Just turned 66 & realized I've been a collector for 57 years. This is how I started, how about you.

UtahCoin

Way back in 1961, I was a nine year old boy growing up in Santa Barbara, CA. Like most kids in those days we spent Saturdays playing outdoor games and basically running around on our neighbors’ lawn (at least until Mrs. Sturgess waved her cane and ran us off). When we needed money, we would round up all the soda bottles we could find and take them down to Mousers Grocery Store and get two cents a bottle. My goal was always to turn in five bottles for ten cents. Back then, that would get me a candy bar and five pieces of “Penny” candy.

One day my friend Jimmy Kinsey and I went down to the store with our bottles where Mr. Mouser gave me my ten Lincoln cents. One looked oddly different. I asked Mr. Mouser, “What kind of penny is this”? Mr. Mouser told me it was a steel war penny and that is just the way they looked.

Jimmy told me his dad collected coins and was sure he could tell us about it. Off on the bikes to Jimmy’s house we rode, with my treasure in hand. Jimmy’s dad (whose name is lost to history) looked at it and explained that the war effort needed copper and so they made Lincoln cents out of steel in 1943. He then pointed out the mint mark and explained that the “S” meant it was made in San Francisco. I guess I looked very interested (I was) because he asked me if I would like to look at some cool stuff from his collection. I jumped at the chance. Jimmy and I must have spent a couple of hours there as he showed me dozens and dozens of coins and currency that until then, I had never seen or even knew existed. I still remember two things he showed me, an uncut sheet of HAWAII WWII Banknotes, and a 1955 Doubled Die Lincoln Cent. I was in awe, and had a million questions which he tried to answer. Finally he told me that a coin show was happening the next Saturday and invited me to come along with Jimmy and himself.

To a nine year old kid, this coin show was amazing! Everywhere I looked were cases and cases filled with coins. At one table a dealer asked me what I collected. I told him I hadn’t started yet, but I would probably save “Pennies”. He handed me an old used Library of Coins Lincoln Cent 1909-1940 coin album and told me I could have it. Not only did he give me the folder, but it had about a dozen Lincoln Cents in it. The only stipulation was to come back next year and show him how many holes I filled (I still have it!) . Little did Jimmy Kinsey’s father know, but he started me on a journey that has taken me down some magical roads for over fifty years. Wherever you are Mr. Kinsey, thank you for igniting my interest into a fascinating world.

WingedLiberty1957

Very cool story. I think the wheelhouse decade for starting collectors is the 1960's (kids born in the 1950's) ... followed closely by the 1950's (kids born in the 1940's). I remember most generic drug stores in the 1960's had little "coin sections" with blue whitman folders, redbooks, coin tubes, and plastic 2x2's. I also remember some high end department stores had coin cases/sections run by local coin dealers. It was just a whole different era back then. There were some other events of the 1960's that led to rise in interest. Bags or Morgans being given away at face value by banks in the early 1960's. The 55/55 double die and 1960 small date cent. The jump to the Kennedy Half in 1964 (Kennedy was very popular at the time). The removal of silver from dimes and quarters in 1965 (lead to a lot of roll hunting for silver). Past designs still being found easily in circulation (SLQs, Mercs, Buffs) -- searching change was just a lot more interesting in the 1950's and 1960's. TV shows semi promoting coins (Mr Wilson on Dennis the Menace being a coin collector with some shows really focusing on coins). There was a Hawaii 5-0 and Dragnet episode focused on coins as well. Coin Magazines like CoinAge were always found in Newsstands. The restart of Proof Sets and S mints in 1968. There are probably other things I am forgetting. I was born in 1957 and started collecting in 1967, and I was still pulling Buffs, Mercs, SLQs (and silver Roosies and Washies) out of rolls from banks in 1967 and 1968. Age 9 and 10 seems to be a very prevalent starting age too -- old enough to begin to become interested in the world around us -- and not quite old enough to become distracted by the opposite gender and cars and other things.

david3142

Happy Birthday! Here are a steelie and a 55 DDO for you:

The scratches are on the holder.

TwoSides2aCoin

HBD2U

I started in the mid '60s and left in the mid '70's. Returned at the turn of the century and asked myself "why", in my mid 60's, too.

johnny9434

I started about 1970 with the wheat backs and roll hunting. my uncle got me started on the Canadian series then went to the us coins again. I still like the Canadian currency as well

WingedLiberty1957

Nostalgia from decades ago ...

WingedLiberty1957

1960 Small Date Mania ...

Paradisefound

Here is your Christmas month Birthday Poinsettia ...... HAPPY BIRTHDAY
I really enjoy your childhood story and please show us your steel penny

Catbert

As a kid in the sixties, I remember walking to a local department store and checking out the coins offered. Here's a thread from 2014 regarding Woolworth's:

https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/927172/do-any-department-stores-still-have-coin-and-stamp-departments

bigmarty58

Loved your story, Happy Birthday!

bronzemat

I started around 1986 or 87 when I asked my step-grandfather what the letter D and P meant on the coins. I remember hopping on his lap and he explained the mint marks and whatnot and then I hopped off and he gave me a small box that had wheatbacks, worn slick mercs, a Morgan dollar and misc. world coins.

From then on I was hooked. He ended up dying the day after x-mas in 1990 and I watched it all happen, I was just 11. Since than x-mas doesn't mean much to me.

I don't focus on U.S. coins much anymore but still, have a soft spot for early coppers and seated liberties. So I still own those, but I focus on ancients now since 2009 & often wonder how he would act to see something sold old could be collected so cheaply.

He also got me into history, National Geographics/Nature TV and fossils.

Have a good birthday!

Paradisefound

Mine started last year after my Mom gave me 2 circulated Morgans she picked from LV slot years ago and I thought they are very pretty after I dipped them in silver jewelry solution
Blasting Ricko white now .... Cheers.

lkenefic

I started in the late 60's/early 70's because my brother (who is 10 years older than me) also collected. I remember getting started by going through a coffee can that my grandfather had that was about 1/3 of the way filed with Indian Head Cents. I also collected Wheat Cents from bank rolls. It wasn't until I was about 12 or so when I started mowing lawns that I had funds to search Half Dollar rolls for silver pieces and go to the coin shop to buy coins for my collection. One of the first coins I ever bought was a well worn and beaten up 1798 Large Cent... it had a readable date, and it was minted in the 18th Century!!! lol!!!

Walkerfan

Wonderful story!

Happy birthday and keep on collecting!

Raybo

I was reading UtahCoin's story and welled up, I must be getting sentimental in my old age.

DRUNNER

Congrats Wes . . . . .

Drunner

Twobitcollector

great story and happy birthday!!!

Hemispherical

Happy Birthday!! Wish for many more.

Be glad your birth was not 24 days later. Might have lost out on presents. 😃

BustDMs

My beginning was in 1964 when for my 5th birthday I was given a couple Whitman folders. I was a very active child and mom wanted to give me something to keep me still and quiet for awhile. I began my trek on filling Lincoln cent and Jefferson Nickel folders along with collections of baseball cards, stamps, fossils and whatever else a youngster could get into the house.

The coin collection soon took the place of all the other collections which were sold,or traded, for more coins. Summers were spent collecting pop bottles for the bounty and with a little other seed money going from bank to bank buying cent rolls for the Wheaties. I traded with other kids in the neighborhood and at school expanding my collection.

Coins soon became an obsession and I began my grass cutting “business” cutting 7 yards in the neighborhood. Coin shops and small local shows and auctions soon occupied much of my free time. Pop would drive me around on weekends. At that time local collectors would also advertise in the paper and we would go around town visiting them also.

At age 12 I finally completed my Lincoln’s with the purchase of the famous S-VDB. My father, a carpet layer at the time, agreed to match what I saved for the coin. It took me almost a year to get my half. In retrospect, I now realize how hard it was for him to match my funds. It just reinforces what a great father I had. We then went all around town until I found “the” coin. But, was it real? We went to a trusted dealer, later to become my employer, and he told us to go see Sol. We ended up at legendary Sol Kaplan’s office in downtown Cincinnati. We entered and the secretary asked if we had an appointment! An appointment to see a coin dealer??? Sol heard us explaining the reason for our visit and stuck his head out the door and asked us to wait a moment. He soon returned with a HANDFULL of S-VDB’s! Why didn’t we start here? He told us “it looks good to me”, told us a couple quick stories and then disappeared back into his office. My set was complete!

My grass cutting funded some neat purchases and I soon began working at a local coin shop. Cleaning toilets, taking out the garbage, cleaning the counters and other sundry chores wasn’t what I signed up for! Finall, I get to play with coins!

In 1978 I was introduced to two things that changed my collecting life. Membership in the ANA and the Overton book. This began my collection of Bust Halves by die marriage and my interest in having Numismatic literature as part of my life.

After the gold rush of 1979-80 I was able to buy into the business and have been here ever since. Some years later I met Ken Bressett and became a contributor to the Redbook. I remember taking a copy of the first edition I was listed in to show to my childhood buddy. We had looked at numerous Redbooks while trading years ago and looked at the list of contributors, little did I think I would ever be one.

This hobby has given me so much. I can only hope to give back something to the future generations of collectors.

Cameonut

Happy Birthday!
I don't have a 55 ddo but here is my steel cent

bolivarshagnasty

@UtahCoin Thanks for sharing your story! Enjoyed it.

krueger

Yikes!!! me too.
just turned 71. Started collecting at age 7. 64 years.
still have the circulated 1932-S quarter picked from change when I was 7yo.
also the Morgans exchanged for paper dollars (my allowances) straight out of a cafe register in Las Vegas 1958.
and of course the 1893 columbian half given to me by my Great grandfather who was at the worlds fair in Chicago in 1893.
that started it all.

Now top registry sets PCGS and NGC of U.S Philippines. a 43 year hunt.
My Avatar is the 6th Army patch worn by my father in the Philippines in WWII.

"Have fun with your coins" quote by David hall
Krueger

rmorgan

Likewise, thanks for sharing. Always interesting to read of how others got inspired and started.

koynekwest

Like you I've been collecting for 57 years. I started in the summer of 1961 when I saw a blue Whitman Lincoln 1c folder in a display case and asked what it was. The proprietor took it out of the case, showed it to me, and gave me all the cents in his cash register to look thru. I was hooked!

mannie gray

Great story @UtahCoin .

Timbuk3

Love all your stories, Happy Birthday !!!

ricko

Happy Birthday... Great story... the parts about turning in bottles for the deposit and also 'penny candy' sure struck a chord with me.... I recall finding a cent now and then on the sidewalk or other place and running to the local candy shop and buying a penny candy. I started collecting in the early 50's....Most of those coins disappeared after I joined the Navy (kid brother and Mother cleaning the room), including two '55 DDO's...(I joined the Navy in '59 and they were not worth all that much at the time). Cheers, RickO

Cameonut

Forgot to add my collecting roots.
Also back in 1961, I got a proof set from Santa for Christmas. I was 7 at the time. I still have the set which resides it's blue Capital Plastics holder. I used to look at it all the time, amazed at how bright and shiny the surfaces were. Little did I know that I would branch off into cameo proofs as a main obsession later in life.

At the same time, one of my neighborhood friends Buddy Patzke was getting into collecting pennies. His mother was able to get us bags of pennies from the parking meters in Racine Wisconsin. We would get a bag of cents and try to fill the holes in our Whitman tri-fold albums. One bag would hold our attention for a couple of hours and was a welcome relief from playing in the snow during the winter. Overall, we did pretty well in filing holes. Only the key dates were unfound ( '09s vdb, 14d, 22 plain, and 31s. We found the others as I recall. Also was able to fill a number of holes with Indian cents too.

metalmeister

Started in the 60's during the great Silver hoard. We would tag along with our parents when they would go to the bank. Also searched for buffalos nickels. Got back in in the 1990's.
I enjoy it more today. Cheers.

CCGGG

I'm sure I've posted this before on related threads, but my interest in coin collecting started when I was in the second grade in 1959. The front page of the Weekly Reader had an article about the new Lincoln Memorial penny. (I can still see the front page in my mind)

The new cents, must have made sense to me since I was hooked instantly.

Edit: I found a picture of the front page on the Internet (amazing). Almost exactly as I remember it.

Cameonut

I remember those Weekly Readers - was a high point every week. As I recall, they were printed in different color in each week.

I cannot even imagine the propaganda that would be in there these days.

asheland

Great stories!

rainbowroosie

Began in 1956. We lived near Boston and many of the 55 DDO appeared there. The Boston Globe ran an ad offering $10 for the coin, which was a princely sum at that time. My cousin Bob and I searched a bazillioncents on his living room floor and did not find one....fast forward to 2005 during a penny ante game in Falmouth, MA. Sure enough, another cousin Paul finds the damn coin in AU50. 😟

divecchia

@UtahCoin Happy Birthday. I hope you had a great one.

A lot of great stories. My favorite is @BustDMs.

Thanks for sharing the stories. Donato

Paradisefound

hello

calling on @UtahCoin ....... to claim your belated B-day gift .... in the holder befitting of your childhood story

There are many Mio numbers of this steel coin out there BUT this holder is a Classic I know you would enjoy

Paradisefound

I PM'd you as well as writting on the Wall but no response

UtahCoin

Here I am, here I am!

OKbustchaser

In a nod to the crusty old guys (of course, that doesn't include me--I'm just old) I will mention that I have posted this before. For the new folks, though...

1962--I was playing in a park when I found what I later learned was an EF (hey, back then we still realized that the word extremely starts with an E not an X) 1917 type 1 standing liberty quarter...wait a minute---NAKED BOOB!!!!...a 10 year old boy was forever hooked.

Here's what that coin looks like today after 50+ years as an off and on pocket piece.

With that start is it any wonder that I'm called the Bustchaser?

BuffaloIronTail

@TwoSides2aCoin said:
HBD2U

I started in the mid '60s and left in the mid '70's. Returned at the turn of the century and asked myself "why", in my mid 60's, too.

That's basically how it went for me. I collected the heck out of coins in the beginning! Life changes, work, and girls made me put away the coin books.

It wasn't till the late 1970's till I again took interest, and I don't remember what set me off.

Things ebbed and flowed for me and here I am today.

A kid in an adult body still drooling over those little round things.

Pete

jesbroken

On my 10th birthday in 1958 my favorite uncle gave me a like new shiny 1880-0 Morgan. Lasted a week before I lost it. Sometime later my mother found it in my brother's clothing drawer. My uncle said he had better keep it for me in his leather snap lid change purse. For years he would open it ever so slowly and pull out the little brown paper envelope and show it to me. He died on my 16th birthday and I did not see the coin until 41 years later. But he got me started on coin collecting when he gave me a worn 1913 T1 buffalo nickel which I still have in the 1st complete buffalo collection I had. In the safe for my youngest granddaughter. Before he passed Schley taught me about the coming end of silver in circulation. So by the end of 60's I had accumulated many rolls of face value silver

BuffaloIronTail

@rainbowroosie said:
Began in 1956. We lived near Boston and many of the 55 DDO appeared there. The Boston Globe ran an ad offering $10 for the coin, which was a princely sum at that time. My cousin Bob and I searched a bazillioncents on his living room floor and did not find one....fast forward to 2005 during a penny ante game in Falmouth, MA. Sure enough, another cousin Paul finds the damn coin in AU50. 😟

Now THAT is one heckuva story!

PF........you better start playing penny games.

Pete

dbldie55

Great story. Did you go back a year later with the folder?