This article by our own @Jack D. Young mentions "generational" coins but focuses on his "foundational" coins. It got me thinking about my own coins in both categories. This morning it popped into my head that some of my generational coins have been in my family for 78 years, and in fact have never been on the market since the day they were coined. I thought it might be interesting to see other generational coins and their stories. Got any? My grandfather became head librarian at the Chicago Tribune in the 1940s when his predecessor died (big city newspapers had their own libraries back then!). This late librarian had connections who mailed him coins, and the coins kept coming for several years after he died, so my grandfather got them. They were split up among his grandchildren around 1972. So my Canadian coins from 1948 came directly from someone in Canada who had likely grabbed them straight from a bank. I know my brother has a 1946 $1, so his would be never on the market for 80 years. I'll just post one of these generational coins. Others I can't prove, but I suspect my 1835 25c came via my great-great-grandfather, which would make it "off the market" for 180 years. I'm sure it was never sold as a collectible at least. It was just a raw coin in a box with many others. How long have your generational coins been in your family?
I still have some coins and tokens that I got from my father in 1976, so they've been with me for 50 years. My father probably picked them up in the early 1950s when he was an active buyer of coins, so that would make them about 75 years in the family. There isn't anything special about the examples I have except they were once his. Doesn't get any more special than that. Bruce
I have a leather pocketbook that came from my late grandmothers. It has a few merc dimes and two pristine 64 JFK halves that she lovingly wrapped in wax paper. I can see her coming home from the bank in 64 with her new JFK halves figuring out how she can best protect them for her grandkids and wax paper was her solution. I will leave them in that wax paper in her little leather purse until I depart this spinning rock.
Can't say I have any generational coins, although my paternal grandmother did some collecting. I don't believe I saved any of those coins. I do have a keepsake from my maternal grandmother . . . a large size silver cert (1899, I think) that looks brand new. I put it in a lucite holder when she gave it to me around 1975, and she'd protected it in a book all of her life. Is it truly uncirculated? I don't know, and it doesn't matter. It's a family keepsake.
