So what did you do as a kid to earn money to buy coins?
amwldcoin
Posts: 11,269 ✭✭✭✭✭
I don't know why this popped into my head today. Could be interesting to see how things have changed from you younger guys as I think a lot of the guys older than me here probably did the same. Late 60's to Early 70's here.
Yard work that evolved into a pretty good grass cutting business...so much so my dad made me buy my own lawnmower. I cut my 1st yard for pay when I was 9! Raking leaves in the fall.
A large 1 day a week paper route I did on my bicycle. Little over 200 papers! I got 1+1/2 cents per paper and 20 cents per month per subscription if the folks would pay an optional 50c subscription fee, otherwise it was free.
During the summer I would pick blackberries and muscadines and sell them door to door for 75c a quart. Couldn't pick enough!
Sold seeds door to door during the spring.
Gather coke bottles from the road, by cleaning garages etc.
If I think of any others I will add...of course there was horse trading about anything you could find!
Thought of another one! My Grandparents had a cabin in the N Ga. Mountains. I would catch salamanders and dig night crawlers and sell them to the bait shop on the lake.
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I pretty much did the same kind of things to earn money when I was a kid. But the pinball machine down at the bowling alley got most of my hard-earned money.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
Lawn maintenance and snow removal around the neighborhood. Did a nice job funding my 19th century type set as a kid
Had a paper route late 50s. People routinely paid with walkers, franklins, mercs, roosies and buffalos. I'd get home from collecting and my father would cherry pick the coins.
Forty years later, my father gave me his entire collection. Four shoes boxes full. A treasure to me.
Many successful BST transactions with dozens of board members, references on request.
...So what are you a cop...
Mowed six lawns a week with my 22" push Lawnboy mower in the summer, had a year round paper route and shoveled snow in the winter....
Kind of paints a Norman Rockwell scene of middle America in the early 60's, huh?
Tim
LOL ????????
Hoed weeds out of soybeans and sold fishing worms comes to mind
Lafayette Grading Set
When younger raked leaves and shoveled snow. When in my teens I worked each summer for a roofer replacing a ton of acrylic bubble skylights.
Paper route
My best friend and myself had a 126 customer paper route and after learning from my father how to handle the funds, we had our own bank account and deposited any monies we received as soon as possible in its entirety. At first, it was so easy to spend a nickel here and there and owing the newspaper company, but my Father soon straightened that out along with the Newspaper. We took our funds out and split them at the end of each 4 week period. I would end up with several dollars along with the $2 a week I made at a local Minute Market cleaning shelves and arranging can goods I was fairly well off. I also worked at school in lunch room and received my lunch free so another $1.25 per week. I actually saved money and was one of the first customers of the bank to fill in the dime collector card each time. Mercury dimes were as common then as roosies were and nobody I knew wanted a roosie.
Thanks for the OP, great memories hiding the sunday papers to keep them from getting stolen at 3AM on Sunday morning and hoping no one followed us. lol
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
Mowed a lot of lawns (over 20/wk at one point) and laid acres and acres of sod. Did inventory at a few fabric shops my mom was connected to, delivered phone books, babysat, and I once wore the bear costume at a grand opening for a Babies’R’Us (hotter than any day laying sod in humid Oklahoma summers, by far).
The 90s were a little rough for a kid looking to make a buck, but I did pretty good. My kids have it a lot harder in that regard and will have to be more industrious than I was.
It seems like my dad had more opportunities as a kid than me, too.
Shoveled snow in the winter, cut grass in the summer and paper route year round.
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
Fed the dogs, give them water & cleaned up their dung.
Feed the birds
Dust
Occasional dishes
$5 week
When I hit 10+ years old, inflation kicked in and I got $7 a week.
Growing up I lived next to a golf course and would go out and find golf balls and sell them back to the golfers, I could make $20 per day just doing that. I would also go out on the 5th hole tee off and sell drinks to the golfers, this was the real money maker. I would buy a 6 pack for .99 cents and sell them for $1 each, many times I would need to make several trips to the store to get more, it was easy to make $40 to $50 per day. The golfers would cry about the price but how do ya say no to a kid. That was more than my parents earned in a day back then. I was always rollin' in the dough as a kid. I would also collect pop bottles and turn them in. It made my $2 a week allowance from my parents look like chump change.
I spent it all on candy, fireworks, go-carts and anything else fun I could think of..... not even 1 Buffalo nickel to show for it.
I worked for $1.00 and hour for a neighbor when he needed help.
He saved coins back in the 1930's and 1940's that he found uncirculated in his change.
He let me get paid in those coins if I wanted, and of course I agreed.
The ones I remember getting from him (among others) were a 1921 Peace Dollar, Mercury Dimes and a beautiful 1939-D Half.
He had me look through his Morgan Dollars (which he also saved circulated) because he knew I collected coins.
No kidding. He had an 1893-S Morgan among others. I told him to hold on to it because it was rare. I hope he did. Years later he passed away and his sons got the coins. I often wonder if the 1983-S was among them.
Rest in peace, Mr. Levan. I'll never forget you.
Pete
Worked on my grandfathers cattle farm.
In 1961-65 I pulled 09-s, 11-s,14-D out of circulation and put ads in Coin World. It was like finding free money. Never found an svdb. Only those dates because each was with a minimum of one Morgan in trade.
If I wasn't playing ball on some field then I was in the local grocery store working as many hours as I could. On weekdays I could get four-hours in each day before the store closed, but if I had no games on the weekends I would work eight-hours each day. We had to wear proper shoes and a blue blazer, could not wear jeans, had to have a tie on and straightened before we clocked in and always had to be clean shaven.
Started in the meat department scraping off chicken fat and meat drippings from the refrigerated shelves in the back and also scrubbed the floors of the butcher shop each night to remove the crusted blood before I spread out fresh sawdust and followed that up with a layer of kosher salt. Moved next to the produce department and made all that not-so-fresh produce look awfully spiffy for the customers, but then found my niche by moving to the front of the store. I was the only male they trained to run a cash register and also ran the liquor department, which required a special permit from the state since I was two-years below the state drinking age! I stocked and rotated the shelves and ordered new product in the liquor department as well as wrote all the in-store ads for alcohol with lines such as "Gumby drinks Smirnoff vodka...and Pokey likes it, too!". However, the best perk of the front end of the store was that I was surrounded constantly by teenage girls who ran the other registers!
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Paper route . I also found cool coins collecting for the paper I delivered.
I forgot about Baby Sitting!
As a side note, I should of said Before I got a regular job. There wasn't much time after I got a regular job that girls and cars claimed my funds!
Before I got a regular job I would help my father from time-to-time on his milk route. This entailed leaving the house just before 3:00 AM and going to the dairy to pick up the non-refrigerated truck, which we had previously filled with dairy products and then covered them up in ice and blankets the night before. We'd be on the road by 3:30 AM and would have the route delivered by 10:00 AM and then would drop the truck off and get food.
I didn't get paid for that work, it was just something I had to do. Here's a picture of the truck after it hopped the curb one morning in the early 1970s.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Caddied at the local country club from age 13-15. Carried the members golf bag for 18 holes, and clean the clubs afterwards for $5 and a hot dog or cheeseburger at the turn. Nobody really used golf carts then. Now, nobody really walks the course.
Once I turned 16, I worked at Big Boy through High School.
This thread made me realize that I haven’t been without a job since I was 12.
MY GOLD TYPE SET https://pcgs.com/setregistry/type-sets/complete-type-sets/gold-type-set-12-piece-circulation-strikes-1839-1933/publishedset/321940
I would bet my cousin Larry had the most interesting but calamitous way of earning money, which he did so for many years. When East Tennessee University in Johnson City, TN got its Medical Program, Larry thru his odd job routine met a Dr. who needed snake venom for studies. Larry became an aficionado of Rattlesnake hunting. We had plenty in East Tennessee and it became so commonplace with him, that he would keep them in a burlap bag on his back porch until he had 7 or 8 and take them in and get maybe as much as $150. Unreal, but true. I remember when he purchased his first real car with the money and paid cash, everyone quit laughing, at least to his face. Thought it might be interesting.
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
I had an Omaha World Herald paper route for a few years in a small town so only like 40 customers, with a few more on Sundays. Also mowed lawns with my own mower that my dad got cheap and rebuilt so I could learn how they worked. Had a few regular customers and learned early on that I preferred them to pay at the end of the season, rather than each time I mowed. Gas was cheap back then. When it'd snow I'd shovel sidewalks for the same customers that I mowed for. I walked a dog for the banker's wife and she paid me to keep her company too. Started sweeping floors at my dad's shop at 11 years old, he paid me $1 a week. The next year he said I was worth a $1 an hour. I probably worked slower but I'm sure I did an even better job!
Same as most here, had a lawn mowing and snow shoveling business with clients for regular lawn care, odd jobs, and birthday money. But I also did a lot of babysitting, and one person I babysat for on a Saturday twice a month work at a bank. When she paid me for babysitting, it was because she worked those Saturdays, and she would pay me in coins. She would usually bring me a roll of SBA's, rolls of half's, and anything interesting that she saw in the drawer, Ike's, buffaloes, wheaties and an occasional IHC, also $2 bills from time to time. Was always happy to babysit on those Saturday mornings.
Still have many of the coins I received from her, but have always have made an effort to circulate different denominations. Even to this day I regularly circulate halves and small dollars, as well as dropping proofs into circulation from broken apart proof sets.
IRS
I had a paper route, shined my dads shoes for 2 bits. When my dad talked about change he always talked in bits, and It took me a while to figure it out. I mowed the yard, but that was chores. We owned a small grocery store and I did the bottles for for a buck. I went fishing for cat fish and a local restaurant would buy cat fish for a quarter each. I used beef stew for bait as it cost 15 cents for a days worth of bait and the cat fish could not get it off the hook. I collected Indian Cents and Buffalo Nickels out of circulation, but I spent them faster, than, I could collect.
In the early 60's at 14 worked at the local drugstore mopping the floors and cleaning bathrooms. Me and a friend went through bunches of bank rolls daily for silver and better dates and sold them at a booth on Sundays at a place in Detroit called Military Inn that had a bunch of memorabilia like Annie Oakley's rifle.
Mow lawns, shovel snow, deliver newspapers, baby sit, collect deposit-bottles. Nothing unusual. Just whatever work I could do for spending money. All my friends did the same.
My kids are so tired of hearing about it. Eye rolls.
Lance.
Starting back in the 4th grade ... mowing lawns and weeding.
Had a paper route for a short time in the 6th grade, but we moved at the end of the school year.
In the 7th grade, back to lawns and cleaning yards, garages, etc. ... but also ... and I had forgot until I read @ifthevamzarockin post ... my brother, step brothers and I would go to the 8th hole at the local course at night and go into the pond with taped up rakes to retrieve golf balls about once a month late on a Friday night in the spring and summer. Then we'd sell the good ones in the parking lot on Saturday and Sunday mornings before we went and rode the dirt bikes. Good times!
We moved a couple more times and by the 9th grade I was cutting firewood because that was easy to find work where we lived, and I had a lot of unusual, and sometimes not too fun jobs (underfloor insulating anyone?) during the "high school" years. I had a couple good ones too ... had three local convenience stores I helped stock regularly ... which kept me at about 20 hours a week for a spell.
In fact I was working at one of them, the Shell market closest to the house, the day Mount St. Helens blew.
As far as the money ... I didn't use it to buy coins. Guitars, girls and other activities got the most of it.
Like someone else said, pretty much had something from the time I was about 8 or 9. Maybe not regular, but here and there. From the time I was 18 (about a year before I entered the Navy), I've always had a job except for about three weeks after I was discharged and moved back home.
“We are only their care-takers,” he posed, “if we take good care of them, then centuries from now they may still be here … ”
Todd - BHNC #242
Delivered Top Secret Proofs for a printing company.
Wrap it once.
Stamp it with the clearance value attached to the order.
Wrap it again. Label it, fill out the bill.
Drive or fly, with out letting it out of my sight, adding anything goes.
Age 18.
LOL
Lawn maintenance mostly.... at $2.50 a lawn in the early to mid 70's, I made decent headway on lowball sets from coin rolls at the bank.
Successful BST transactions with: SilverEagles92; Ahrensdad; Smitty; GregHansen; Lablade; Mercury10c; copperflopper; whatsup; KISHU1; scrapman1077, crispy, canadanz, smallchange, robkool, Mission16, ranshdow, ibzman350, Fallguy, Collectorcoins, SurfinxHI, jwitten, Walkerguy21D, dsessom.
I helped a friend on his paper route and then eventually had my own route. I did receive some Mercury dimes when collecting, but the biggest win for me was taking my money earned and riding my bike to the nearest bank and purchasing some rolls. Some of the best memories except for the snowy and rainy mornings.
Maybe not just any cop...but one of the COPS! Central Organization of Police Specialists...fighting crime...in a future time! (well the "future" in this case (2019; 30 years into the future at the time the show came out) has done come and gone...)
D's: 50P,49S,45D+S,43D,41S,40D,39D+S,38D+S,37D+S,36S,35D+S,all 16-34's
Q's: 52S,47S,46S,40S,39S,38S,37D+S,36D+S,35D,34D,32D+S
74T: 241,435,610,654 97 Finest silver: 115,135,139,145,310
73T:31,55,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,80,152,165,189,213,235,237,257,341,344,377,379,390,422,433,453,480,497,545,554,563,580,606,613,630
95 Ultra GM Sets: Golden Prospects,HR Kings,On-Base Leaders,Power Plus,RBI Kings,Rising Stars
So what you're saying is that when you had money, you'd tell them what you'd do, go to the coin dealer and buy a Mercury roll or two?
D's: 50P,49S,45D+S,43D,41S,40D,39D+S,38D+S,37D+S,36S,35D+S,all 16-34's
Q's: 52S,47S,46S,40S,39S,38S,37D+S,36D+S,35D,34D,32D+S
74T: 241,435,610,654 97 Finest silver: 115,135,139,145,310
73T:31,55,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,80,152,165,189,213,235,237,257,341,344,377,379,390,422,433,453,480,497,545,554,563,580,606,613,630
95 Ultra GM Sets: Golden Prospects,HR Kings,On-Base Leaders,Power Plus,RBI Kings,Rising Stars
Paper route, mowed lawns, shoveled snow, pulled poison ivy, baby sit, picked potatoes. Then worked in a bakery on Saturdays. Never bought coins, there were no coin shops. Picked from change... IHC's, dimes, quarters and halves were all silver, got the occasional Columbian commemorative. Worked all my life, still working, just not as much.
Cheers, RickO
Kinda the same as Ricko....no potato picking or bakery though. Paper route, yard work, snow shoveling, and other odd jobs. Most of my coins came from the paper route and roll searching. There was one gentleman on the route, a Mr. Williams, who knew we collected coins and he would often throw into the 2.00 / week we collected from him something of interest like a Buffalo, steel cent, Merc or ??. As far as where we spent the money most of it went into the local streams and ponds in the form of lost fishing lures but for coins, since there was no coin shop anywhere near we lived, we would go the monthly flea market and buy items for the collection there.
K
This is what I remember about collecting coins out of circulation in the late 1950's. My dad had given me a Indian cent album, a buffalo nickel album and a magazine with coin value by grades. The grades were basic like good, fair, fine, very fine, mint state. I was filling up the buffalo album without to much of a problem. At that time a lot of the buffalo nickels in circulation did not have dates. It was hard to find Indian head cents that had dates before 1900. Most of the coins in circulation had dates after 1900 except for the Morgan Dollars. My grandfather made a trip to Reno Nevada and won some money and gave me 6 or 7 Morgan's and all the coins were dated in the 1800's. At the time I remember wondering why Morgan's had dates in the 1800's in circulation, but the other denominations were so hard to find with dates before 1900. I do not remember finding any key dates. The local Woolworth sold coins. I remember buying a bag of popcorn for 10 cents and looking at the coins in the display case.
Paper route, snow shoveling, selling night crawlers. Late 50 to early 60s.
it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide
Lawn mowing, snow shovelling, after-school dishwasher in the hospital cafeteria.
I also mowed the lawn for T. James Clarke's widow, who was said to have much of his famous collection in her house, but I never got to see it.
Commems and Early Type
paper route
From age 8 - 15 I shoveled horse shit at the stable next door to my house. Thirty-four stalls I had to freshen up every Wednesday and then on Saturday, I had to muck them out down to the floorboards and lay down fresh wood shavings, a bale of hay each, and a fresh salt lick. I also had two paper routes. At fifteen I left to work at Sunny Meadows Dairy bottling (yes we had glass bottles) milk before going to school. When I got my license, they gave me the keys to a Divco and my own route.
USAF (Ret) 1974 - 1994 - The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. Remembering RickO, a brother in arms.
Late 80's, early 90's, cut grass in the neighborhood.
My YouTube Channel
Recycled deposit bottles when I was 5. Raked leaves. Shoveled snow. Helped trim Christmas trees and make maple syrup, Mowed lawns. Worked as a telephone solicitor for a benefit Circus.
I'm still recycling, this time up to a ton of aluminum cans a year picking them up along roadways and at boat landings on a long-wheelbase recumbent bike. Easy pickings, good exercise, and lots of fun for me. The proceeds these days go into junk silver or American silver eagles at a local coin shop.
I sold hot dogs as a teenager at Jets games...in howling winter winds and blinding snow storms...for Harry M. Stevens...a truly Godawful company that should have been destroyed for tax evasion by the IRS!
I mean...it was like the movie Casino...where guys with crooked noses would come in the back and just take away rolls and bags of cash without any receipts or accounting!
i remember one of my first jobs was scouring a bathroom floor. I recall my late mom(1922-2011) saying to my brother : “ Thomas, use some elbow grease !” We were about 5 and six years old. My brother stood up, left the bathroom and headed down the steps. My mom yelled out, “Thomas, where do you think you’re going ? Get back here. “ He simply replied: “ I’m going to get a can of elbow grease”.
Didn’t start earning money until I was 12. Ran a paper route. Then there was babysitting or shoveling snow
Shoveled driveways and then worked the graveyard shift at Jack in the Box.
Your hobby is supposed to be your therapy, not the reason you need it.
Didn't you tell them when you were young you used to roller skate to school through a 10 inch blizzard?
I'm sure many here have expounded those childhood memories to our children of forging through 11 inch snow drifts to get to school. I remember those long walks through snow,sleet,rain,cold to get to school.
Snow shoveling,car wash for tips,worked on Saturday helping my brother on a dry cleaning delivery truck. We got a lot of silver back then from customers who paid their bill. We always told them we were short of change. Could they pay in change, (silver)?