60 Years Ago Today - The Christmas Gift That Keeps On Giving
2ndCharter
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Christmas 1964 - As a young teenager, the wonderment of Christmas had started to fade from my childhood days but this year would prove to be different. After I went downstairs that morning and began to peruse the cornucopia under the tree, an envelope caught my eye. It was addressed to me with a return address of "Coin World, Sidney, OH" with an added comment "A Gift For You". You see, a couple of months earlier, my mother had brought home a copy of Coin World for me that she had found at a newsstand in Albany, NY which I had read and re-read until it practically fell apart. So, I thought, "Could it be?"
Well, the tradition in our house was that you couldn't touch any presents until after my parents got up and we had breakfast. Needless to say, every year, my younger brother and sister and I would inhale breakfast and sit fidgeting in our chairs waiting for our parents to finish (you know they ate slow on purpose). Then, it was a mad dash to the living room. I opened the envelope to find that my mother had gotten me a 1-year subscription to Coin World. After that, the rest of the morning was anticlimactic and I certainly don't remember anything else I received that year. Because it was the Holiday season, mail delivery was slow and so I had to wait on pins and needles for almost a week before the first issue arrived (actually, two issues showed up at the same time).
To quote Ralphie from A Christmas Story, it was the best Christmas present I had ever received or ever would receive. (Well, OK, after I had grown up and gotten married, our son was born on Christmas Day in 1975 so I guess that's a close second).
Sixty years later, while I do read Coin World on-line, there is still a bit of excitement when I find a new issue has arrived in mailbox (especially the Monthly Edition) and I can look forward to some enjoyable time in the easy chair flipping from page to page. My mother has long since passed away so I have to pay for my own subscription now (a lot more than the $5 she paid). However, every once in a while, when reading the latest issue, I find myself looking up and saying "Thanks, Mom".
Merry Christmas Everyone!
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Comments
Merry Christmas to all, and thanks to @2ndCharter for that great story!
The print edition Coin World was pretty much the ONLY available source of coin news, advertised prices, and general cool stuff for us fledgling coin nerds back in the day.
Other than that, you maybe got a new Redbook once a year.
30+ years coin shop experience (ret.) Coins, bullion, currency, scrap & interesting folks. Loved every minute!
I too remember the pleasures of Coin World in the early to mid 1960s. Two thick newsprint sections, tabloid size folded together and stacked on the counter of the coin shop in a bigger town almost an hour away. The 2nd section was almost all classified ads. Any time I was lucky enough to get to that shop, I never walked out without a copy.
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Thanks for sharing your story!
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all!
I constantly feel like a kid when I work my way thru a coin book or magazine. Happy and healthy holidays to all my friends on CU. I just opened a new lighted magnifier from my sweet wife to use on all the Notgeld, I'm currently cataloguing. Peace Roy
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Great story. Always love to hear about happy holiday memories. Merry Christmas everyone!
@2ndCharter
Thanks for sharing a great story and bringing back some great memories for me also.
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Thanks for the lovely remembrance .... as a kid I used to race to the only newspaper stand in town that had 3 issues of Coin World delivered every Thursday, always hoping that there was one left there for me
Commems and Early Type
Thank you for that great story...Takes me back too.
I associate coin collecting with Thanksgiving because while you were still receiving Coin World in November of 1965 I saw my first clad coin. I had already been collecting buffalo nickels for 8 years and dabbled a little in one cent coins and half dollars but the clads were something new. Of course I hated the two date freezes already in place and the soon to be elimination of silver from coinage but that very first clad quarter on Thanksgiving was innocuous enough. It was a handsome coin despite what it represented; the end of civilization as we knew it. At least in this area the first quarters released were mostly well made by serviceable dies. It wasn't until months later that the poorly struck monstrosities that were emblematic of the clad era became ubiquitous.
Knowing the coin was explosion bonded I tried to take it apart with various tools but the three layers were as one.
Great story.
Christmas is still a lot of fun for me but it's mostly just seeing the kids enjoy it so much and seeing family.
Back in the day, receiving Coin World was the highlight of the week.