What was it like being a coin collector in 1948?

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Cool!

 

decent copy of the 2nd edition.

 

Interesting that a book on United States coins starts its coverage in 1616. That must go back to cover colonial coinage also....

 

I have a copy in about the same condition. Nice to have such a nice, historical reference that indeed has seen use by probably multiple generations of collectors, yet is still being published today in essentially the same form.

 

What was it like? Collectors complained about the high prices, changing grading standards, moaned about the coins they couldn't afford, and for the most part collected by looking at their change or coin roll hunting. Times were getting tougher, you almost never saw any seated Liberties anymore, and decent barber coins were getting harder to find.

 

I was a child, just a few coins from my brothers, and times were hard then on the family, but my oldest brother had a job and would look through them at times and show me some, but I wasn't really interested. Jim

 

1948 - first year for the Franklin half.

That's about when my Grandmother started collecting early-date Walking Liberty halves -- especially the low-mintage ones.

 

I was still 6-7 years away from starting to collect.
But I was in Germany at that time.
MPC was probably in circulation.
And what could I have done with collecting German coins.

 

1948 and 1949 were the centennials of the California gold discovery and gold rush.

The American Numismatic Association (ANA) held it's annual convention in San Francisco in August 1949, the first one on the west coast.

 

And the average age of show attendees was around 60 and they all felt that the hobby was going to come crashing down due to no youngsters entering the hobby.

 

They are all gone now

 

A lot of people found coins in change and stored them in a jar or dresser drawer for safekeeping. Most folks couldn't afford to really collect coins...that hobby was left for the upper crust.

 

Times was tough then. You'd coin roll hunt and find nothing but walkers. And instead of finding an occasional Barber like you could in the good ol' days, now you have a bunch of these new ugly Franklin's, which are of course just the latest fad from the mint and will never be worth anything.

 

Thanks guys, I enjoy reading all the comments from my fellow wise old men. Kinda goes to show that there isn't much new under the sun, the more things change the more they remain the same, all like that.

 

Ever seen one of these? I believe the Star Coin Book was the first price guide. It was a catalog printed by a coin dealer in Texas, starting in 1906. I found this copy of the 43rd edition in an antique store for $5 so I had to have it. I wish they hadn't stuck their price tag right on the cover like that, though. This is the 43rd edition, and they printed more than one per year, so this would have been some time before 1949, but there is no actual date anywhere on it.

 

issued by B. Max Mehl, they caused traffic jams as street car operators checked coins for the 1913 V-Nickels that Mehl offered $50 to anyone who found one.
They were also the largest post office stop in Fort Worth.
Look at the picture, Mehl bought an old bank building for his offices & used the vault.

 

I was only 5 years old. Wasn't thinking about coins in a collection. One of my Uncles use to save silver Dollars for me. I still have only one left of the bunch.

 

Yes but pay no attention to the prices in it. Those were the BUYING prices from a public that knew nothing about coins. They bear no relationship to what the actual market prices for coins were at the time.

It would be like trying to use prices paid by the "we buy coins" buyers that blow through town setting up in a hotel room for the weekend. Typically you get paid a fraction of even wholesale market value.

 

My grandma was in middle school at the time. She saved a couple of dimes, but collectors didn't run in my family until me.