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Got to encourage a YN today

WeissWeiss Posts: 9,941 ✭✭✭✭✭
One of my contractors has a 10 year old son. I gave him a silver dollar a few months ago and an older red book when he accompanied his dad to our place to check out our air conditioner. While he was here I showed him a few of my ancient pieces and he was floored by their age. Mentioned our local dealer had a box full of unattributed AE pieces from the Roman era for a few dollars each and he's been dying to visit to see for himself and to buy one. He also confided he was fascinated by the Titanic and I could tell a little encouragement would really help fuel his interest in history.

Today they were both at a new project I'm working on, and the boy was patiently stripping small pieces of wire for the copper. He and his dad were going to the junk yard after and then to the coin shop. While we were working I told them both stories about the 1933 $20, the 1964 Peace dollars (including Dcarr's pieces), and a few other interesting-to-neophyte stories.

They finished up and headed to scrap the copper, I finished what I was doing a little later and decided to see if they'd made it to the coin shop. Sure enough they were there, pouring over all of the coins and jumping from one era to another, one denomination to the next. It was particularly touching and sweet, because when I was 10 I was that kid, and that was even my same coin dealer image

He'd ruled out the unattributed pieces for their lack of detail. The few better ancients my dealer had were out of his price range. I suggested type pieces ($.02, $.03) for their novelty and history. But my dealer's stock was a little thin in those pieces. So I suggested coins of 1912--the Titanic tie-in. He jumped at that initially, and we pulled out a raw 1912-S Barber dime in pretty nice F for $5. He set that aside. While he was looking at it, he recognized its coin orientation and asked about it. Then he saw that one of the other coins from that tray had a die rotation of a couple of degrees--something I'd missed. Sharp kid!

With plenty of money, we moved down to nickels. I explained about the 1913 V-nickel to tie into his 1912 theme. One year later and it'd be a million-dollar coin! He liked that idea. Then I told him about the 1883 Racketeer nickels from that series. His eyes bugged out when he got the gist and immediately went searching for a no-cent 1883. Right next to it was a w/cents 1883 in better condition. The no cent to me was more interesting and just a few bucks, but he knew he needed both pieces of the puzzle to explain the story behind it. And the w/cents alone was out of his price range. His dad only had a few bucks with him and they were still maybe $10 short for both pieces.

They'd never dream of asking for a loan from me and I wouldn't dream of embarrassing the dad by handing over the difference. So instead I asked my dealer what kind of deal he could make on them to an enthusiastic YN. Having watched the events unfold, he named the price of what the kid and his dad had. You'd have thought the kid won the lottery image

They thanked my dealer (as did I), and turned to leave. I whipped out a $5 bill and quietly snagged the 1912 barber dime, then handed it off to my electrician when the kid ran to the car.
We are like children who look at print and see a serpent in the last letter but one, and a sword in the last.
--Severian the Lame

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