifting cars. Oh but then the Omega counterfeits using ceramic re-bar started showing up...

 

One thing about pre Internet days was I never felt "collecting burn-out" or what IMO is really marginal decline in utility.

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It used to take me months to find something that I wanted from dealer price lists or from a monthly show. All too often something from a price list was over graded bs and the coin show was jusy a trip to a recycling center. When I did find something I sent it off to INS to be authenticated. That was usually another three weeks if I remember right. They seemed to be the fastest and they always threw in grading for free.

There was never "collecting burn-out" for me. If anything it was sometimes depressing to spend so much time on the so-called "thrill of the hunt" and have so little to show for it.

 

Just the opposite for me. Prior to the Internet, coin magazines, along with the Krause catalog of world coins, were my windows on the coin world. I would buy at last one coin magazine almost every month.

 

Your the lucky one. I would of been glad to hang out in a coin shop. Everything would be new and exciting to me. I love seeing coins in real life

 

I got pretty much everything I bought at a local flea market that had a few stands set up for coins. I bought the Redbook to find out what everything was worth, and a photograde book to learn to grade them.

 

Money well spent. I love to read. Except mail. Hate bills

 

I did that with baseball cards. Still think I need a #37 1968 Billy Williams card. Molly Azar had one and wouldn’t give it up