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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kaparthy, post: 96, member: 57463&quot;]<b>Angels of the Centerfolds</b></p><p><br /></p><p>I do not collect coins anymore.&nbsp; I always had an interest in hard money and 19th century US coins because I learned about capitalism from Ayn Rand when I was a teenager in the 1960s.&nbsp; It was not until 1993 that I started collecting.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I got into tokens because I wanted to show my employer then (Kawasaki Robotics) the advantage in making their own sales tokens.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>This dealer had a clerk who was the YN coordinator for the state club, so they got my daughter a gig as a Page at an MSNS show.&nbsp; Dropping her off and picking her up, I walked the floor and I saw that ancients were affordable.&nbsp; I was blown away to see that I could buy coins from ancient Greece and Rome.&nbsp; But I did not know enough about them.</p><p><br /></p><p>I drifted into an out of Barber Dimes (too many keys!) and then worked with a dealer on a set of Mercury Dimes.&nbsp; They let me sort through bags of circs and I filled a Whitman except for the 1916-D and the semi-keys of the 1920s that I wanted in higher collector grades.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>From there, I got into ancients about 1994.&nbsp; By 1997, I had my fill of coins and coin collecting.&nbsp; And &quot;coins&quot; included world bank notes, civic scrip, coal mine tokens, just about everything numismatic.&nbsp; I probably spent $10,000 in three years.&nbsp; Then, all the fun went away at once.</p><p><br /></p><p>Somewhere in 1999, working for Coin World, I saw numismatics from a very high and far away big picture panorama and I stopped caring whether or not I owned anything.&nbsp; I dumped everything I had a couple of times as I cleared it all out.&nbsp; (I had to get permission from CW to do that.&nbsp; Selling coins while working for them is the kiss of death.&nbsp; Amos had just fired a stamp guy for selling stamps.)&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>But, I never stopped writing.&nbsp; For me, being in the library is what it is all about.&nbsp; I used to work 60 ... 70... 80 hours a week at Coin World.&nbsp; (I was separated from my wife, so I had no life.&nbsp; Might as well work.)&nbsp; I could not get enough knowledge about the art and science of the forms and uses of money.&nbsp; I read US Mint Director Reports, Auction Catalogs, Club Newsletters, old magazines like Coin Collectors Journal and Numismatic Scrapbook, everything I could get my hands on.&nbsp; I had done that before joining CW and I continued after I left.</p><p><br /></p><p>Someone once asked Walter Breen what he collected and he said: &quot;Knowledge.&quot;[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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