A classic question...what was the first coin you paid more than face value for.--or what coin got yo

Billet7

For me it was a very original 1936-S walker. I think I paid $5 for it back in the early 90's. It's still with me today.

My brother and I went to Rust Rare Coins in Salt Lake City, in search of Buffalo Nickles and Indian Heand Cents. Our plan was to put holes in them and use them for buttons on a Native American/Mountain-Man style shoulder-bag (I can't remember exactly why we were doing this...but we were.) While we were there we looked at a few of the coins they had, this particular one caught my eye...so I bought it. My mother always had a jar of old, funny looking coins, and I remember thinking that she didn't have one of those in her jar, so it must be special! I still have the shoulder bag that we made. It's leather with beadwork and fringe...and a holed XF 1938-D buffalo nickle right smack in the middle!!!

UtahCoin

About 1963 (at age 11) I begged my grandfather to take me down to the local coin shop on Figueroa St in Santa Barbara. I bought a 1917-S Lincoln in XF for fifty cents. For the next 10 minutes I got a lecture about my foolishness and wasteful spending of money. This was the same man who told my parents (one being his daughter) that buying the house on the beach in Santa Barbara and paying $9,500 was crazy, and they would NEVER get their money out of it.... We sold the house about 5 years ago for well over a million....

And, I still have my 1917-S Lincoln!

Dentuck

From the June 2006 Whitman Review:


===

Do you remember the first rare coin you ever laid eyes on? I remember mine---an old “nickel” that was special for two reasons: because it was so strange and exotic looking, and also (this was more of a feeling than a conscious thought) because it was a gift from my oldest brother. Mike was (and is) 13 years older than me, so when I was a tyke going into kindergarten, he was leaving home to join the U.S. Marine Corps---definitely someone to look up to!

One day, home on leave, Mike gave me a coin from the steamer trunk that held his collection. We sat down and he showed me a copy of the Red Book. Together we looked up this unusual coin, and compared its physical traits to the grading standards listed. I was excited to learn that it was in Very Good condition—that sounded promising! He patiently explained that Very Good was better than Good (which made intuitive sense), but not as good as Fine. Okay; I obviously had a lot to learn, but with the Red Book I had the right resources, and thanks to that “rare coin”---actually, a super-common 1937 Buffalo nickel, worth all of $0.30 at the time---I was hooked on this great hobby. I read the book from cover to cover, absorbing its arcane and wondrous knowledge.

I’ve enjoyed numismatics since then, from United States types to world coins (and most recently focusing on European medals and tokens). Now, years later, I’m living a collector’s dream: actually working as a member of the Red Book’s publishing team. A career in communications and publications has led me to Whitman Publishing, the maker of the famous scarlet tome. I count among my co-workers Kenneth Bressett and Q. David Bowers---how much more fortunate can a collector get? Ken’s Guide Book of English Coins was the first world coin book I ever bought, back when I started to branch into British and European material. And of course there was many a Bowers title on my numismatic bookshelf.

Working for Whitman, I feel a sense of history and a connection to other coin collectors. I can’t help thinking of the thousands---millions---who have been introduced to the hobby by Whitman coin folders, and sustained and nurtured through their learning process by Whitman books.

I still have that 1937 Buffalo nickel, and the first Red Book I purchased on my own. I wouldn’t trade either one for an 1804 dollar. I hope your journey through the hobby is equally enjoyable.

291fifth

In 1956 my grandfather gave me an 1843-O quarter that he had gotten in change in 1933. I still have it.

The earliest coin I remember buying for more than face was a VF 1911-D Lincoln cent. It was purchased from W.H. Foster in early 1962. I sold it many years ago.

BillyKingsley

I don't know, but it was likely a 1909 cent (no S or VDB) that I paid 50 cents for sometime in the mid 1990s, likely at a card/comic show, which I would go to every one when the malls here actually held them.

I don't really consider myself a collector however until last year, when I found my late father's stash hidden behind the heater in the basement. I've been collecting ever since and the first coins I purchased after becoming a real collector were a 1832 half dime and a 1852 large cent, both for $5 each, and both are damaged. I don't care, I treasure them.

pennyannie

morgan dollar about 8 years ago. I was looking for something on ebay and the search somehow turned up a 1879 morgan dollar with about 1 minute to go. The bid was like 5 dollars and i thought "WOW". I bid like 12 bucks and won it for 8 dollars i think. I was searching for a ATV part. Anyway that 8 dollar morgan sure changed my ways and pocket book.

BECOKA

A 1973 Proof set in the late 70's.

OKbustchaser

This one...it cost a whopping $2.50 (a LOT of pop bottles!) back in 1964. Robert Hedges (RIP) the owner of Bristow Stamp and Coin refused to sell anything to me until I could satisfy him that I knew enough to decide this was the right coin for me instead of a different one.

okracer

My 1st coin was a 1902 IHC....1966 (I was 7)...my dad bought for me at a local coin show. Neither of us knew anything about collecting. I think we paid 30c or so for it.

.....1967.....my aunt (who collected coins), sat me down and sold me (at face value!!!), any silver dimes and quarters I could find out of her collectoin that were duplicates for her.....I filled alot of my Whitman folders that day!.......now that was 'treasure hunting'!

steelielee

My Dad got me into collecting indirectly back in the early 60s. I would come home from collecting from my paper route and have a pocketful of change. Dad would go through it pretty closely and pull out anything interesting to him. I didn't participate much in that excercise, as I remember, other than to holler that he pay me for whatever he took out of the collecting money.
It came full circle to me about 8 years ago when he passed his collection on to me. I was amazed at what he had. For a cop raising 8 kids, he was able to build a nice collection. There are no great rarities inj his collection as virtually all of it was simply pulled from circulation.

He did spark the interest however and I began to collect. I bought my first 2 coins in the government GSA auction of Carson City Morgans. I bought an 82 & 83 and have them still. I llok back now and wish I'd bought more of them.

Good thread, thanks

yellowkid

In the mid 70's I paid $70 for a Vermont Commem, of course this was before slabs and all I remember was that is was a "BU." I sold it a couple of years later to help with a down payment on a house but the design always stuck in the back of my head and when I got back to coins last year it was one of the pieces high on my list to acquire. I had to pay more than $70 this time for a "GEM"

RWB

My cousin sold me a “proof” 1909 VDB cent for $2. Of course it wasn’t a proof but it was a nice coin. At that time it was worth a quarter. Took me a year to figure out I’d been had.

speety

The first coin that got me hooked was an 1830 bust half at a flea market. Paid $70 at the time, a huge amount! Had it graded later and it came back XF-45 and is probably the most original bust half i've ever seen to this day.

pocketpiececommems

I paid 15 cents for a 1938 Buffalo Nickel around 1960. Our coach had taken us to a A's baseball game and another kid got it in change. He knew that I collected coins and said he'd take 15 cents for it. I didn't have one so I gave up a hotdog to get it. I still have it in my Buffalo nickel book.

sumnom

My grandfather gave me an AG 1801 cent when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. It was the most mysterious thing. I could hardly believe that cents once looked like that. It was so odd to me that people could change their minds about what money looks like. In 1801 a cent was big with a wreath on one side and some woman on the other but in the 1970s cents were small and had some guy one side and a building on the other and yet both of them were accepted as money. How odd! It is this fascination with the perception of value that has kept me interested in collecting coins over the years.

And yes, I still have the 1801 cent.

JJM

1881 morgan ( now my poker hold'em dealer button)
1937walker
1957 Ben

all circ'd and givin to me by my dad.........one of the
few nice things he did for me

then it was sat walks to the coin store with friends......

sumnom

I can't remember the first coin I bought for more than face value. It was probably a liberty or buffalo nickel worn smooth. I was into those as a kid. Well, actually, I still like them...

Type2

It was the SBA from the mint in $25 bags, I think it was $35 ea.

doh

I remember buying a 1916-D Dime in Good for $260 I believe...all my friends laughed and laughed at me. I think the FIRST coin(s) I paid more than face value for were some common date BU Morgans followed by an 1881-S $5 gold piece in XF45. Ahh the good old days.

fishcooker

I went to the mall and bought from the dealer located in one of the big stores (Sears or Penney's). I got the handful of circ silver quarters to finish off my book. He polished them for me so they'd be shiny! I think they were $11 or so.

melvin289

I bought an 1865 3¢ Nickel in 1968 from a small shop in Gastonia, NC. The man ran the shop in the back of his wife's Merle Norman cosmetics store. I paid a $1.25 for it and it was AG to G at best. Still have it in the original 2 x 2 holder after 41 years.

Ron

droopyd

The first coin I ever bought was a 1926-S Lincoln cent, I paid 40 cents for it in 1968. As I recall it was a VF/XF. (I don't still have this one, having upgraded many moons ago.)

Before then, everything I collected came out of circulation.

RedHerring

A 1979 U.S. Mint Set on a family vacation in Denver. We toured the mint and I bought it for a couple bucks after the tour. 15 years old at the time.

StubbyMcNumbthumbs

I paid 35 cents for an 1893 Indian Head Cent out of a jar full of them in about 1971, or so. This was at the Court Street Stamp & Coin store, in Clearwater, Fl. I believe the store is still there. I used to spend every cent I had there from when I was 9 to 12 years old.
I was actually collecting stamps at the time and bought the coin just because I thought it was neat. I asked my dad if I could start collecting coins instead of stamps, and I remember his answer, "No way, it's too expensive". Years later, in my mid-twenties and really short on cash, I sold my entire stamp collection for $60.00. Makes me feel kinda sick whenever I think about it.
If I had bought coins with all the money I spent at that store, instead of stamps, I would have been much better off, instead of falling into the financial black hole of stamp collecting.

I still remember my dad's advice, and just how bad it was. Funny, just about all of his other advice has served me well!

I still have that 1893 cent.


Indeed.

terribleredmonster

1949 Franklin Half that was a flashy gem from a guy that opened a coin store down town one month before I started collecting and closed it one month after. I didn't really care a whit for Franklins (I still don't), but it was the flashiest, highest quality coin in his entire inventory so I paid the $20 asking price. This was in 2004.

lordmarcovan

It all began on Thanksgiving Day of 1976. So I guess I'm 33 years old as a numismatist, this week!

(I'll just copy and paste the story from an earlier telling).

Sit back- you're in for a long, saccharine trip down Memory Lane.

The scene opens in Grandmother Dobbs' big old house on Lenox Road in Atlanta, Georgia. It was a busy road but the house sat back from it a ways, and there were woods all behind it, with paths and a small brook running behind the property, I think. We kids loved to explore back there. Today I am told that the woods are gone, and the house no longer exists. I heard it is all paved over as a parking lot for a restaurant. In 1976 it was still a quiet residential area, except for traffic on Lenox Road, which was fairly heavy even then.

I was ten and a half years old. Mom and all the aunts and uncles were milling around, waiting for turkey and a shot at Grandmomma's incredible scratch biscuits. Things were just starting to smell good. I guess I got underfoot in the kitchen, because I was told to go upstairs for an hour and take a nap. I said I wasn't sleepy. Mom said I had to go upstairs and sit or lie quietly in the bedroom, anyway-she didn't care if I slept or not. Not relishing the boring thought of an hour alone upstairs, I scanned the shelves for a book to take with me. It was a copy of the 1971 "Black Book" of US coins, which had apparently belonged to an uncle. I spent my hour with it and came downstairs to eat. Things were really smellin' good now. Grandmomma asked if I would be a dear and set the table. She pointed to the sideboard and told me the silverware was in the top drawer, and gave me the placemats and napkins. I opened the drawer. In there sat the silverware, but since it was a really wide old piece of Victorian furniture, there was lots of space in the drawer. It was filled with papers, keys, odds and ends- you know- the usual bric-a-brac. And... some coins.

Before my nap, and prior to my reading the Blackbook, I had assumed that United States coins had featured Lincoln cents and Roosevelt dimes and Washington quarters since the dawn of time- heck, there were never even any silver coins around in my life, since I had been born in 1965. Imagine my surprise when, at the bottom of the sideboard drawer, I found... (*gasp*)

a 1936 Mercury dime in Very Good condition!

Just like the picture in the book! My gosh...that thing was really OLD...forty years!!

I still have that coin, El Numero Uno, the very first one, and I cherish it today. Also in the drawer were a 1943 steel cent and some other Wheaties (you can bet that steel cent knocked me out- WOW!). Grandmomma let me keep 'em all, of course. Except the 1948-D Franklin half. That had a bullet hole through it, and had been shot by one of the uncles when he was a boy.

On a future visit, Grandmomma gave me a 1951-D quarter that she had picked up in the flower bed. There is no telling what else that was in the yard of that magical old house. It's all a memory now, lost beneath the urban sprawl, but...

Somewhere, deep beneath the asphalt of a restaurant parking lot in Atlanta, there are silver coins sleeping, and the fond memories of my childhood sleep with them, amongst the roots and stones and the ghosts of trees that are no longer there.

My rambling recollection is a bittersweet one, but it has a silver lining. Do you think you could trade me a Mint State Saint-Gaudens double eagle for that one particular cheapo 1936 VG Mercury dime? Think again. That one is spoken for. It goes to my yet-unborn grandson (or -daughter), whichever one has the brightest eyes and the keenest interest.

God bless you, Grandmomma. I never got to say goodbye to you properly. The turmoil and disentegration of my first marriage and trying desperately to eke out a living at a series of dead-end jobs just got in the way, I guess.

Things are much better now, better even than they were in those distant, carefree days, when I was a little boy playing in the woods behind your old house. I hope one day I can hug you again, on the other side of those Pearly Gates. I sure hope they have a good big kitchen in Heaven. I promise not to get underfoot. To this day, I have never had a biscuit to match one of yours.

---

Edit to answer the other question posed by the title: what the first coin I paid more than face value for was. I don't really remember. I think it might have been a G-VG 1857 Seated dime. Suffice it to say I no longer have it. My entire collection has been sold off a time or two over the years. I always kept three coins, though:

1) The VG 1936 Merc dime that started it all.

2) An 1827 XF45 details Bust half that I got for my birthday in 1977, when it was 150 years old (an astounding gift to me at the time). I swore I would keep it until it turned 200, then pass it on. Hope I am still around in 2027. I still have it, of course.

3) An AU58 PL 1878-S Morgan dollar that came from my great-grandmother's desk. I kept that for more than 20 years, but passed it on to my sister to keep for my firstborn nephew, who came along in 1999.

So there are only two left from my early days as a collector, now, though the third remains in the family.

notwilight

As a kid I filled up whitman penny albums with my parents but I think it was my idea when I saw the albums somewhere on a newstand or similar and purchased one with my allowance. My dad wondered if some of the change he found in odd places (like in an old ice cream truck he dismantled) was valuable but we never made much progress. 30+ years later I bought my avatar as my first collectible coin purchase. --Jerry

RWB

As a kid I filled up whitman penny albums with my parents...

Yikes!!! OK...OK…Now tell us how you got your parents into those little blue albums? And --- how many parents did you have? There are a lot of holes in a coin album….

OKbustchaser

<< <i> As a kid I filled up whitman penny albums with my parents...

Yikes!!! OK...OK…Now tell us how you got your parents into those little blue albums? And --- how many parents did you have? There are a lot of holes in a coin album…. >>



Yes, but with a sharp knife one parent would fill a lot of holes.

fcloud

As a kid I wasn't allowed to buy coins. I wanted to subscribe to a coin paper or magazine and my parents wouldn't allow that either. I asked for a 1954 (my birth year) proof set from my parents (somewhere before 1975). My Mom went to a coin shop and when she saw the price she wouldn't buy it.

It wasn't until after I was married to my wife Linda (in 1976) before I purchased my first coin. I bought a bunch or worn out Barber dimes at a swap meet (not a coin show). I no longer have a single one of them, but I do have the first coin gift my wife gave me in 1977; the three legged buffalo shown below.

This would have been the most valuable coin in my collection at the time, and no matter what the dollar or book value it will remain my most valuable as long as I breathe.

PCGS say vf30.

BillJones

The first coins for which I paid more than face value were an 1846 small date large cent and an 1838 half dime. I bought both coins from my mother's cleaning lady when I was in the spring when I was in the 5th grade. I got started in the hobby when my Uncle John gave me the 13th Edition of the Red Book and the two Whitman cent folders that ran from 1909 to 1959.

I still have both of those coins. The 1838 half dime especially thrilled me because it was dated FULL DECADE + a year from the date of my birth. WOW.

EDIT

Mistake noted ... It was a decade + a century + a year.

pakasmom

Oh oh, Bill. Stand prepared!

Mesquite

A 2000 ASE proof did it for me.

BaseballAbs

<< <i>For me it was a very original 1936-S walker. I think I paid $5 for it back in the early 90's. It's still with me today.

My brother and I went to Rust Rare Coins in Salt Lake City, in search of Buffalo Nickles and Indian Heand Cents. Our plan was to put holes in them and use them for buttons on a Native American/Mountain-Man style shoulder-bag (I can't remember exactly why we were doing this...but we were.) While we were there we looked at a few of the coins they had, this particular one caught my eye...so I bought it. My mother always had a jar of old, funny looking coins, and I remember thinking that she didn't have one of those in her jar, so it must be special! I still have the shoulder bag that we made. It's leather with beadwork and fringe...and a holed XF 1938-D buffalo nickle right smack in the middle!!! >>

HA ,HA, I totally remember that. I still have the indian head cent i drilled two holes in to make a button. I bought a franklin half dollar that day.

AUandAG

I started collecting coins with my paper route at about age 10, or 1956. After getting
hooked I'd go to the bank and buy penny rolls for searching. Then in 1960 I went to
a coin shop and saw these and was "sold" a bill of goods for 25¢ a card. Bought all I
could afford, about 10. I've never been back to a retail coin shop since that day. These
are the only coins I've ever paid "retail" for in all those years.

I'm not saying that B & M stores are bad, it's just not my venue. I prefer to buy collections
from the collectors directly.

So, I still have a few of these left. Have given several out to young numismatists here on
this forum. They probably are worth the two bits now.

bob