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Kid Collecting Memories.. Share Yours!

ambro51ambro51 Posts: 13,774 ✭✭✭✭✭
in U.S. Coin Forum

A lot of us here are old farts who grew up looking for cool old coins in mom and dads pocket change. Little did we realize at the time the long term consequences of the discovery of an Indian Head cent or Barber Half! Share a story! ………… I’ll get us in the spirt, here I am, 10 years old, a rabid penny searcher etc etc. it’s 1965 it’s LUNCH break at school, 1/2 block away Mr. Scheider had a little store, There was a big selection of penny candy, the place would FILL with kids! Anyway, I get my candy and get a couple of 1954 Pennies!! AhHa! The semi key date (71 million) and hardly ever seen. Second only to the legendary 1955 S in kid collecting penny searching. Then, a feeling MORE may be in the cash drawer, I bought a little more candy and got back Another in change! I BEGGED and CRIED and Mr.Scheider relented to my pleading and let me LOOK in the drawer and pick out ALL the 1954’s there! And, Here They Are, just where I put them 59 years ago.

Comments

  • BarberianBarberian Posts: 3,546 ✭✭✭✭✭

    For some reason, I used to get 1954s fairly often. I had almost a roll of them from CRH as a kid. I never found a 55-S and only one 49-S while CRH in Illinois and Vermont. I finally found a 55-S in four rolls my father brought back from a business trip to San Francisco.

    3 rim nicks away from Good
  • ElmerFusterpuckElmerFusterpuck Posts: 4,722 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Kind of ties in to my thread about how I started. How I wish I could find my #2 folder again, it's where it all started for me.

    10-4,
    Erik
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  • seatedlib3991seatedlib3991 Posts: 700 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I have shared mine several times on several sites.
    When I was 5 I found a purse with some old coins.
    When I was 7, in 1967, I got the J.C Penny "Let's Collect Coins Kit" for Christmas.
    My Oma was not a coin collector in the traditional sense but played a huge role in my life.
    She gave me many coins, mostly copper, and she allowed me to study and catalog a large collection of Seated coins she got as a wedding gift. I dare say her group of "Lucky Horseshoe" would have been a hit here. James

  • CopperindianCopperindian Posts: 1,410 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Like many, I started with the Whitman Lincoln #2. I was constantly looking through mom & dad’s change, then my grandparent’s. What really got me going, though, was hunting for 1964 & before silver coins found in change. That led to more Whitman albums. At the same time, I was into baseball cards. Played flip card, knockdown & like a dummy, put some in my bicycle spokes. In about 5 years, I was in college & (more dummy here), spent my silver coinage on beer. It was 20 years or so before I picked up the hobby again. I was definitely more serious the second time around, but still with that youthful exuberance!

    “The thrill of the hunt never gets old”

    PCGS Registry: Screaming Eagles
    Copperindian

    Retired sets: Soaring Eagles
    Copperindian

  • goldengolden Posts: 9,562 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I remember meeting my dad at the door when he got home to go through his pocket change to see if there was anything that I needed for my blue Whitman folder.

  • RollermanRollerman Posts: 1,865 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I've told my story before I'm sure but here I go. When the wheat cents were replaced by the Memorial cents my buddy and I started hoarding wheat backed cents and I picked up a Whitman coin folder for them. My Dad saw that I was interested in coins and gave me a pouch of coins he bought out of the register at the gas station he worked at as a young man. There were early but well worn Lincolns and quite a few IHC's as well. There were other coins like "V" nickles, Mercury Dimes but the two that knocked me out were an 1870 Newfoundland Half and the an 1837 Large cent in Fine condition. It just really tripped my trigger that "pennies" were ever that large. I still have both of those coins and a few others from the pouch. Probably the only bad advise my Dad ever gave me was to "clean up those IHC's and put them in an album." After that there have some up and down years (military service raising kids) but I've been very active extensively for the past 25 years and it's been a very enjoyable ride. Thanks Dad!

    "Ain't None of Them play like him (Bix Beiderbecke) Yet."
    Louis Armstrong
  • stevekstevek Posts: 28,874 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Many great memories, but perhaps my favorite. It was the days before the internet, and except for finding coins in circulation, going to a coin shop or department store and seeing nothing but overpriced and over graded coins, or buying coins blind thru Coin World...that was about it. So I thought.

    Well i moved to a new school in 7th grade, met this class mate and we became good friends, and his Dad and him happened to be coin collectors. I didn't even know coin clubs existed, and they took me to their club on a Sunday evening which met once a month. I was in heaven. Perhaps around twenty or thirty dealers, and unlike coin shops, they were all friendly. Plus they had both a live auction with a member as the auctioneer, and they had a silent auction. I really liked the silent auction the best, and wound-up buying many coins that way over the years. 😊

  • ldhairldhair Posts: 7,232 ✭✭✭✭✭

    About 1965 I was about 8 years old. My dad was the manager of a department store called TG&Y. Sometimes there was no one to watch after me and dad would take me to work with him.
    He would put me to work in the cash room rolling Lincoln cents.
    I would put all the wheat cents to the side and dad would pay for them. My pay was $1 per day.
    Over time I filled most of my Whitman blue folders. I never found the 1909 S VDB or the 1914 D.

    As I grew older I started collecting other coins. One day someone broke into our house and took all of my collection except the Lincoln folders. I still have these folders and all the Lincoln Cents dad bought me. They will always be the most important part of my collection.

    Larry

  • alefzeroalefzero Posts: 967 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 13, 2024 1:29PM

    I was a paperboy from about 10. Along my route, merchants (corner stores, pizza/cheesesteak joints, ...) would let me go through the change in their registers and swap out a nickel for a nickel, etc. Great resource for filling out my Lincoln and Indian Head cent and Jefferson and Buffalo nickel Whitman albums as well as accumulate 90% silver.

    Best score was as a retail customer at an A&P around 1970. I got an 1876 20c piece in change. It was supposed to be a quarter, so the cashier (who noticed it) gave me another nickel. The 1876 later graded MS62. It certainly was not circulating for nearly a century. Someone undoubtedly raided a coin collection.

  • The_Dinosaur_ManThe_Dinosaur_Man Posts: 935 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I got started by going through change jars and my dad's pocket change. I remember finding a 1937 Lincoln and thinking that was the oldest coin I'd ever find, until I found a 1926 some time later and then a 1917. Finding these meant more than receiving something given to me because I could think of them as "my coins" instead of "dad's coins" or "my brother's coin." I would also find my first 1964-D dime and no one thought it was silver. And I remember my first couple of visits to the LCS where I would buy my first silver quarter, a BU MS-60, for $2, and a 1996-W dime after seeing it listed in the Red Book. Back then, a kind fellow worked the counter and his spirit still influences me to this day when I talk coins with other collectors or potential collectors.

    Some times I miss those younger days, when I had a lot less knowledge, was full of wonder, and had much more free time.

    Custom album maker and numismatic photographer.
    Need a personalized album made? Design it on the website below and I'll build it for you.
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  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,631 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Shortly after the war there was a booklet for parents that suggested getting your kids interested in coin collecting. When my dad saw it he sat us all down and dumped his change jar on the bed while announcing we could start a coin collection if we wanted. My older brothers started cents and I started buffalo nickels. My very first coin was a nice VF- '36 and I found three or four others to start the set.

    Tempus fugit.
  • OAKSTAROAKSTAR Posts: 7,051 ✭✭✭✭✭

    As a kid, I would saved up 50 pennies or 50¢ in any denomination. As soon as I had that 50¢ and as soon as Saturday morning came around, I'd jump on my bike and get my butt down to the bank before it closed. I wanted as many Kennedy Halves as I could get. I still have them today. You can guess the year. 🤣 😉

    Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )

  • acsbacsb Posts: 152 ✭✭✭

    Riding bikes to Westwood to Mr. Dominick's store with Mark and Nooks. Stop at the bank in River Vale to pick up a roll of T1 Bicentennial dollars. Easy way to more than double the ol' cash flow. Or buy a few crappy type coins, many of which I still have.
    +++
    Then there's the tale of how the Hunt Brothers played right into my hands. But that's for a later day.

  • BillJonesBillJones Posts: 33,948 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 14, 2024 4:49AM

    @Barberian said:
    For some reason, I used to get 1954s fairly often. I had almost a roll of them from CRH as a kid. I never found a 55-S and only one 49-S while CRH in Illinois and Vermont. I finally found a 55-S in four rolls my father brought back from a business trip to San Francisco.

    I found a lot of 1954 cents in circulation despite the fact that they were supposed to be "semi-key date." The fact that I lived in Delaware probably had something to do with that. I eventually pulled a roll of them out of circulation.

    The "impossible one" was the 1955-S. I finally paid 80 cents for one at the Woolworth's Five and Dime.

    Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
  • Dave99BDave99B Posts: 8,525 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 14, 2024 2:27PM

    My older brother Dan (16 years older than me) would come home from work each day and toss his loose change onto a TV tray in his bedroom. He’d always have a pocket full of change for some reason. He would allow me to sort through it every evening, and keep whatever I wanted of any numismatic value. Well, except half dollars, those were off limits! This would have been in the mid-1960s. I culled out lots of 90% Mercury and Roosy dimes, and lots of wheat cents and 40% nickels. He was a wonderful brother, and sadly he passed away a few years back. This is easily one of my fondest childhood memories.

    Dave

    P.S. Ok, I ‘may’ have pocketed a few Franklins halves on rare occasion. Possibly a Walker or two as well.

    Always looking for original, better date VF20-VF35 Barber quarters and halves, and a quality beer.
  • ms71ms71 Posts: 1,537 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Mr_Spud said:
    When I was about 8 years old my brother made me this box to hold my coin collection by getting an old after shave box and he glued red velvet felt powder from a craft/hobby store inside it with Elmer’s glue. 2x2s fit perfectly in the box. I found the box recently while cleaning out my attic and here it is. I also still have a few of the coins in their 2x2’s stored in with other raw coins, but I just popped in these other coins in the picture to show how good they fit into the box.


    I just now google imaged “vintage aftershave in wooden box” and found this one for sale on eBay. That’s the same aftershave box

    I remember the swank new "English Leather" after-shave/cologne coming in that box in the early 1960s. The bottle was square and had a big wooden knob as a cap.

    Successful BST transactions: EagleEye, Christos, Proofmorgan,
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    Now listen boy, I'm tryin' to teach you sumthin' . . . . that ain't an optical illusion, it only looks like an optical illusion.

    My mind reader refuses to charge me....
  • hummingbird_coinshummingbird_coins Posts: 1,091 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I don't have any memories of kid collecting... but I do have a memory of coin collecting as a (younger) kid which stands out particularly to me. One day, maybe 4 or 5 years ago, my friend (who I had introduced to coin collecting) and I went to a LCS to search through a bulk drawer of mostly circulated Washington quarters. I picked out 3 or 4 uncirculated ones from the late 50s/early 60s, as well as a 1937 in XF. The 1937 quarter had been cleaned a long time ago, but had re-toned considerably, so I got it. It wasn't until I got home to look at its value in the Red Book that I noticed there was a doubled die variety for that year, and it was worth a lot of money. I looked at the example photo in the book and got excited when I saw the same thing on my coin. About 2 years later, I got it graded by PCGS.

    Young Numismatist • My Toned Coins
    Life is roadblocks. Don't let nothing stop you, 'cause we ain't stopping. - DJ Khaled

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