Show us your first and last acquisitions.

Nice! I, too, remember when Gimbels (the NYC store in Herald Square) had a coin department. I know I bought a British coin there once in the late 1970s.

 

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That's quite some first coin! May I ask how long ago you bought it?

 

Sometime in the mid 1980s. I lost all my records in a computer crash ca. 2003.

 

WHAT? mid 1980s ??? You once told me that you are 25 ! You liar !

 

That's neat, thanks for replying! And I learned a new word too, thespian.

 

...well, he was once..or maybe he meant 'at least".

 

The odd part was the coin counter at the Philadelphia store was more impressive than the one in New York, which was under a staircase. The New York store was the headquarters, however so they had more inventory.

My first job offer was to work the counter at the Philadelphia store. I had pass because I was 16 years old and didn’t live in the area.

 

Wow!.....Super coins everyone...Don't know about others but have found it good fun reading through the posts. Lots of surprises such as how long someone has been collecting to their change in focus from 1st to last...Looking forward to seeing others.

 

How it started...



How it's going...


One would think that 10 years on I'd have become a more discerning collector, but the coins don't lie.

 

My very first coin purchased was a Morgan dollar, at a coin shop in Dearborn, Michigan back in the mid-70s. That coin is long gone, so I cannot provide my very first coin.

As far as ancient coins are concerned, my first one was a tetradrachm of Alexander III, Salamis Mint, acquired around 1980 or 1981 at a coin show. That coin also has long departed these shores. So many of my early acquisitions were sold over the years that I am hard pressed to think of the earliest ancient still hanging out. Ditto for my world coins.

I guess I'll fall back to the owl from Harlan Berk, purchased around 1985. This coin was part of a hoard that hit the market at that time.




As far as my most recent (last) coin purchased, in terms of chronology ordered, I guess it is this one, another owl that I posted earlier today. I think the image quality has somewhat improved since the above photo, taken in May 2020.




The last auction lot won was this one, from Roma's E-Sale 93 (January 2022):

Sweden, 1716
1/2 dalder copper plate money
Avesta mint, 1716.
Denomination and S•M within diamond stamped in centre; four circular stamps, one at each corner, with crowned monogram and date.
KM PM 32; AAH 195; BT D2.

371.51g, 98mm x 100mm.

 

I dug through some old papers and have to apologize: the Ti. Veturius and Trajan Decius denarii I posted above were, in fact, the first Roman coins I bought; the date was April 12, 1986, at a Manhattan coin show, from an obscure Florida dealer named the Sarr Coin Co.,* together with a George I guinea. But I remembered wrong; they weren't my first ancient coin purchase overall. That was actually the following, a couple of months earlier, at the store of a then well-known New York City dealer in antiquities, with a lesser concentration in ancient coins:

Macedon, Alexander III (under Philip III Arrhidaeus), AR Drachm, Miletos mint, 323-319 BCE. Obv. Head of beardless Herakles to right, wearing lion skin headdress / Rev. Zeus seated left on stool-throne, holding long scepter in left hand, with eagle standing right with closed wings on his right hand; KH monogram (Price Monogram 476) in left field; in right field, AΛEXANΔPOY. Price 2121 [Price, M., The Coinage in the Name of Alexander the Great and Philip Arrhidaeus (London, 1991)]; Pella database at http://numismatics.org/pella/id/price.2121?lang=en; Müller 847 [Müller, L., Numismatique d'Alexandre le Grand; Appendice les monnaies de Philippe II et III, et Lysimaque (Copenhagen, 1855-58)]. 16 mm., 4.21 g. Purchased from Harmer Rooke Numismatists, Ltd., New York City, 21 Feb. 1986.



I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that after all these years, I still don't have an Alexander III tetradrachm. Perhaps because they're so common, and always available, that I've never felt any urgency to buy one.

*See the text of their ad in The Numismatist published that month, at https://archive.org/stream/Numismatist1986April/Numismatist1986April_djvu.txt:

SARR Coin Co.

Buying all Ancient European coinage. Send for our
generic listings of quality coins at dealer prices.

Anha Nebb, ANA R 106981
P.O. Box 50444
Lighthouse Pt., FL 33074
(305) 428-9616

 

..haha....don't feel lonely.. we all experience that, given time.....

 

LOL!!!

 

My first coin was a half penny from Great Britain worn almost smooth and dated in the 1860’s. But the first coin I purchased at a show was this electrum ducat attributed to Robert of Anjou 1346-64AD Schlumberger XII/34. The dealer was John Barton of Owl, Ltd. He listed the coin at $175 but let me have it for $150, and I gave him $50 and paid the rest over time. That was in December of 1977. Having a coin of Frankish Greece helped fire my interest in the Fourth Crusade which became the subject of my senior thesis. My first Byzantine gold coin was purchased soon after.
My latest coin is a recent auction win from Leu, 44 years later. Leu listed this as a Solidus of Justinian from Constantinople, but I believe it is from the Carthage mint.

 

Well, I checked off Macrianus and Leo III.