Hey coiniacs, Well it turns out Granddad was more of a hoarder than a collector. While there was nothing of any real numismatic value the fact that I have my Granddad's coins is almost more than I can take!! After I counted all of them for the contest it took several days to go through them all. Since every coin that crosses my path gets louped and weighed it will probably be some time in June before I am truly done looking at his coins. So a quick summary. The total count was 1638. The bulk of this was spare change! Old medicine bottles filled with 162 quarters, 464 dimes, 134 nickels, and 270 cents. Like I said still searching all of those. There was 10 rolls of nickels from 1938 to 1960, 2 were silver. Between my extras and his rolls I filled a Whitman Classic! Also in bulk was 195 Kennedy halves and 22 Ikes. No silver. The rest: 4 1986 ASE, 1 Morgan, 1 Peace, 1 roll Wheats, 3 ND Buffs, 3 Mercs, 4 silver Washington quarters, 2 silver Roosies, 1982 7 coin Lincoln set, and some gold plated crap from shop at home. So there you go, a quick look at what will drive my wife nuts for the next few months! Thanks to all who had kind words about my Granddad, you were all right, he was great. Also if any were wondering the prize for the contest was a 1986 ASE from my Granddad's collection. I know it will find a good home in Bruce's 7070 set and that would make my Granddad happy. Happy hunting, Michael
Michael: Still, those medicine bottles could contain something! I recently purchase a junk lot of coins from someone who was referred to me, and there , in the middle of a bunch of absolute junk foreign coins was a gold soverign. Too bad but it was soldered into a holder for wearing. Still, it was gold. Also, a number of years ago I was offered six silver dollars from someone who had gotten them from dear old Dad's estate. They mentioned that there was a CC dollar (they were not stupid). I looked at it recently and it is a nice original XF, and I had paid the going price at the time. Today it is worth a lot more. The other dollars were all cleaned junk. So, again, ya never know.
I hear you Treashunt, I did have one exciting moment while I was counting them. I came across a 1916 Merc. I stopped for a second, took a deep breath, turned it over, and nothing. Still fun though. Michael
It's still a legacy. I would put one of the more special coins away as a keepsake, and share it with your grandchildren someday with instructions to keep it for their grandchildren. Maybe a coin from an important year in your grandfather's life.
Glad to see you received it. The only thing left from my grandfathers "hoarding" was two morgans and 6 or 7 IHC before my mother received them back in the 90's. The only things left were all the low grade stuff. He had a bunch of odds and ends he kept(silver certificates, 2$ bills, peace, ikes), but all of it disappeared. When she passed away my dad gave me the IHC and started working on his morgans.
