Without revealing your age, what is something you remember as a collector if you told a young. . .
braddick
Posts: 23,946 ✭✭✭✭✭
..collector .today they wouldn't understand?
For me, back in the day you could go to Woolworth and after having a burger and a malt at the diner counter you could purchase a Buffalo nickel and a Mercury dime out of a coin display case.
peacockcoins
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I could pull Franklin halves from circulation somewhat regularly.
Chopmarked Trade Dollar Registry Set --- US & World Gold Showcase --- World Chopmark Showcase
A VF buffalo nickel required a full horn.
I remember going to my bank and getting Morgan and Peace silver dollars for face value. Very few coin collectors even cared about them but I thought they were very cool.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
You could also receive these silver dollars in Las Vegas right up to about the mid-1960s.
Here is a fun thread on this:
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/951207/slot-machines-and-silver-dollars
peacockcoins
The color, intensity and progression on naturally toned coins that I saw on the bourse in albums, Capital Plastics holders and original US Mint Set packages (1947-1958) before the rapid dissemination of better living through chemistry.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Gold was cheap to collect. Pegged at $35/oz. One could pick through stacks of coins to get the best examples with little or no premium. All coins were cheap, even allowing for inflation. I picked up some awesome type coins with my paper route money.
Gold was cheap to collect. Pegged at $35/oz. One could pick through stacks of coins to get the best examples with little or no premium. All coins were cheap, even allowing for inflation. I picked up some awesome type coins with my paper route money.
I recall seeing Walking Liberty halves and Standing Liberty quarters in cash registers. We collected Merc dimes and Buffalo nickels from circulation. I found a 1921 dime in Good when I was seven.
Even better are the metal detecting stories.
I was going to say I could go to the coin shop and buy proof sets for $3......but thats pretty much been the case for the last 50 years.....
Wasn't it one of those push bottom display cases where the shelves rotated?
Plus, saving up 50 cent (or penny's), getting on my bike (bicycle) on a Saturday morning and getting to the bank to get a 1964 Kennedy half.
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
Absolutely, and yes!
peacockcoins
I remember a schoolmate from a well-to-do family who had dimes in his penny loafers in case he ever needed to use a pay phone.
I assembled a full set of Merc dimes from circulation, minus 3 coins and the overdate. I only put FINE or better coins into my Whitman folder, but at that time FINE required full delineation of the vertical fasces, not so today
Commems and Early Type
"Used to be, a Washington quarter had an eagle on the back. In 1976 when the Bicentennial coins changed the design for a year, it was a BIG DEAL."
Kids these days think every quarter has a different state, park, person... etc.... on the reverse!
New website: Groovycoins.com Capped Bust Half Dime registry set: Bikergeek CBHD LM Set
It was common, even easy, to find silver coins & wheat pennies in change. The nicer ones were used to place in Whitman albums.
“The thrill of the hunt never gets old”
PCGS Registry: Screaming Eagles
Copperindian
Retired sets: Soaring Eagles
Copperindian
My paternal grandmother worked in the restaurant of our local Woolworth's. I remember looking in alleys and undeveloped areas for soda bottles to turn in for the deposits -- 10 cents for the regular ones, and on a magical day, 50 cents for a large Coke bottle.
I'd take the money and head for the horizontally-rotating coin display cabinet in the basement at Woolworth's to buy something for one of my coin albums. I have no idea what happened to all of those albums -- by junior high school I was no longer collecting.
My Carson City Morgan Registry Set
Buying primarily raw coins, at shows. Seeing a certified coin was a novelty.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
You paid cash for everything and got back coins that you could look at to see if you needed that date and mint mark.
Saturday bowling league in 1965-66.
Cost me a buck of my 3 dollar allowance. Afterwards a couple of the guys would go to the Chinese restaurant for the dollar lunch special.
Instead, I went to the bank nearby (opened on Saturday which was rare,) and they usually had Franklin halves in the tray. I would get 2 of them.
Thinking back, I should have gotten the cheap meal.
I think most young collectors would be stunned to learn that it was completely normal to buy coins WITHOUT having a picture. Smartphones and their constant stream of pictures is so ingrained today I wonder if they would even believe coins were once commonly bought just on descriptions in things like Coin World. James
Always check a phone booth to maybe find a dime in the dispenser.
"Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
Mercury dimes were common in circulation, I still have my Whitman album mercs collected entirely at face value.
I remember my brother passed on buying a fair to good 1822 dime for $45.00.
He still laments that non-purchase.
He says to me these days "you know, that coin is worth 3 to 4 thousand dollars.
To which I reply, "you could have bought an ounce of gold for $35 back then and you still would have $3500 today (we live in Canada), so what's the big loss??"
Then he answers....."oh, I never thought of that".
and he was always considered the smart brother.......somehow I have my doubts on that.
"“Those who sacrifice liberty for security/safety deserve neither.“(Benjamin Franklin)
"I only golf on days that end in 'Y'" (DE59)
Was this in New York?
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
What's a phone booth?
🤣
Or smack the side of a pay phone, hoping change would dump into the coin return. Or any coin return on a cigarette machine, candy machine or soda machine.
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
Bedford, Indiana
My Carson City Morgan Registry Set
ALL of the above!!
I also remember walking with my Grandparents to "Smelter's Row" in Philly and going thru coffee cans full of silver coins destined to be melted, looking for dates I needed. At the time, I was young & had limited money, so I focused on dimes & quarters. At FOUR times face (as I recall at the time), anything else was just too expensive for me. I regret that limitation, as it was only much later that I expanded to halves & dollars, and missed out on collecting them when the time was right. I also dodn't go back far enough to collect Barbers in any denomination, and wish I had............
Okay, thanks.
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
If I remember correctly, we had a coins counter in Woolworth’s in Owego, NY. The town where I went to high school.
WTB: Barber Quarters XF
Learning the hard way not to get involved with Littleton.
Another fun, rabbit hole thread to go down if you're feeling nostalgic.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/9884165#Comment_9884165
peacockcoins
I spent ten silver dollars as cash at a Capwells store purchasing Christmas presents.
The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
Coins in Movies
Coins on Television
Every time I would visit my Great Grandfather he would give me a Franklin Half Dollar.
I remember the marquee coin at the coin dealer my father took me to: an octagonal Pan Pacific. It was five figures and somehow just tucked in their case like it was an ordinary coin.
When I got back into coins after college I remember buying coins on eBay. I bought $100 face value of silver quarters from a seller called Bullionone (I think) for like $335. It took two months to get delivered and a few months later someone at work sent me an article about how bullionone went under like Ponzi scheme and was like “do you even know who you are buying from”. I never told him that I bought from that seller but feel like I dodged a bullet.
Then there was the time I bought 50 original bank wrap 1958-D cents for like $150 on eBay. Back then there was no tracking number or PayPal, I got his mailing address and sent him a check, then he sent me the rolls. Except I only got 20 rolls. I emailed him and he said I only got 20, he said I sent one pack of 20 and another with 30 and just assumed they would arrive on the same day. Next day the other 30 arrived.
Going to the bank with my Dad to get rolls of UNC Ike dollars. Been fascinated with them ever since.
Been there, done that. It was wonderful. I mean all the avenues available to a young burgeoning collectors. In my teens there were coin shows all up and down I-81 from Kingsport, Tn to Roanoke, Va. It was almost unheard of buying a coin without holding it in the light and rotating it in ones hand.
I guess youngsters wouldn't understand this, but it is difficult to be very proficient at grading coins without handling them in various lights by the hundreds or even thousands. Most coin sales today are sold by photos, holders and reputations of the seller. So sad, then that's JMO.
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 remember attending my town's coin club as a young kid when the collector with the biggest collection in town brought in a roll of 1880-S Morgan dollars. I was flabbergasted, as many of them looked like proofs fresh from the mint. Fast forward over three decades: I had left town many years earlier, but I learned that this collector had passed and his collection was being auctioned. I managed to win a number of those dollars for about $30 each; here is one that graded MS66 at our hosts:
6 years ago, when I was starting coin collecting, I saw a lone 1949-S nickel, one of the few coins left for my Whitman folder, in a donation box. I couldn't believe my eyes! Thankfully, my mom had a coin of equal or greater value to replace it.
Young Numismatist • My Toned Coins
Life is roadblocks. Don't let nothing stop you, 'cause we ain't stopping. - DJ Khaled
When money was worth something.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
When we could get 8 track for change thru some club....
The 60s I don't remember to much
I stood in line at the San Francisco mint to get 5 cents worth of the new 1909 S vdb cents.
Dealer stock was in cardboard boxes and PVC 2x2's.
One of each variety?
Hey Kid, you need to ream out that hole in your Capital Plastic Capped Bust Half holder for the coin to fit.
All the dimes, quarters and half dollars were 90% silver. And half dollars really did circulate.
There were and still are coins that are way undervalued. If interested, you have to study the different series price vs rarity vs grade
I remember when there were no third-party professional coin grading companies and many coin dealers would use two different grading systems---one for buying coins and another for selling coins. You could evaluate a coin dealer's honesty by buying a few coins from him and then sell them back to him a few months later. If those Gem BU coins become AU coins, you know it's time to evaluate your trust level with that dealer.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
When I could silver dollars at the bank.
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When I was running a C/gas 55 Chevy on the streets of Long Island, my cousin installed a 45 record player on a gimbal bracket off the dashboard, so we'd have tunes at the "Steer In" burger joint. 10.37 for the quarter mile at Iselip! Thems were the days. Peace Roy
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Except for some "S" mint Roosie's and Book 2 Wheaties, completed
2 books each. Still have them in the SDB. All from CRH.