What is your best "grandpa" find? Did anyone's grandpa ever stash something really neat a

TheLiberator

Most grandpas seem to have left circulated mercs and other "rarities" for their relatives. Has anyone here inherited or been given anything really interesting or rare from their grandfather? Mine left tons of circulated mercs and silver washingtons. In one small bag of silver roosevelt dimes was one really nice 1894 barber dime. That was the best thing I found and I'll keep it forever. Whay about you guys?

lathmach

My grandpa died in 1906.
I wasn't born until 1944, so I don't know what he may have had stashed away.

Ray

clw54

My mother had a heavily circulated 1921 dime. Got it in change smoewhere.

skingspan

I got some coins that belonged to my wifes grandfather, hidden in with some foreign coins was a fugio cent.

Bochiman

Grandmother->Uncle->me
1923 High Relief Peace $ - Just sent in and graded ~2 months ago... MS64
It was hand graded, by my uncle I think, as MS63.

Rest of grandma's coins, she sold off in the recent years before she passed away in order to pay her bills
(before I could afford them, before I knew about what was happening, and before I got back into collecting).

lordmarcovan

I got an 1878-S Morgan dollar (AU58, prooflike) and a few other coins that had been in my paternal great-grandmother's desk.

Coulport

My Grandmother left me a racketeer nickel. It is of course gold plated and as an added feature it has a reeded edge. Coin probably is XF and some of the gold is worn away showing the CN beneath. She was convinced it was a five dollar gold, bless her heart. I still have it and show it occasionally.
The best things though were the stories and the old picture album. Priceless.

nwcs

My grandfather was a collector. After he died, my mother and uncles split the collection. They took the best stuff but mom still got some good ones. The two best pieces we have are an 1893 Morgan and 1863 cent. I sent both to PCGS for mom and the morgan is xf45 and the cent ms63. Both are nice coins. He had a great deal of bulk silver. Thankfully they sold a lot of the bulk silver when silver was much higher than it is right now.

ddbird

My grandfather gave me a MS63 84' cc morgan. He used to work at bank and bought it for face value. He had bought alot more, but gave most of them away to a friend who had his collection stolen. He has also given me bags of mercury dimes, franklins, wl, and old silver coins. I think one is a 1916-d mercury dime but its a lOOONG shot. The mint mark is gone, and I think I can barely make out a d...but it could be an s.

roadrunner

My grandfather had an old safe in his garage circa 1966 when I had just a few years of collecting under my belt. One day he came by with a bag of coins that were from the safe. The stars in the bag were an AU 1822 bust half and an AU 1876-cc dime. I'm sure they were nice orig and lustrous coins at that time. But I mercilessly cleaned them multiple times over the next 5 years and ruined them.
Silver polish was one of my "tarnish" removers at that time.

roadrunner

eddieal

My grandfather was a coin collector. He died in 1953 and left me a few coins, but good ones were sold to pay for auto accident, including his 1856 Eagle Flying Cent. Oh well, anyhow this got be started.

DesertRat

My mother had a large ceramic piggy bank full of Morgans back in the 60's. Unfortunately, my older brother thought they were just ordinary money and slowly took one and two at a time over a period of years thinking nobody would miss them since there were so many. Eventually they were all but gone. He spent them at the local five and dime on candy and toys he said when he was caught by Mom. She is still angry to this day. I bet the five and dime owner was pleased.

kryptonitecomics

Mine is a sad tale:

My grandfather had amassed quite a collection from what my father told me. He had bags full of Barber coins, Buffalo nickels, Merc dimes, and Silver dollars along with a slew of other goodies. He kept everything in 3 different large safety deposit boxes at the bank so you know he had a lot. I never got to see any of the hoard, but I did come across a beautiful Flying Eagle cent sitting in a desk drawer at his house, loose with no holder around it

Well back in around 1989-1990 time frame my grandmother had a stroke and needed around the clock attention. He sold his Condo, the coins, his fathers gold Railroad watch and Gold railroad pass to cover the cost of the care. From what I hear, he had no idea of the value and got very little for the entire collection. It's just a real shame I didn't collect back then because I could have helped him to at least sell his coins at market price.

Now that all of my grandparents have passed, I really wish I had a coin or two to remember then by even if it was circulated Lincoln Cents. My grandfather was a good man and a scholar and he deserved better than that

Coinosaurus

My grandfathers both had large stashes of junk silver. It was great stuff when you were a kid!

millennium

In my family.......I'll be the "grandfather" that leaves a coin estate.....No one else did or has....

HEY!..I see that my avatar went from "veteran" to "collector"!....

mirabela

Maternal grandmother gave me a '21 Peace dollar in XF45 when I was a kid. Nice coin, still have it. My paternal grandfather's dad was the real collector, though. He sold 99% of what he had, I'm told, for about $30,000 sometime around 1960 or 61. Nobody seems to remember exactly what was there, but that's what they say it sold for. He hung onto the other 1%, and after he died one of my cousins took the best of what was left. I got to peruse them once -- a lot of lovely MS buffalo nickels is what I remember best, but it was 20+ years ago. A cigar box of individually enveloped Morgans & Peace dollars was passed on to my sister and me. My favorite was and is a nice MS64 1904-O with a lovely case of envelope toning. It was a standout right from the start, but it came to mean more when I realized, back when he was doing this collecting, what it must have meant to get an '04-O at the time. I'm assuming he got it right around the time of the big treasury disbursement in the early 60's.

Coin Finder

In June of 1974 my gradnfather dies. He and Grnadma had tons of stuff in their house which they had accumulated since they moved their in 1936. Going through the closet grandma found two old coin boards. Indian Cents and Liberty nickels. My gradpa never bought coins so I know he put this together from pocket change. On the Liberty Nickel board the two cool coins were a good 1886 and a fine 12 s.

The Indian Cent board has many holes filled in most with good to fine.

Later that day I found in an old desk inside a wood box loose. The key. A full good 1877! Wht it was separated from the rest I do not know.

Great fun though. My Uncle has them all now.

Tbig

JamesW

I have a 1860-O half dime that was my great-grandmothers. She always kept it in an old ring box in the slot for the ring. I now have it in a Coin World (anacs size) holder with her name on it.

My father passed away in 1995. I have 20th century type set that he put together in an old whitman folder that was pre 1965. It has no slots for clad coins. There is a 1963-D Washington quarter that he put in the slot right out of a roll. All of these coins he pulled from circulation working in a service station in the early 60's.
Needless to say..it is very dear to me.

Zulan

UM... my wifes grandfather left her a whole BOATLOAD of coins. I am STILL sorting the suckers. Probably the best part is the complete set of walking liberty halfs.

nccoin

My Grandma had lots of silver but she sold at all at the silver peak in '79. Good for her, bad for her grandson

Blade

I can't remember which, but one of our board members has a 1794 dollar (yes, you read that right) that was handed down through direct descendents. Apparently one of his relatives had done some work with Thomas Jefferson, so Jefferson sent him one of the new coins not long after they were released. It has stayed in the family and he has a letter from Jefferson to go along with the coin. It also talks about agriculture, etc, which was the family business. Pretty cool stuff.

Unfortunately my Grandfather collected stamps and my Grandmother still has them. I hear that hobby has taken a beating so I'm not expecting much. She does have a few rolls of uncirculated double eagles put away "for investment" he bought in the early 1970's I'm hoping to get a look at some day - not sure if they are numismatic quality material or not.

MFH

My grandfather was born in 1889, and his first job was driving horse drawn carriages for the Metropolitan Transit Authority in Boston, Mass. Passengers would pay with what ever coin was being minted at that time, you can image, gem Walkers from the teens and twenties, as well as Merc's and Standing Liberty quarters. He'd save anything of interest, Seated Liberty quarters, halves, Barbers, etc. and that's what got him hooked into collecting. He put together a type set of Commems ( lacking the Hawaiian only). Most are very heavily toned and when he showed them to me when I was a younster, he told me to NEVER clean them with anything. He willed the set to my father, and I now have it in a safe deposit box.

He saved alot of odds and ends but each coin is virtually mint state. He saved quite a few 2 1/2 Dollar gold coins, which he gave to my aunt.

He also started a collection of 1883-1912 Liberty Head "V" Nickels. All the coins were AU 55-MS63, and that was the first collection I completed back in the mid to late 1980's. He didn't have the key dates, but seeing all the empty holes in that album got me back into collecting.

I only wished he saved more SLQ's !

Coinerww

I got two Morgans from my grandpa.

kingmatt

My dad left me a bunch of Mercs. I found a 41/42 overdate in F

mgoodm3

My grandmother was the collector and she had a pretty nice stash of coins. She died in 1986 and I have no idea what happened to her coins. I think my grandfather sold off a lot of things after he sold his house.

partagas

My Grandfather and Grandmother saved the best looking silver they could find in the 40's. As a result I have lots of nice high grade walkers and merc's. Of the 10 peace dollars I got one was a AU-58 1928.

I will keep that coin and pass it down. Hopefully it will remain in the family forever.

RBB617

I expect to be the grandfather that hands down the cool stash of coins, but I have some time to build that stash, since my kids are only 6 and 4. I really don't know if either grandfather had any coins stashed away, as one passed away just as I started collecting, and the other passed away while I was on a 20 year hiatus (13 - 33) from the hobby. My father had a few complete Whitmans with Fine - MS Franklins, Washingtons, Roosevelts, Jeffersons and Lincolns, but my sister raided those in the late '80s for beer money. I know, those are moderns, but I still would have liked to have them.
Brian

MacCrimmon

My grandfather was a laborer in the cotton mills of South Carolina for most of his life, and collected/filled the usual coin boards and stuff since they were really quite poor. But, his three proudest possessions were his 1906-D Barber half ('06 was his birthyear), a 1913-S TI Buff., and the BIG PENNY.

No one quite knew what to make of the BIG PENNY since it was fairly corroded and the full date was unreadable, at least to all but me.... I swore it was 1793 but all the old folks would agree on was that said LIBERTY & UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Well, on a trip to the dime store I spied a Red Book and begged my parents to buy it for me. On returning from the store I found a match in the famous Wreath Cent design and lo and behold, it was only minted in 1793.

More remarkable was that he found the old copper while plowing a field in the spring before planting crops. Pure fate! He just happened to stop the mule at the end of the last row and spotted something odd laying in the row. He reached down and stuck it in his overalls surmising it may be a button.

He died in 1979 from an accident and I purchased those three coins from my grandmother soon thereafter.....I still have them and I'll pass them along someday.

NoGvmnt

My best "GrandPa" find is my single memory of him taking me to Riverview Park in Chicago when I was a todler. That is the one and only memory I have of him and I treasure that more than any material object.

Jim

Clankeye

My Uncle "Squeak" had an Isabella quarter. I looked through his collection after he passed away. Mostly circulated common coins--but there was the Isabella in a little envelope marked $35. Must have been a lot of money to him when he bought it.

I sent it in to PCGS and it went 65. That was at the top of the boom in the early 90's. Back then his family could have gotten 5 to 6 grand for it. My Aunt opted to keep it. Still sitting there in a safe deposit box in an old rattler holder.

Clankeye

AuldFartte

Nothing from my grandparents, but my great-grandmother, who died in 1958, left a small wooden box of assorted coins that she saved because they were "unusual". My grandmother gave them to me a few years later, and there were a few IHC's, two large cents, a Barber dime, all circulated, a handful of older foreign coins, and an unc. 1926-s Oregon Trail Commemorative half. It was blueish purple with some reddish hints here and there. Being about 12 years old at the time, and a complete moron, I got out the silver cleaning creme and a rag ...

and you know the rest of the story

ccex

My grandfather left me lots of old stamps which I have forgotten about, but also a few coins which I remember distinctly, since I still have them 35 years later:

1832 5 Franc (France), Fine
1917 1 Franc, XF
1839 Booby Head cent, AG
1845-O Seated Dime, Fr

topstuf

My Grandma gave my cousin and me each three Indian Head Cents as a souvenir of the coins she remembered as a girl.
I put my three in a glass “chicken” candy container and looked at them once in a while.
Then one day in (I think 1949) I was looking through a copy of Reader’s Digest and they had an article about “Coins to Save” or some such title. In the article they mentioned looking for the “S” mintmark on the reverse of Indian Head Cents. There were only two dates with the “S”.
The really valuable one is the 1909-S, but the article said that it would also be good to save the 1908-S. I ran to my “chicken” and took out my pennies. Voila! An “S” on the back of the 1908.
The article also said that baking soda was good for cleaning coins. So I …cleaned… this coin probably once every month or at most every few months by vigorously rubbing it with DRY baking soda.
As it is now, the condition of the coin is AT LEAST “Very Fine” with claims to “Extremely Fine.”
I can only IMAGINE what the condition was before I began systematically grinding it down on a regular basis with DRY BAKING SODA!

prooflike

A Dark side item, this Anniversary Medal from 1918. I also have a bunch of early/mid 20th century European shooting medals from my Great Grandpa and Grandpa



and here is an image I found on the internet

mtnman

I have an 1877 Trade dollar that was my grandfathers. It was his birthyear. It grades F12. I plan to pass it along to my grandson. I also have several gold coins that he left for me. An 1856 $1 in VF, an 1889 $1 in AU, a 1903 $2 1/2 in XF, a 1908 $2 1/2 in VF and a 1928 $2 1/2 in AU. No great value, but I wouldn't take anything for them.