Noodle's Contest

All of the fun and good fellowship that has been generated by Dak with his contest, I have decided to run one of my own.

This contest is open to all who wish to participate both in the US and everywhere else. I am also going to base the type of contest on Dak's poll and use the write a story option.

Whoever writes the best (true) story about how they have shared their knowledge and love of coins with someone who did not collect will win 2 obsolete US Type Coins. Entries will be accepted until This Sunday night (5/20/07) at Midnight EDT. Winner will be based solely on my whim and caprice, so enter your best story. Limit of 1 entry per person, but I might have some secret way of making a second entry, you just never know. The prize will be shipped by USPS, so you must be willing to send me your name and address if you win.

Good Luck to everyone!!!

mikenoodle

 

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im a YN so i dont have too many stories to tell but i think i got a good one here

Since i just love coins about 6 months ago my Dad was telling people i collected coins in case they had some so i could buy them or look at them

So first off he said it to this women who said ya i got a few coins my grandfather did some coin dealing on the side

so i started to get a little exicted here

Well she came over to my house the next day with tons of coins in a plain plastic bag and i was getting disapointed

but then when they came closer i saw the glint of gold and i crossed my fingres hoping they wernt cleaned

so she had a folder of incomplete morgans, some modern junk, some loose silver dollars, and 8GOLD COINS

2 indian 5, 2 indian 2.5, 3 liberty, and 1 classic head and stragight off i realized that non were cleaned and all of them were unc

in the morgan bag they had some nice unc ones but on the backs of all the CCs there were very heavy dark oil looking stuff that killed its value

so right now i was pumped and she let me have them for the afternoon till she picked them up later and i would give her a rough price

So i looked closer at the coins and the classic head was a 1839 C 2.5$ which is a rare date and there was a 1861 2.5$ in really great condition

so i gave her a stimate of 5-10 GRAND on the classic and 1-2 Grand on the earlier liberty

the next day we went to the coin store to send them to NGC

well they came back later as Ms-62 for the classic which is 12-18 GRANd and ms-64 for the lib which is about 1 grand

In the begining they said they were gunna sell but i think they caught the collectors bug and they told me a month after they will not sell the coins which to me is the best part becuase i would hate for these babys to go to a investor

So in the end i helped make these people relize that they had 13-19 Grand in that big pplastic bag and that collecting coins is fun


Sorry for my rambling post
Jako

 

Over the course of thirty plus years (the plus number is a secret, and none of your business), I have been able to get several individuals interested in collecting coins. Initially, there was the ex’s cousin’s son, who as a pre-teen got into a lot of trouble, he was (is) an extremely intelligent individual who just had the misfortune of not being able to relate to many people. Due to an unfortunate accident he got into a lot of trouble with the police, and was even harder to reach. The parents knew that I collected coins and suggested to their son that I may be willing to take him to some coin dealers (they did not know about coin shows).
Without hesitation I offered to take him whenever I was able to go, and we attended nearly every other Sunday. He was really getting interested in the hobby, and started to collect whatever interested him, I know that collecting should be structured to many collectors, but better scattered around than nothing. He had trouble relating to others until he met some coin dealers who were kind enough to ignore his odd and unusual comments and ways of relating to others, except when it came to coins.
We had a great time for the better part of a year, that is until his aunt got married and I was informed that the ‘coin collecting and taking his to shows, etc’ would now ‘be handled by the new brother in law.’ This actually happened this way, and the new brother in law did not even collect coins. However, apparently it was more important to keep the relationships within the family than for the kid to have a good time. Sad to say, but the pretensions that this family had included the adoption of a Bostonese accent, even though only one of them ever went to school there.
After my parting of the ways with my ex I never had the opportunity to see the boy again, and I have often wondered if he continued to collect, or if his collection withered on the vine. Due to various commitments, getting married, having kids, buying a house, et cetera my collecting days disappeared for a while, however, once back collecting, I am proud to say that I have been able to introduce several younger individuals to the hobby. One of those individuals is/was my son, who is on hiatus (college and girls have taken over for the time being).
I never hesitate to talk to someone about the hobby, perhaps boring them, but you never know when a newbie will appear. So, continue to share the hobby with anyone who is interested, and think about taking them to a coin show, you never know what you may start. Besides, you will always come out ahead.

 

I have a son who has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. He will be 8 years old next month. For those that don't know, Asperger's is classified as an Autistic-Spectrum disorder. One of the characteristics of AS, is that with certain things he is overfocused and extremely intelligent, and for other things, it's as if he's oblivious. (He forgets to look both ways when crossing the street for example) It is often misdiagnosed (and certainly was in our case) as ADD or ADHD. There are two things that we have discovered that my son enjoys immensely, and when he is doing those things, he can remain very focused, and doesn't have a meltdown. (severe tantrum). One is studying and drawing maps. (He has no trouble giving my wife directions from the backseat, even if he hasn't been there before, all because he has the map memorized!) The second thing is studying coins. Canadian coins, American coins, world coins, it doesn't matter. We keep our collection cheap. (I'm lucky to have maybe a dozen coins worth more than $1, and very few silver coins). He can sit for hours and search pennies and nickels with me. We have filled most of those books for him, and are now looking for things like the 1985 pointed 5 penny, and seeing how many different countries we can get. As a parent, it's important to be able to connect with your child, but it is especially difficult to do with an AS child. I happen to have found that one thing that we can both enjoy together, and I could care less if my collection has any monetary value, because it's real "value" is much, much greater than that.

 

so i got a story its not the best but it doesn't get any real than this. not a story about how someone found few grands or how someone becomes really interested just a plain ol everyday run of the mill ol joe coin of the story. This friend of mine works in the same company didn't collect coins didint understand coins didnt hate cons didnt love coins you get the picture. He used to drive em to the post office and back i used to tell him about this forum and how collecting coins was getting debates many stories about coin talk and the people here. that inspired him to get into coin collecting and now he gets coins from the mint from time to time. Morale of the story gold , silver,knowledge might not be enough for some people they just need a good story. Peace out. Wait a minute that was suposed to beam me up scotty

 

About 5 years ago is when it all began. My Uncle Jean had passed about 2 years before it happened. My dad came to me very slowly and said, "Savannah, your aunt said these old things belonged to your Uncle Jean...she wants you to have them." Every person I meet I tell this to. My father went to the hospital for a very bad infection he had. His nurse overheard me talking to my daddy about this and he said " Collecting coins sounds pretty damn cool you know, I think I am gonna start off of it. My grandfather passed some old coins down to me and well I never really thought anything of it." about 4 weeks later he calls my dad up since he transfered hospitals and said "Here you go sport you deserve it." (HE HANDED ME 15 COINS AND 1 PAPER MONEY.) " I forgot to tell you this but I was looking through my military bag and nursing bag since I travel around the world and I found some of these." "THANKS! SIR!"I said. He replying with a simple reply himself. "since you told me about the coins I have a huge collection, I want to thank you"

 

Day 1 gave us some very good entries. But are the best yet to come? Still lots of time to enter this one!!!! Get your stories in, cuz I LOVE reading these stories!

 

i am glad u like these stories

 

I love ARLroxta's signature... I love that particular kind of humor. One of my favorites is: It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then it's Hysterical!

 

thank you.....i love it too, that is my signature on all of my sites.

 

Ok, Mike, time for my real story and the rantings of an old man.... Feel free to push the fast forward button I know its probaly too long!


There are only a couple things that really get me excited in life, and most of them revolve around coins. It really does excite me to see young folks take an interest in coins and the history they hold and the memories that they can bring back. I find it sad when kids spend all day watching tv and playing video games just letting the media fill their heads to a point, where, I think they lose their individualism (not to mention relationships with parents and mentors are not encouraged.) When individualism is the vary thing media claims to give them. When I see a young person branch off that idealism and make a descision for themselves to collect something like coins, that may not be seen as cool by their peers, to me that says indivualism more than what they could ever hope to obtain through the mimic of the media and cable tv.

In our everyday life history is rarely studied and seldom thought about. Through collecting coins it opens doors to teach of the accomplishments of years gone by and of the failures and follies of past generations as well as the joys and accomplishments! To many people today think collecting coins is considered a bland and boring hobby, similar to vanilla ice cream, it's nice, but its routine, its simple, its... Boring...

In my days I have managed a bank, eventually opened up a small gunsmith shop. I retired a while back and now work part time at a local hardware store in a town of 500 people, very much like the town Mayberry from The Andy Griffith show. The owner of the store has a small for his age 12 year old boy who seeks a lot of attention because wasn't getting much if any at home. After school gets out he just wanders the store, bored looking for something to do, and usually caused some sort of ruckus. Usually he has a portable DVD player, or other handheld game that he will play around with to kill time and keep himself occupied.

Last year I mentioned coin collecting to him, he quickly reacted as he crinkled up his nose and said "No, thanks, I prefer to spend money, not save it" I reached into my pocket and tossed him a buffalo nickel, I said " Would you really want to spend that?" His eyes got really wide and a smile broke his face, "No sir, I wouldn't spend that!" I let him keep it and it was his prize of the day he studied it until he could tell me every little detail of that old nickel... And I was able to tell him some of the history behind that nickel, including the great depression and world war 1 ... I went home with a smile on my face and was happy to share that nickel with him.

The next afternoon when he arrived after school, he promptly said, " What coin did you bring for me??" I said "so ya like that huh?" so every day from then on I brought him a new coin to add to his collection, and taught him a little bit about the history of the time period the coin represented, usually old buffalo nickels and wheat pennies, (((and of course, I had to get him a Whitman Jefferson nickel folder, (which he just plugged in the last coin in last week), he found his 1951S and I then rewarded him with a BU 1950D which he never did find in circulation. . This is how and why I went through so many nickels this last year, together we searched $100 a week looking to fill the holes in his collection, I always had 10 rolls with me that we would secretly search together when the boss (his father) was out doing chores! (lol ...don't tell on me). Slowly but surely we filled every hole in the Jefferson Nickel series with a little help on the 1950D ! ))

Now the great thing is his father who used to collect coins is now re- interested in coins as well now, while I still see myself as a mentor for this boy, I am overjoyed to see the relationship between a father and son growing with a newfound common ground. He still greets me with "what coins did ya bring for me today?" and occasionally I find something new to toss to him.

As far as the comparison of Vanilla Ice cream to coin collecting, coin collecting is like vanilla ice cream and that is a good thing! Vanilla is simple, it is known, and it is pure. Too many people confuse the real vanilla with artificial vanilla... Real Vanilla is anything but tasteless, it is distict, noble, and pure and sweet as is coin collecting. To put artificial vanilla in the same class as real vanilla is the same as viewing coin collecting as old and staunchy when in fact it is new, and has much to give to folks who take the time to take a look, it is the tales of history, the lost fortunes of the past, and the hope of the future. Collecting coins can be a plain old artifical vanilla if approached from the perspective of MTV style media, but if you take a second look, maybe just a taste, you will find the joy real vanilla ice cream and the indivualism and relationships coin collecting can inspire...



Thanks for this contest Mike, it would give me a opportunity to possbly take a coin he has not yet seen!

 

awww...what a nice story *sniff* You are too kewl!

 

Three years ago, my sister started collecting old coins/circulated coins.. She always brags about it especially to me saying that she's got this unique hobby. Most of her coins she got are from friends and from mom and dad. Everytime she looks at her coins, I always stay beside her because that's what she wants but she would never allow me to hold them as I might took a coin or two from her.Now, that's mean right? Me, stealing her coins? I was not even interested to that hobby..(not yet..). But she made me. Because of her "selfishness", I secretly started to collect my own..old coins to modern circulated coins and foreign coins as well. I asked from my friends. I haven't dared yet to ask from my parents fearing that my sister would know about it..but eventually, she caught me looking happily at my own collection.WHeeeW!! I could still remeber the look in her eyes! She was mad and she said "You have no originality! Why can't you find a hobby of your own, diffrent from mine!". She didn't talked to me for almost two weeks..we have this cold war between us..Soon our Mom knew about this and talked to us about it..She said "two people or more or everyone can have this hobby, and she made my sister realized that it is more fun to have someone that shares the same interest with you especially on a certain hobby..that way you will have this special bonding". From that day on, we started sharing and trading our coins and we enjoyed the moment everytime we look at our coins at the same time..;-)

These hobby of ours got my special someone (boyfriend) interested too. He knew what my sister and I had gone through.. so he asked me if it's ok with us if he can also collect coins but he'll just limit only to coins which have animals on them.He's an animal lover, that's what he is! Of course I agreed..that means we would already be three on this thing and who knows.. maybe his younger siblings would be interested on it too! the more the merrier right?

 

I am the second oldest sibling basically in my family (sister is 25) (have an 8 year old brother, 3 week old sister, and a 2 and a half niece,) and I just collected what ever met my fancy. Nickels, cents, stuff like that. Well, recently about 3 months ago, my little brother was getting interested, but I noticed didn't want to ask me or anything or tell me he wanted to start a collection. So I took the first step, and got him and told him different things about collecting, even giving him a few coins. Now he has a pretty good collection (quite a few wheats, nickels, etc) and too think, he probably wouldn't have started something like this that is going to last him probably a life time if I didn't start him off! Well, I will take some things from my collection, and buy a few thigs for not only him, but I also am starting my baby sis and niece on a collection too. Soemthing for them when they get a tad older. Even if I don't get them interested, always something they can have. They have nice little collections now, too. Well, not the best story in the world, but it is mine.

Thanks for the contest Mike!

Phoenix

 

anyone else have a story to share? The contest ends tomorrow at midnight EST!! Get those entries in!!!

 

i got one coming Mike, i also need to finish dak's .... so much to do, so little time to do it

 

I hear ya, Jon... the dak story nearly killed me. LOL

 

My story is from long ago when i was a young kid. I hung out at the local boys club as my single mom had to work. I collected cents because i was jobless and they were easily found. There was an older boy who showed up one day. I dont know his age, but he had hair on his chest (i knew this from the pool when we all went swimming). His name was Robbie. Robbie was deaf and mute, he couldnt speak. Me, Robbie and another boy, carl, all became friends. We would play pool, swim or play different games in the gym. One day i was talking to carl about some cents i found, he didnt collect and found no point it other then saving enough to get a quarter so he could buy candy. Robbie saw us talking and wanted to see the cents i had with me. He seemed very interested. Even though communication was extremely difficult, we would examine coins almost daily for a month or so. I would bring in some of my cuplicates for him, to get him started on his own collection. We really liked the coins i gave him,and would get so excited. Although Robbie was alder, he was a child at heart, and maybe mentally as well. But i really liked him. One day when we were playing, he cupped the right side of my face in his hand and just looked at me for a moement. I didnt think anything of it, but when i asked my mother about it (she is a social worker and works with the mentaly ill) she told me alot of deaf people who arent able to speak, do that as a sign of affection. I thought that was kind of cool. Shortly after, Robbie stopped coming to the club. At first i thought maybe he was sick like with the flu or something. Then i thought maybe he broke his legg or something. The i stopped thinking. a month or 2 later, the director called me down to his office, i thought i was in so much trouble. When i got to his office, there was a man and a woman i had never seen before. Jim, the director, told me to have a seat. It was very somber in the office, i was scarred. I really thought i was in so much trouble for somethign i had done. Jim started to explain to me, that the man and woman was Robbies mother and uncle. It seems that a month or so earlier, Robbie was in a car that was in a serious accident. Robbie and his father died. His mom wanted to come talk to me, because she wanted to tell me how Robbie was always excited when he got home on the days we talked coins. She had with her, what i know was a whitman folder (at least i think it was, it had that look). She showed me how he would put the coins in the slots. I saw Robbie had found other coins that i hadnt given him, and put them in some of the vacant slots. She told me that she really wanted to give them back to me, but asked if she could keep them because it would help her to rememebr the smile he had when playing with his 'pennies' (her words, not mine). Being so young, it happened so fast, so much was being said to me. I dont remeber what i said, or if i said anything. I do know i was crying. The only thing i remember after that, was that she gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. The man shook my hand and said thank you. and they left. Jim let me stay in his office for most of the day after that. And this time i wasnt in trouble.

Robbie really was a good kid (man?)

 

awwwww, [expletive] you made me freaking cry

 

well, why do you think it took me so long to write.. i wasnt really looking forward to it, but in a way i was.