What made you start collecting coins?

It was my father.He once showed me all his coins to me that he got from his life time.So after that I started collecting and I'm glad I did. :thumb: B12

 

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I always knew to pull out old coins in my change and keep them. But 10 years ago I saw a Walking Half dollar in a friends change jar and the coin collecting bug hit me.

 

1 - The minor coins I got as a child from my parents' friends coming from abroad
2 - My parents giving me a silver ecu as a birthday present

And the virus was in my body, and never left me alone since that

Please, have mercy of me, give me more !!!!

Cucumbor

 

I first collected stamps. When I realized they weren't worth anything, I switched to coins.

Charlie

 

I started as a kid because my Dad collected LOL but I think it is mainly because I am a collector hya: :bow:

De Orc :goofer:

 

I first started getting an interest in coins when I was real little, maybe 4 or 5 when my dad(born in 1938) showed the coins he had saved. Then I found a silver quarter in my change when I bought a pack of baseball cards when I was about 6. Then in about 5th grade I got into a competition with a friend to see who could get the best Lincoln cent collection, 1909-present.

I've been slowly at it ever since. Now I'm 20 and still don't have a complete set of anything.

 

I started about 5 years ago...
My dad and mom had gotten some coins though the years...some good deals...some bad...I had some too and liked to look at them...
Then I decided that I was going to buy some...nothing big just some neat ones like wheats...buffs...and the like....
Franklins Halves got me because they were cheap and I could get about 2-3 dates a week in lower grades...I looked through bags of junk silver that my dad had...and traded and completed the set.
I was on 1 main forum at that time...CoinWorld forum and many of the guys there helped out with info and kept me going and hunting for coins...
(This is looking like a book)
Then as my job got to be a paying jig I started buying more and setting back money so I could get some key dates....Wheat cents had been my set that was taking me a long time to complete...(I completed it this year with the 1912-S and 1924-D)

A man I knew in the Nursing home that was a collector also helped me tons untill this year when he died...
Others have been a big part in my collecting...I could list names of guys here...and other places...but I can't say who 1 person started me....it was a joint effort

There are still many many things I need to learn and read....and there are many things I hope to do in my years of collecting before me....but I think one of the biggest things I hope to do is help some collector...like many guys helped me.

Speedy

 

I became interested as a lad back in my paper route days. It was then that I began to handle a fair amount of change. Both the age of some of the coins, as well as the various designs that were in circulation at the time, started me looking for and saving the older coins. Ahhh, those were the days, in circulation one could find Morgan and Peace dollars, Franklins, Walking Liberties, Barbers in various denominations (although not many of them), Washington & Standing Liberty quarters, Roosevelt & Merc dimes, Jefferson & Buffalo nickels, many, many old Lincolns, and even a few Indian head cents.

I remember not wanting to spend any of my "collection" on albums (did not have a lot of money anyway), so I made my own "albums" from corrugated cardboard.

 

one word - DAD

 

The credit goes to my grandmother,She started me off with an 1901 Indian head cent when I was 5 years old.The cent was worth about .07 cents back then.I was bitten by the collecting bug.45 years later,I am still active and have over 10,000 wheat cents,among thousands of U.S. and forein coins.Now I am hoping that my children continue when I am gone and that the hobby gives them as much enjoyment as it has for me all of these years.Strange how it all started with a single cent.

 

The Highest Ideal of Human Achievement

In Atlas Shrugged, one of the heroes, Francisco d'Anconia, gives a speech on the meaning of money. In it he says: "The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality." His reason is that one makes money through production and trade. And that is the noblest way to live: as a producer who creates value and then gains values from others through voluntary exchange.
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/articles/wthomas_morality-money.asp
Full text here:
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1826

 

Thanks for the interesting storys everyone! B12

 

My father always had to stop at the coin dealers tables when we stumbled onto collectibles shows at malls to get a few "cheap" buffalo nickels. At first I just walked on by and headed to the die-cast and antique tables. Eventually all that "purty" silver started to catch my attention more and more and finally I made my first purchase. That was over 20 years ago and that's all it took, baited, hooked and throw me in the livewell!!

 

Interesting story OL Silver. :thumb: B12

 

I have had a little interest since I was a kid. My father (b. 1946) showed me some of his coins he saved and told me to be on the lookout for a 1943 penny. He bought me a few Whitmans, Lincoln cents from 1959, washington clad quarters and I believe Jefferson nickels. As a kid, I searched through my father's junk change jar to fill the slots. I have to admit that I had little to no interest in money at all when I was a kid. I pulled the quarters out of my folder and spent them all. I also spent a small hoard in $2 bills. There wasn't really any intrinsic value in those items, but there certainly was sentimental value.

I also was given $2 bills as gifts and my father claimed he would buy a proof set for every year since I was born. My parents bought an old restaurant and they would bring home silver coins and half dollars, etc. There was an old jukebox there from the 50s that sat in the restaurant for a year at least before we cracked it open and found a bunch of change that was sitting in there for a good 30 years. We also found a small handful for wheaties in the basement which were probably there for 75 years or more, a few were dated in the teens and most were in the 20s.

I didn't really get the itch for collecting until I became a clerk and looked through thousands of dollars worth of change. I would bring home wheaties and halfs which I bought out of the drawer. I found an old dominican republic centavo in the drawer and it took me several days to identify it. Originally, I knew very little about coins before I was a clerk. I stumbled upon a few cool sites tring to ID my centavo including this one.

I had so much fun researching coins that I researched the few wheats I had, along with the coins I inherited from my grandfather. I raided my father's collection as well.

After going through his collection, I became upset about how poorly maintained it was. He had 2 morgans and they were raw and had turned completely black. His mercury dimes turned completely black and were covered in crud. The collection was either loose or in sandwich bags.

He had a ton of kennedys which were in bags and in a 2x2 pocket page with some kennedys in there. He actually taped the pocket shut because he didn't understand that you had to 2x2 the coin before you put it in the pocket.

I went on ebay and ordered $100 worth of supplies to organize both of our collections.

To make a long story short, I have become a very serious collector over the past 6 months and it's been a lot of fun.

 

I started in 1968 when I was in military academy, We had nothing to play with or do, I seen some of the older fellas tradeing stamps & pennys!, that got my interest, so I keeped every penny I found and asked for a whitman penny book from my mother, I had that book until I got married the first time and sold it for needed money, Ive collected on -off the rest of my days....

 

Several reasons. One was that as a kid I liked shiny coins when they ended up in my pockets. Many I would spend all too quickly but others I kept, looked at the years, etc. At some point I noticed (or maybe was told, don't remember) that most German denominations had not been made between the early 1950s and the mid-1960s. Later I learned that they had actually been produced but the years did, and to some extent still do, not reflect the production dates.

Another factor was that my family is partly Dutch and I learned that those things called gulden and cent were money just as "ours". And again I would keep some of them.

Now my father was not interested in coins (as collectibles) at all. But one of my grandfathers was, and I got my very first collector coin, a silver 5 DM piece, from him ...

Christian

 

There were a few thing that interested me. First, as a kid I became aware that there were quite a few Canadian pennies and nickels around [but this no longer seems to be the case], so I started saving them and asked my parents to save them for me. Also, my uncle had a fairly extensive collection of 18th and 19th century US coinage. My grandfather had a small collection of Morgan dollars. And about the same time all of this was happening, the US stopped making silver coinage. So there was a fair amount of "coin activity" going on around me.

About two years ago, my interest was re-kindled when I became aware of what a screaming bargain silver was.

 

My Old-Man got me started.

Bone

 

Napoleon got me started! My father was a change hoarder for years, and had a safe full of old circulated silver and 5lb cans of pennies. When I was very young he did introduce me to nickels, but it was all his work, "here's one, put it in your book" and I never caught the bug.

35 years later, my hobby is collecting and painting Napoleonic miniatures and I see this coin for $10 and I have to have it.. a piece of history I can touch. At the time I said no way, I'm not a coin collector.

2 years later, with a couple bond dividends under my belt, I'm a collector, and enjoying nickels at my speed