Reminiscing

BobSav

Chapter One The Beginning
I was born in 1950 and I remember how it all started one summer day in 1958. My mother had come home from the grocery store. Back then there were no Supermarkets, you bought your dry goods at the grocery store, your meat came from the butcher shop and your milk was delivered by the milk man.
She showed me a strange penny that she got in her change at the store. It was a 1858 Flying Eagle Cent. I remember her telling me that it was a hundred years old and that I should keep it because when I grow up it might be worth a lot of money. Well I was intrigued by that penny because it look so different.
I remember it was summer because I was not in school so the next day I decided to go to the library to see if I could find out more about my penny. Back then kids were only allowed in the " children's " section which didn't contain any of information about coins. So I asked the librarian where I could find coin books and showed her my coin. We'll She did me one better.
At the entrance to the library there was a large wooden box filled with old books that were free for the taking, most were damaged or just worn out and the library didn't want them any more.
She lead me over to the box and she dug down to the bottom and found two old " Red Books ". One had the cover missing and the other was just plain used. She gave me one of them and said I could have it. It was a 1950 the same year as I was born.
I remember running all the way home and spending the rest of the day lying in my bed reading page after page of that red book. I begged my mother to look thru her change and as soon as my father got home I begged to see his too.
In 1958 a cent was really worth something, bread cost .22, gas .24 most vegetables were 5-6 cents a pound so my parents weren't about to just give me all their penny's so what was I too do ?

Chapter Two Financing
to be continued
Bob

Catbert

Bob. Might I suggest some paragraph breaks to make it easier to read? A long column of text discourages me to want to read your story.

amwldcoin

The start of the biography of a coin collector???

oih82w8

"Whenever I think of the past, it brings back so many memories."

Steven Wright

WAYNEAS

Please post more soon @BobSav.
I can’t put the book down. 😀
Wayne

numisma

@amwldcoin said:
The start of the biography of a coin collector???

Chapter 4: Collection Grows by Leaps and Bounds
Chapter 5: Wife Finds My Coin Purchase Receipts
Chapter 6: The Divorce
Chapter 7: The Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

Just kidding. Please keep sharing. That 1858 F.E. in change is fascinating story to me.

I have told a story of finding a low grade Indian cent in circulation back in the 70s, but a Flying Eagle in change is beyond cool.

ricko

@BobSav ... Great story and similar to how others of that time got started. I never had a coin book, but having a paper route, got 'different old' coins.... and saved them. Looking forward to the next chapter. Cheers, RickO

JW77

@numisma said:

@amwldcoin said:
The start of the biography of a coin collector???

Chapter 4: Collection Grows by Leaps and Bounds
Chapter 5: Wife Finds My Coin Purchase Receipts
Chapter 6: The Divorce
Chapter 7: The Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

That is why I destroy all receipts and track inventory on PCGS website. Password committed to memory. My formula for coupling coin collecting with a happy wife!

divecchia

Great story, Bob. Please keep it going.

Thanks for sharing your story.

Donato

BobSav

Ok ready or not
Chapter Two Financing

As we left off, it was middle of summer in 1958. Every page of that 1950 RED BOOK was read and read again. Dreams of hundred dollar coins danced in my head. Problem was I had no money.
I had bugged my mother and father enough that I think I was starting to annoy them. We lived in the City so the idea of mowing lawns or washing the neighbors car like in Leave it to Beaver was not an option.
Back then all soda and beer bottles were returnable, 2 cents for the small ones and 5 cents for the big ones so the hunt was on.
I Remember wandering around the neighbor hood looking in every ally and vacant lot. It was slow going but I did manage to find10-15 cents worth of bottles every couple of days. I would cash in the bottles and get my pay off in pennies go home and check them off in my Red Book, I would spend the cents I didn't need on candy or baseball cards.
Progress was being made but too slow for my liking. Then one day it dawned on me that I shouldn't be spending the pennies I didn't need , I should be trading them in for different pennies.

I waited till I had ten pennies that I didn't need then went to the store and asked if they had a dime or 2 nickels for change. Then I found out if I took my nickels or dime to the bank they would give me pennies. I quickly learned that if I waited to the side for the real bank customers to finish their business the teller ladies were happy to indulge me. With the few bottles I was finding I was able to keep this cycle going for a few weeks.

Summer was coming to an end, Labor day and going back to school loomed ahead. Every Labor day weekend they had one of those traveling carnivals set up in the big baseball field area in town. I never paid that much attention to it but this time it was different. I was thinking about all those people that were walking around eating hotdogs and French fries and drinking sodas. I could hardly wait for the fair. I spent the next 2 day's at the fair going thru the trash cans scooping up what bottles I could find.
When it was all said and done I think I had around 3 dollars which included a quarter that I found on the ground. That was also after being chased away by a couple of guy's that worked there that had the same idea.

Finally I had a bank roll that I could work with. No more nickel here dime that, I was turning over pennies a hundred , two hundred at a time. Those dates were really starting to get checked off now. Then wham bang thank you ma'am, it was back to school.

To be continued:
Chapter Three: My Birthday and my Uncle

LanceNewmanOCC

@BobSav said:

.
enjoyed the read. if you replaced coins with sports cards, that was pretty close to my experience but with card shops including one owner that i somehow managed to cajole into permitting me to acquire my very first deck of nudie cards. ROTFL (probably a bit too young but was FAR from my first experience with such things. ie movies without parents knowing and friends/cousins and dirty magazines from time to time)

now i that i type that and compare mine to his, perhaps i shoulda went with coins.

although, with my experience now, coin dealers are about the same as the card dealers (in this regard) i encountered riding my bike around!

i'll bookmark this and await the next part of the saga. gratz on getting your groove and finding legit and innocent ways of bankrolling yourself!

yosclimber

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBETVhHpcPk

BobSav

@yosclimber

That was GREAT
Bob

BobSav

Wow, a years gone by and your long wait for the next chapter is over.

Chapter 3 : My Birthday and my Uncle.

When we left off Labor day 1958 had come and gone and I was back to school. I was born in October and my birthday was just around the corner. I got a few toy's from mom dad and a few aunts and uncles, but the highlight for me was a brand new shiny blue whitman lincoln penny folder. Wow my cigar box of Lincoln cents became a " Collection " overnight. I diligently put each cent into it's hole and then stared at it for hours lamenting over the empty spaces.

I had a " rich " uncle that would visit with my father every few month's. I thought he was rich because he lived out in the suburbs or what we used to call out in the country as opposed to us who lived in the city. He would always slip me a dollar when he visited. He said a man should always have some " walking around money " in his pocket. I asked him if he wanted to see my coin collection and he said sure, so i proudly showed him my Whitman album and my treasured 1858 flying eagle. Before he left he told my that he had a couple of coins that were older than my flying eagle and next time he saw me he would give them to me. He also told be he had some " square " coins . Well I couldn't wait till our next visit and that turned out to be Thanksgiving day.

Thanksgiving was always a busy day, Mom would be up at 5:00 AM getting the 24 pound turkey ready and by 10:00 the whole house smelled of baking bread and roasting turkey. My uncle arrived and I waited patiently for dinner to be over.
He gave me an envelope and inside were 4 or 5 small manila envelopes with coins inside. One was real heavy and it was a Morgan dollar from 1880. Next was a one cent piece from 1828 and a few Philippine US peso's. Those were cool but what came next blew my mind. He hands me a cigar box with hundreds of foreign coins, some with holes in them. There were coins of different shapes, sizes and writing that I could not read. Now I needed a book with world coin info so the next day it was off to the library . I took one of the coins with a hole in it to show the librarian. She brought me over a couple of old books with pictures of different coins but none like the one I had. I was stuck but I tried sorting the coins the best I could.
The weather was starting to get cold so my bottle collecting and penny swapping came to an end and soon the snow was falling and it was winter.

To be continued:
Chapter 4 : Downtown Boston and J. J. Teaparty

Piano1

BobSav.

Hey, man. I'm a 1950er too and started collecting about the same time you did! I'm enjoying and relating quite well to your "episodes". Keep 'em going.

Funny thing. Growing up in a big city (Miami back in the 1950's and Tallahassee later for Florida State University through 1975) I learned a slightly different interpretation of "wham bang, thank you ma'am" but I guess that was my college days. College was very educational for many reasons but not really what you're thinking. Married at 23 and still collecting.....coins that is. 🤣 50th wedding anniversary on June 8th. I think I'll buy my wife a 1794 Half Cent. It will look great in my type set. (of course she'll kill me).

Piano 1