What shaped you into the collector you are?

One of my favorite sellers. LOOOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVEEE that Franklin. Give me a lightly toned 1953-S FBL and I will give you my car.

 

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Collecting.. Loved it as a child. When I was 5 years old I was probably more obsessed than I am now. The display cases at Caseys Coin were at eye level, and the guy had a jar of free suckers. Back then I collected cents-quarters (dancos). Sadly when I moved to Japan at 7, Dragon Ball Z cards were the thing. I put all of my energy into that. Moved Back to the states, and got into card collecting. Not gonna name the next 100 addictions I had, but none were as strong as coins. Make a long story short I was getting bored of poker. I talked everyone into doing high card for $200 a card. One guy took me up on it. This was in a home game and the other 2 tables broke apart. Everyone wanted to watch 200 dollar high card. He went first and drew an 8. I thought I was a sure win. Ended up drawing a 3. I asked him for a chance to get my money back. I won the next draw. We did a tie breaker and I outdrew him again with a Jack. Instead of money, I asked him for his card protector. (I think it was an 1886 Morgan.. not sure). Driving back from Austin I started having flashback of coins. Over the next couple of months (2010) I started scanning pawnshops/coin shops and looking for Barber Halves with "Lib" presnt. "OMG I GOT AN F-12 TODAY." 6 months ago I convinced my mom to allow me to have possession of my inheritance. The rest is history.

 

I started collecting State Quarters (more like horde them), a couple years ago. I thought they were so interesting and neat at the same time. Later on, I started trending towards other things, until last January, when I found CT. Since then, I have had a goal to not buy any coins until I learned more about coins, which I have almost kept. That was the best thing I ever did in this hobby.

During that time period, I have increased my knowledge and interest in coin collecting, and understand the hobby greatly now. Several months ago, I decided to start an MS Zincoln set from rolls and circulation, which I still continue once in a while. Right now, I am starting to purchase some coins for my tiny coin collection.

 

Nothing really specific sparked my interest in coins, to be totally honest... It just sort of happened. The history of my country always interested me, and I figured there was some interesting history behind U.S. coinage, so I delved deep into text involving the hobby of coin collecting, and soon enough I was developing a personal collection!

But one thing's for sure, Justin, you're the one who sparked my interest in circ coins! A nice patina is now my weakness, and, believe it or not, I haven't purchased a mint state coin in quite awhile.

Interesting thread, and I hope to catch up with you soon, buddy!

-Brian

 

One thing I would say jcakcoin is never worry about what you can afford to buy or not. I have met many world collectors who can only afford to pick through $.25 pick bins that know ten times as much as other collectors who can afford to pay $10,000 for a coin. I would rather be someone who is knowledgable and can appreciate his coins rather than someone who can write a big check but cannot appreciate the coins he can afford to buy.

CHris

 

When I was knee high to my dad 25 years ago, a trip after my grandmother passed to her old house in Delaware yielded a doctor's bag full of war nickels and a VF 1851 large cent in a soap dish. Needless to say I was hooked from there on. And my Canadian collecting desires started with a trip up the Alcan highway, a quick stop at Whitehorse, Yukon for gas yielded my first silver dime. My history as a whole was pretty interesting. Now I'm trying to figure out how I got the itch for Early Commems...I think it was you guys!

 

Thanks for the tip. I'm not worried one bit about purchasing coins, I just like to take it slow. The history and artwork behind the coins is one of the many reasons I like to collect coins, not just the coin itself.

 

My dad passed away, I was the executor of his estate, I had to research his coins in order to divide the inheritance fairly according to his wishes, (8 siblings). That sparked my interest.

 

My love of history has definitely shaped my coin collecting. :smile TC

 

i started as a teen with help from my dad. he bought me a whitman folder and some rolls. i've always been a history buff, specifically medieval times. as i got older, i found some coins from that era. now i've pretty much stopped collecting modern and collect coins with a farther away history.

 

I'm 43 and I would say that I started back in the early 70's. Mom had a cardboard box in the basement next to the wash machine that had about 30 of those little baby food jars in it - and every jar had a year labeled on the lid. As she would clean out pockets before doing laundry, she had a crock on the countertop for common change out of the pockets, and whenever she found an old coin, it went into the babyfood jar that had a cooresponding date on the lid. At 6 years old I thought that was cool. Back then I can remember still getting Mercury dimes, Wheaties, Buffalo nickels, and silver quarters for change pretty often too, and I thought they were neat so I just held on to them. My brother has the old blue Whitman coin books, and I was always snooping through them, so mom bought me a set of them too, more to humor me than anything I guess. But it turns out mom was a second generation hoarder of old coins because my her mom did the same thing.
As luck would have it - mom started working at a bank in 1983 or so and worked there for 18 years before retiring. So many more coins, silver certs, etc were put away. When my grandma passed away in '97 a lot of her old coins came to me. But in 2004 my house was broken into and most of that hoard was stolen. I got most of my mint sets and silver proof sets back, but all the old coins, rolls of silver quarters, and rolls of barber and mercury dimes were gone for good. (Yes I've since bought a nice 1100 lb fire safe and it's not going anywhere anytime soon)
Now that moms getting older she started handing down her treasures to me from the bank. Morgans, Peace's, Barbers, Silver Certs, $100 and $20 silver certs, and the most interesting one of all was a 1914D Wheat cent.
I collect about everything, since I'm borderline ADD that works out good for me. If get bored with Mercury's, the Liberty nickels take their place... right now I'm on a Indian Head cent kick. And I try to pick up one or two Morgans at every auction I go to. I have almost a complete sets of ALL the Whitman books, I almost have a complete set of Kennedy's(in P,D, & S - BU) I have a complete set of Ike's, Mostly AU, but a couple are circulated. god the list goes on.

I'm working on a MS69 set of Silver Eagles... I need to fill in from 1998 back to 1986. Should have started sooner on those....

Send me your old coins you dont want please! LOL

 

Hunger and poverty.

 

Brian you got me into coin collecting. thanks a ton man. idk where id be w/o coincollecting