Now that I have sparked some curiosity, this post is all about New Years, our numismatic origin stories, and the history that comes with collecting. My first contact with coins came discovering an old fruitcake tin that rattled enticingly down in the family home crawl space in 1978. I was nine years old. My dad said, "Oh, that? That's my old coin collection. Maybe you should have it now!" How many out there have a story like this? My dad had a paper route when he was a young teenager, roughly 1950-1954, and he made a point of saving the strange coins he got when people paid for their papers at the end of the week (yes, they gave the change to the paperboy, who was then responsible for getting the money to the newspaper office). Most of it was junk silver, worn Barbers and a few Seated Liberties, with a couple Large Cents. Plenty of Indian Head cents. But.... there was an envelope of coins that seems special and set apart from the rest. They spilled out into my hands and at first I was disappointed because the coins were spotted black, almost as if... almost as if.... they had been BAKED IN A PIE! "Those are the family Vasilopita coins!" my dad beamed. A Vasilopita is a New Years Day cake eaten as a Greek and Greek American tradition in honor of Saint Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea back in late Roman days. While Saint Nicholas has taken on the role of Santa Claus in the west, we Eastern Orthodox have St. Nick usher in the Holiday Season on December 6, and then Saint Basil wraps it up in the first days of January. Vasilopita recipes vary widely all over Greece and the lands of the former Ottoman Empire. My family came from the island of Lesvos, which remained Ottoman until a hundred years ago, reverting to Greece only after The Sick Man of Europe ate his final Baklava. My savvy Great Grandmother saw what was coming and took the family out of there in 1910, landing everyone jobs at the Bigelow Sanford Carpet Mill in Enfield, CT. Also escaping, by a few years, the ravages of World War I which spelled doom for the Sultans. In the US, our Vasilopita recipe set the family aside from other clans that had come from mainland Greece. Those other recipes were much more cake-y, while our Ottoman Vasilopita exhibited a typically Turkish twist of filo layers, walnuts, and honey. So, how do the coins figure in? Every Vasilopita is baked with a coin hidden inside. When the family celebrates the New Year, the first piece is cut for Christ, the second for his Mother, the third for Saint Basil, and the fourth for the household in general. After that, each family member gets a piece, distributed oldest to youngest. If you get the piece with the coin in it, you'll have good luck all year. But what happens if one of those first four pieces gets the coin? Sometimes the piece goes into the back of the freezer as a good luck talisman for eternity. I grew up a whole arsenal of these lucky pieces taking up space in the fridge: ancient Vasilopita slices as well a dessicated eggs, boiled and dyed red, from Easters long past. The lucky coins went into a jar as a kind of family bank account against bad luck and the Evil Eye... and these coins, along with my dad's paper route gleanings, were the seeds of the coin collection I have grown and nurtured for the last 42 years. Of course, what does a nine-year-old boy do with a pile of old blackened coins? He cleans them! As Harshly as possible!!! For most of these coins that didn't matter really, but one of them, which started out as coal-black little disc, became a beautifully preserved 1898 Barber quarter. I stared at this thing for hours when I was little, especially at the detail in the shield on the reverse. I'm sure I ruined the coin that day when i scrubbed off the Vasilopita ashes, but this little pile of charred silver carries so much hope and history with it, and in so many ways relates the story of coming to America. One other coin caught my eye from the Vasilopita pile: an otherwise unremarble 1943 quarter. When I cleaned off the embers and ashes from this one, even as a kid i noticed a possible doubling on the 3. What do you all think? So Happy New Year to you all! I'd love to hear more stories of coins used in family traditions. In Greek we say, "Chronia Polla!" "Many years!!!"
Και του χρονου! Ευτυχισμενος ο καινουριος χρονος, λεβεντη μου! My maternal grandmother came from Lesvos (I think the town of Molyvos). My maternal pappou was from Thessaloniki I believe but he died in the 1940s. My mom's family all came from Crete. GREAT story, BTW!
Excellent! Thank you so much for the New Years wishes! Molyvos is the best town! Really amazing spot. In retrospect I can't believe these coins are the ones that got me started. They hold a sacred place in my collection!!!
