What Started Your Love Of Coins?

It started for me in 1967 when i was 10

Funny i dont remember the exact catalyst clearly ... but it might have been buying blue whitman coin folders for lincoln cents at a drug store then later buying a U.S. Coin Redbook at the same drug store.

My coin interest fairly quickly evolved into searching rolls of coins from banks for silver. I was able to pull out about $80 face value of silver coins from bank rolls. The 1960's was a great era for collecting as you could still find mercs, standing libs, and walking libs in bank rolls for face value.

Later in the mid 1980's when my parents starting buying gold and silver for significant premiums, they told me that "I had the right idea back in the 1960s"

 

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It sounds like you and I got started close to the same time.

I never considered going to the bank to look through their rolls in those days-- I knew someone who worked at the local bank and she said that the bank tellers would save the good stuff for their bosses. So I figured the chances of me finding something good in a roll were pretty slim. I did get lucky with bank rolls a decade or so later when I went to a country bank and got 10 rolls of halves and found that 5 of the rolls contained mostly 40% and 90% Kennedys.

 

humm i found lincoln cents in my grandmas steemer trunk and held on to them.. had a 1909 s vdb.. in it.. didnt know till i actually looked in it.. much later.. when i was like 13-14 and started reading and researching...

 

then i got hooked.. but stoppped for a bit.. the started back up when i was 24

 

Well, I think I initially got into coins as a coping mechanism for grieving when my grandfather passed away in January. Now I really enjoy it and hooked for sure. When I was in college, he gave me $50 in SBAs that he was given as a present for 50 years of never having smoked. Well, I needed rent one month and found a guy that bought coins. He gave me $80 for them back in 1992. Didn't get hooked, but later on after I joined the Navy and was going to graduate school close to home, he showed me a velvet pouch that had a bunch of old coins. I looked them up online for some prices and think the pouch by my estimate was worth $600. Knowing what I know now, I think I overgraded, so they weren't worth that. Thought it was neat, but never got the collecting fever. Then, last Christmas, he knew he didn't have long and was very feeble. He said he wanted to give me some coins to keep for my sons and to send half to my neice and nephew in Japan (my brother is also in the Navy). Thought it was the velvet pouch. It wasn't, it was coins that his brother had when he passed earlier in the year. Nothing great, JFKs, SBAs, and a bunch of IKEs, but we had a good time separating them and he thought they were worth their weight in gold. That was the last real time that I spent with Gramps. He died a few weeks later and I guess I started to use it as a coping time. Started looking at the coins, reading, found cointalk and then started to build birthyear sets for my sons...so that they would cherish them someday. Saw a thread on typesets here and bought an album and have been learning ever since. My typeset album has an IKE, a JFK and a SBA (filled S by the way) that my sons helped me pick for the album that we will never upgrade - the are only worth face in most cases but priceless to us. I keep a log of what the coins are, where I got them, and why we selected that year for the typset - for example the state quarter is an Ohio Proof since we are originally from Ohio.

As a side note, that original velvet pouch that had some walkers and mercs and some seated liberties has either been snagged by someone in the family or never found. I have asked and the family members that helped clean the house for the auction "never saw it". I didn't inherit anything other than a few guns that are family heirlooms, but would have liked to have some of those coins for my typeset to hand down. Someone has it or is going to find it someday in a drawer or box that they bought during the auction. But, doesn't matter at this point. That's my story!

 

That's a very poignant and touching story Debordj. Grandfather shall always be with you.

 

For more then ten years my grandfathergave me a coin every timehe was within arms reach of me. I would look at it for a second,and then put it on the counter and forget about it. A few months ago I found a folder of wheaties, and when I saw the steelies, I was hooked

 

my grandfather died and had some coins and now i owe him for my success

 

When I was young my parents gave me a small cache of coins they had "put aside" which included some walkers and a few gold pieces. I started a cent set in the early Whitman blue folder and was fairly successful finding wheats in circulation. Then ONE FINE DAY, I was looking through some change I had and found a 1909 S VDB. I looked in the book I had on value and was amazed that a cent could be worth so much -- more money to me then than I could imagine. It was really the catalyst for my starting a life long hobby of collecting coins (with some fits and starts). I still have the original coins they gave me along with my find!

 

my dad collected coins as a kid, so helped to get me started. he bought me a whitman folder and some cent rolls to fill it. plus he gave me my first indian head cent.