Do YOU remember seeing your first Memorial cent as a 'kid' collector?

ambro51

I certainly do. There was a little store up the street from my house, Billy Breders Store. You could see it from my front door and in those days a kid could do more things. I would have been five, maybe six years old. I remember thinking how neat it was to see lincoln sitting inside the building, and showing the penny to my mom.

drwstr123

Yes I do, and I thought the design sucked.

IrishMike

I immediately bent over and upchucked. I musta been 8 and a half.

clw54

Dim memories, yes. I remember that cents used to have wheat ears on the back, although I doubt I knew that's what they were. Then one day I noticed a new reverse.

lasvegasteddy

i overlooked them as it was all about the wheaties...boy the dates that could be found

19Lyds

I wasn't a kid "collector" at the time but I recall oo-ing and ah-ing over them.

I think the collecting thing started after that, probably in late 1960.

WoodenJefferson

At the time, 1959, there was a rumor going around that there was a crack on Lincoln's head, up near his temple on some of the coins. We searched roll after roll from the Post Office (trading in one roll for another, .50 was a big investment back then) but never found a single cracked skull coin. Years later after not a one showed up, I found out it was nothing but a rumor. But I still had fun...and those 1959 cents sure were shiny!

AUandAG

I got a couple of bucks worth but never looked at them. I was 13 and had my mind elsewhere.

I finally got around to opening them in my mid twenties. Turns out 3 rolls were 58's and only one was a 59. They
were all heads/heads rolls! Boy was I surprised. Don't know what I did with the wheaties but I do still
have the 59 roll.

Kept the wrong ones it seems. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
bob

airplanenut

Sure... I was born in 1987

Actually, I suppose I remember the coin before I cared about collecting...

ProofArtworkonCircs

I was 23. Then, locally nickels were 1/3 buffalo and 1/3 silver war nicks.

PaleElf

I just introduced my brother-in-law to the Lincoln Memorial this month. I used a Lincoln cent to introduce the actual memorial.

MrMag

<< <i>Sure... I was born in 1987

Actually, I suppose I remember the coin before I cared about collecting... >>



lol, as was I

BillyKingsley

I was born in 1984. They've always just "been" for me. But, I've also always been familiar with the wheat cents, because my family pulled and saved several hundred of them through the years. Now I have them all. PLUS a nearly complete year-mint mark set of Memorial cents. All of which were pulled from circulation! I've never paid any money for one yet, though I have purchased several wheat cents.

CertifiedGoldCoins

I was in high school, and the '59 Cent got me collecting Wheaties. Then Nickels, then.... and there were coins you could find in rolls that people pay big bucks for now. How about a 21-D Half, for openers?

Windycity

I was 5 when I saw my first and that's what go me started collecting coins. Got a Whitman holder for cents and started filling the holes. I have been a collector ever since.

RYK

They were already out several years and called "pennies", and I never cared for them as a collectible.

lathmach

I was collecting coins then and I remember when they came out. I didn't like the design. That was 50 years ago.
I still don't like the design.
Another thing, I don't like any of the designs proposed for the 2009 Cents.
I probably won't like them 50 years from now either.

Ray

OKbustchaser

I don't remember them changing although I was 7 in 1959. Even when I started collecting a few years later I never looked to see which reverse any "pennies" that I had were. That was simply money...I used them to acquire coins for my collection.

Rollerman

Yes, I sure do remember - that change spawned my collecting interests. I got one of the "new" Memorial Reverse Lincolns in change at the school cafeteria when I was 14 and my best buddy and I immediately started to accumulate as many wheat backs as we could find (which were many, of course).
My Dad saw me sorting and otherwise enjoying my treasure-trove and one day, I was given a leather pouch of old coins (mostly IHC's, some older but well worn Wheat cents, a few Mercury dimes, an 1870 Newfoundland half dollar, and best of all - a 1837 Large cent in Fine condition!). I was hooked and have been that way off and on ever since!
Yes, I remember the Memorial cent!
Pete

ChrisRx

Well I remember as a kid in the early 90's that it looked like a train car on the reverse. Thats still my impression when I look at them today

sumnom

I was not yet born when the memorial cent came out but I do remember a time when wheaties and silver coins were commonplace in circulation. People say silver was pulled pretty quickly but I remember having no problem finding silver dimes and quarters in circulation when I started collecting around 1975/1976.

09sVDB

Too young. It was already issued. Altough I don't remember the last days of pulling wheats from circulation.

BillJones

I remember it.

I was in the 5th grade, and it was the spring of 1959. I'd seen an article about "the new cents" in the Weekly Reader which was a newspaper for elementary school kids that the teachers used as a teaching aid. I hoarded every one that I found and then lost part of my "collection" while playing baseball on the playground.

That Christmas my uncle gave me the 13 edition of The Red Book plust the two Whitman Cent holders that ran from 1909 to 1959 with blank spaces after that. I was soon going though all of the pocket change that I could find to fill in the holdes.

SaorAlba

I was born well after Wheat cents had all but disappeared. Curiously it seems like I get more of them in change now than when I was a kid, perhaps it is the Coinstar phenomenon or something. Yesterday I got a 1938 in change. Not a bad find, a 70 year old cent.

NewEnglandNotes

Was not yet born in 1959, but this thread got me to thinking that the SBA dollar came out 30 years ago. I do remember going to the bank with my grandfather to get one when they were first issued. Damn do I feel old. Does not seem like 30 years ago.

coinnut86

Wasnt born until after, but this thread reminds me of what got me actually interested in collecting, not started, but interested. It was a 76 quarter. The different design was awesome, I had only ever seen one and then I noticed the mint mark and the whole world opened up to me. It was the same day I found my first geode.

Of course, I started by collecting pennies

elwood

The first memorial cent I remember was the one that had Kennedy engraved in the field.

I think it was the mid-late 60's. Maybe early seventies.

tightbudget

<< <i>The first memorial cent I remember was the one that had Kennedy engraved in the field.

I think it was the mid-late 60's. Maybe early seventies. >>



I think that was 1973 the JFK/Lincoln thing. I've found a few of those in circulation before.

MrMag

<< <i>Well I remember as a kid in the early 90's that it looked like a train car on the reverse. Thats still my impression when I look at them today >>



haha, don't feel bad, when I was young and dumb (around 6 years old) I thought the Lincoln Memorial was a dumpster.
Ya see, I would flip the coin on the vertical plane, so the memorial was upside down, forget the fact that the letters were too, I didn't seem to notice. Anyway, to me a the time an upside down memorial reminded me of a dumpster... why there was a dumpster on the back of a coin, I didn't know, nor did I have any intention of actually thinking about it.
Then about a year later I heard someone talking about it - flipped the coin over the right way, and what do you know!? It's a building!

cladking

There was a lot of excitement over it and I anxiously awaited it.

coinnut86

<< <i>

<< <i>Well I remember as a kid in the early 90's that it looked like a train car on the reverse. Thats still my impression when I look at them today >>



haha, don't feel bad, when I was young and dumb (around 6 years old) I thought the Lincoln Memorial was a dumpster.
Ya see, I would flip the coin on the vertical plane, so the memorial was upside down, forget the fact that the letters were too, I didn't seem to notice. Anyway, to me a the time an upside down memorial reminded me of a dumpster... why there was a dumpster on the back of a coin, I didn't know, nor did I have any intention of actually thinking about it.
Then about a year later I heard someone talking about it - flipped the coin over the right way, and what do you know!? It's a building! >>



same thing... except it was a balcony.. upside down, it looked like the balcony at church, didn't notice the words either

sumnom

<< <i>

<< <i>

<< <i>Well I remember as a kid in the early 90's that it looked like a train car on the reverse. Thats still my impression when I look at them today >>



haha, don't feel bad, when I was young and dumb (around 6 years old) I thought the Lincoln Memorial was a dumpster.
Ya see, I would flip the coin on the vertical plane, so the memorial was upside down, forget the fact that the letters were too, I didn't seem to notice. Anyway, to me a the time an upside down memorial reminded me of a dumpster... why there was a dumpster on the back of a coin, I didn't know, nor did I have any intention of actually thinking about it.
Then about a year later I heard someone talking about it - flipped the coin over the right way, and what do you know!? It's a building! >>



same thing... except it was a balcony.. upside down, it looked like the balcony at church, didn't notice the words either >>



Well, I thought that it was some sort of ladder laying on its side. I had a red toy firetruck with a ladder on the side so when I saw a red cent with that thing on the back, it sure looked like a ladder. I thought it might be somehow related to firetrucks.

While we're at it, I might as well confess that I thought that it was the same man on the nickel and the quarter, the only difference being that the guy on the quarter was naked.

coinnut86

<< <i>
While we're at it, I might as well confess that I thought that it was the same man on the nickel and the quarter, the only difference being that the guy on the quarter was naked. >>



Subliminal?




j/k

sumnom

Do you see any clothes on that guy on the quarter? Do you? No, you don't. He's wearing nothing but his birthday suit.

sumnom

Well, he does have a ribbon in his hair so I guess that counts for something.

coinnut86

Bear

Yah, wanna make sumpting of it?

coinnut86

Hi Bear! long time no speak

Bear

I been hibernating some.

coinnut86

Same ole bear

collegecoincollector

you guys are old...

i was born in 89. boy do i remember my first wheat cent though. a 1911 that a shop owner gave me when i was around 7 or 8, could have been earlier

JupitarCoins

No, but I remember my first 1909 svdb that I found when I was a kid and my fathers friend who offered me $10 dollars for it and selling it to him.( actually coaxed out of it ) Yes being a child I was definately taken advantage of, not knowing what it was worth at the time.

GrumpyEd

I only remember when the wheats started vanishing and my first interest in coins was sorting the wheats from the memorials. I also remember when Canada 1967 cents with the bird started showing up in change (I lived in Seattle) and trading them to kids that wanted them for wheats.

UtahCoin

I have no idea why I remember this, but is clear as a bell. I was 7, riding in the front seat of our 1955 blue and white Buick (sans seat belts) as my mom was driving me home from Harding school in Santa Barbara, sometime in early 1959. She handed me a new shiny "Penny" and I got all excited about it because it was different. I couldn't wait to get rid of all my old fashioned Wheat cents and get the new ones!

renman95

<< <i>Yes I do, and I thought the design sucked. >>



Yup, me too.

pocketpiececommems

I was 11 when they came out and nobody could find any. Then a girl in our class came to school with a whole bunch of them. Several of us tried to trade Indian pennies to her for one but she wouldn't trade. I guess that ended up being a good thing for us.

cladking

<< <i>

<< <i>Yes I do, and I thought the design sucked. >>



Yup, me too. >>




I thought the design was boring but greatly preferred it to the old design that I found
both boring and uninspired. Somehow the Lincoln Memorial just seemed a lot more
appropriate than a couple wheat stalks.

The new design did strike me as a little "busy" though.