The Founding Pieces of "The Kenefic Collection"...

lkenefic

...don't blink! ;-)

I've posted a couple of pieces that were handed down to me after several generations... they've just sort of "stayed in the family" and I'm the caretaker of these now. Neither piece is expensive and have more sentimental value than anything else. The first piece (1839 1 1/2 Pence) was brought over to this country by my Great great grandfather when he immigrated from Ireland in 1845. This is interesting since that particular mintage was destined for distribution in Jamaica and Ceylon, yet ended up in commerce in Australia and North America as well. My sister recently sent me a small box of random items from my mothers house, and this piece was a small change purse that was my grandmothers...

The second piece is a $2 1/2 gold piece that was made into a love token to commemorate my Grandfather's First Communion in 1896. This piece is interesting as it reflects one of the different spellings of my last name. My G-G-grandfather was christened O'Kennefeck in County Cork (Dublin), but dropped the "O" when he came to this country, as many people from Ireland did. Numismatically, I can't find any more information on this piece since the reverse is obviously gone. I thought I might have been able to place the mint of origin based upon the obvious die cracks on the obverse, but I've come up empty.

My Grandfather on my mother's side was a more avid collector and I likely got the coin collecting "bug" from him. He gave me two Morgan Dollars when I was about 11 or 12 years old... This is one of those coins in my Morgan Dollar Date Set. The other is in my Dansco 7070 Type Set...

Not a whole lot of dollar value in these coins, but they served as the foundation for the collection I've built so far.

How about you? Are there any "family heirloom" coins in your collection, or even just random coins (like these) that have been handed down for generations and have little numismatic value... yet loads of sentimental value nonetheless...

ricko

Yes... I have a couple of large German silver coins (184) my father had... he was not a coin collector, but kept these in a bureau drawer for some reason. Cheers, RickO

WAYNEAS

Thanks for the Family story.
It is nice to know how those who have had something passed down to them, cherish the item.
Wayne

BenV

@lkenefic Pretty sure this is your $2.50 gold coin, it's a Philadelphia.

https://www.usacoinbook.com/item/1851-2-50-gold-quarter-eagle-die-break-au-toughcoins-434274/

pmh1nic

Wow, it's wonderful that your family passed the coins and family history down going back to their coming to America. Having something tangible to pass down with the history is a real blessing. One of the things I regret is not quizzing my parents on family history when I was younger.

coinsarefun

What a beautiful story. No one was a collector in my family but my mother was always into history.
And growing up in the age I did it was common for the family to have items of heritage. Later in life my husband was a strong believer in buying and holding gold coins. So,I guess I put them all together and slowly grew into what I am today.