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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;mattman, post: 52864, member: 2621&quot;]My worst trip to the coin shop was the one I (fortunatly) didn&#039;t make. It was back in either 1978 or 1979. Me and my friend were just getting big into collecting at this time, we were @ 13-14 years old I guess and there was a rather nice coin dealer who lived within bicycing distance. We would always ride our bikes up there just about every saturday. Now this guy was really cool, never looking for the &quot;big&quot; dollar, always gave you his best service even if you were buying a .15 cent wheatie. He would always give the young collectors there change form purchases in wheaties, buffs and mercs. Which to us at the time was just as special as the new coin we just got with our allowances. Anyway, one saturday we were planning on going, got the bikes all ready when mom came out and said not today boys, too much to do around the house and to many errands to take care. Well of course we griped and complained but alas we never made the trip. Now we always went a little after 12:00 because that&#039;s when he opened on saturdays. If we had left at our normal time we would have gotten there right @12:30 or so. Well we did everything mom asked but ran out of time to get to the store. He closed at 5:00. So we sat around that evening and went thru a couple jugs of pennies mom gave us to satisfy our coin collecting urge for that day. (did find alot of wheaties, which was quite common then) Anyway, what makes this the worst non trip, is imagine everyones shock when the next morning in the sunday paper when the headlines read:</p><p>Coin store robbed, owners and customers tied up, killed execution style. 3 killed total, The husband/wife owners and 1 customer if I remember correctly. We couldn&#039;t believe it! According to the article the robbry and murders took place at @12:45 saturaday afternoon. Had Mom not had those errands and chores to do that day, there&#039;s a good chance I wouldn&#039;t be typing this right now. Now this all took place in a small little town and were the first murders in over 40 years to occur there. I believe they finally caught 2 of the 3 robbers/murderers in Florida about a year later and as far as I know they never got the third person. This was the only coin store anywhere near our little city and another has never appeared. In case your wondering, the name of the coin store was Tri-Willow nursery and coins and was located in Rome NY. I still to this day have every coin I ever got from him including my favorite, a 1874 indian head penny in uncirculated condition still in the plastic 2x2 he sold it to me in, still with the $4.40 price tag sticker on it. Every time I look at that coin I think about what could have been and how sometimes fate plays a hand in things. I never questioned my Mom again about getting the chores done tho. Perhaps some of you older collectors might have heard something about this, but than again this was before the internet and 24 hour news coverage but I do think it did make some of the national news of the time. I don&#039;t remember the owners name anymore but I do know that the hobby lost a great representative that day. RIP, may all his mercs be BU 16-ds and all the buffs have 3 legs.&nbsp; Mattman.</p><p>ps&gt; I&#039;m going to do a web search and see if I can find his name. post it later if I do.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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