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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;KBBPLL, post: 25999119, member: 104064&quot;]I&#039;ve told my story so many times, I should just find one of those posts and copy/paste. Grandpa was the head librarian at the Chicago Tribune. Back in those days, major newspapers had extensive libraries. He was promoted when his predecessor passed away. The previous librarian had people all over mailing him coins, and the coins kept coming after he died. Other world coins probably came back with overseas journalists after WWII. I think grandpa knew he was dying from lung cancer (we didn&#039;t know at the time), so he sat down his five grandchildren at Thanksgiving and piled his collection on the table. These coins were all raw and in piles in a box. We each took turns picking a coin, and then after they were all passed out, did some horse trading. We at least knew that we should try to collect all the denominations with the same dates, so some trading was based on that. I was 13.</p><p><br /></p><p>We took them home and were smart enough to put them in 2x2s and album pages. My two siblings and two cousins did the same. Their collections have sat untouched since 1972. To them, it&#039;s nothing more than a remembrance of grandpa. I may have ended up the same, but I picked up a coin magazine with price guides in the back, and found that my Canadian 1948 and 1947 Maple Leaf coins were worth around $2000. That was my wow moment. To be fair, my brother was also into it for a couple years. We were in the school coin club. We used lawn mowing money to buy a few coins at a couple Chicago shops. We earned $5 for mowing an acre of lawn. BU Franklin&#039;s were anywhere from 75 cents to $1.75. Gas was 35 cent a gallon. </p><p><br /></p><p>I then worked in an ice cream parlor during high school. Some silver was still circulating (ca 1974-1977). I pulled a bunch of Ike dollars out of the till. The weirdest thing that came in was a crisp uncirculated 1935 $5 silver certificate. I always brought some money to work to swap out coins and bills. </p><p><br /></p><p>A couple years ago now I finally submitted the best Canadian coins to ANACS mostly to protect them and put grandpa&#039;s name on the slabs. They had been in the same album and 2x2s for over 50 years. I think they all should grade a point higher (or more - I can&#039;t believe the 1947 ML 5c only got MS62) but it is what it is. </p><p><br /></p><p>My collecting was dormant for decades. Then I went through a phase where I thought I would collect all the George VI silver from Canada, especially filling in gaps in grandpa&#039;s coins. A couple of coins pictured were not from grandpa but I attributed them to him anyway. Besides, I&#039;m a Smutny too. </p><p><br /></p><p>I took an interest in Barber coins when I happened to discover an undocumented dime reverse type introduced in 1900 and then modified again in 1901 to the reverse type mentioned in the guide books. I&#039;ve gone on to having six articles published in the BCCS journal. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be a published numismatist. It&#039;s so much easier to discover things now because you don&#039;t have to have actual coins - there are thousands of images online you can examine on a screen. My collecting over the past five years has been almost exclusively weird Barber stuff. What&#039;s the next phase? Who knows. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1653454[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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