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Another "Remember when" for those 60+

UtahCoinUtahCoin Posts: 5,366 ✭✭✭✭✭
In 1964 I was in 7th grade at La Cumbre Junior High School in Santa Barbara, CA. I was a cashier in the school cafeteria so I got to handle lots of coins. In those days Steel cents, Buffalo nickels, Mercury dimes, Standing Liberty quarters and Walking Liberty Half dollars were as common as dirt. I remember the day the new clad coins showed up, and was that ever exciting! We couldn't wait to get rid of all that worn, dirty old silver and get new shinny clad coins.....
I used to be somebody, now I'm just a coin collector.
Recipient of the coveted "You Suck" award, April 2009 for cherrypicking a 1833 CBHD LM-5, and April 2022 for a 1835 LM-12, and again in Aug 2012 for picking off a 1952 FS-902.

Comments

  • Timbuk3Timbuk3 Posts: 11,658 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Yup, I remember those days !!! image
    Timbuk3
  • mariner67mariner67 Posts: 2,746 ✭✭✭
    Yep....+1 here.
    There were lots of those great silver(and steel) coins back then.
    Unfortunately I never hoarded any of the silver ones....until much much older of course.
    Successful trades/buys/sells with gdavis70, adriana, wondercoin, Weiss, nibanny, IrishMike, commoncents05, pf70collector, kyleknap, barefootjuan, coindeuce, WhiteTornado, Nefprollc, ajw, JamesM, PCcoins, slinc, coindudeonebay,beernuts, and many more
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  • howardshowards Posts: 1,241 ✭✭✭
    Sounds like UtahCoin and I are within a year in age.

    I remember getting lots of interesting coins. Couldn't afford to save anything bigger than a nickel. Went through tons of rolls of cents and nickels. Was very happy the day I found a 1909VDB. (Still have it.) On a regular basis, I used to find Indian Head cents and Liberty nickels, not to mention lots of buffalo nickels.

    I also remember finding an occasional Barber coin.

    Morgan dollars were plentiful. No one wanted them, so they got spent.

    The good ol' days when a nice collection could be built from circulation.
  • TreashuntTreashunt Posts: 6,747 ✭✭✭✭✭
    sad, but yes, I remember those days.

    I recall going to the neighborhood candy store and the owner would let me go thru his nickels for Buffalo's for dates I needed
    Frank

    BHNC #203

  • Heck, I remember when I was finding Indian cents in change and it making my day.
  • mustangmanbobmustangmanbob Posts: 1,890 ✭✭✭✭✭
    As a kid, I thought I had hit the lottery with the new clad coins. I had a bunch where, if you y=looked edge on, the copper / nickel clad was uneven, wavy, not razor straight.

    I had maybe $20 in quarters, getting rid of silver ones to hoard clad.

    Little did I know that they all were that way. image
  • mrearlygoldmrearlygold Posts: 17,858 ✭✭✭
    I remember using all the baseball cards on the Yankees team except Mickey Mantle to make those noises in our bicycle spokes.


    Man that's old! image


  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Yep...have said it here before..... I was a paper boy... and would get all the old silver, even Columbian halves... at that time there were no clad coins....all the change REALLY jingled....image Cheers, RickO
  • RollermanRollerman Posts: 1,894 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I was going to college and working for a wholesale candy distributor. Started my senior year in High School making deliveries and by 1964 I was making calls and collecting money for the deliveries. I bought all the silver I got for my collection (actually kind of a hoard at that point in my life). Ten years later, I found my boys had discovered my cache and were buying candy with it!! Going through what I had left sparked my interest and I collected for another 15 years, took some time off, and resumed at 100% in 2001 when I retired. My collection has grown probably 75% since then! No regrets, it's been a fun ride.
    Pete
    "Ain't None of Them play like him (Bix Beiderbecke) Yet."
    Louis Armstrong
  • ColonelJessupColonelJessup Posts: 6,442 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I remember getting a Bust 50c in change at a deli in 1956. . . . . . . image
    "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." - Geo. Orwell
  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,704 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Lordy, I hated the new clad coins and everything they represented. The first few
    I saw around Thanksgiving of 1965 were all really nice specimens though so it eased
    the sting a little bit. Within months there was a flood of really awful '65 and '66 issues
    that were barely struck by worn out dies.

    Right up until 1975 they were still releasing brand new quarters and dimes of every
    fdate but most especially 1965, 1969-D, 1970, '71-D '72-D, and '74. By 1975 every-
    thing was being released almost as soon as it was struck or wiothin a couple years
    but the '74 quarters made up until July of '75 were probably still being released as
    late as 1979. They sneaked in most of the bicentennial coins ahead of them.

    There are no longer any olds coins in FED or mint storage. The oldest might be about
    10 year old circulated coins in the pacific northwest.

    It was the late releases that made clad collecting pointless the first several years. Even
    if you saved a scarce date there was no way to know the mint wasn't going to release
    large numbers later. The removal of silver and huge mintages made it seem that saving
    them was a waste of time anyway. The poor quality didn't help.
    Tempus fugit.
  • winkywinky Posts: 1,671
    I remember finding a 1938 D half dollar in Germany in 1966 and lots of Buffalo 5 cents and Merc dimes and on and on and on !! To bad I was dumb then and still am I think sometimes. image
  • curlycurly Posts: 2,880
    I've told this story before but in the early sixties I used to work in a gas station in Klamath Falls, Oregon. As people returned from Vegas and Reno, the first thing they would do is get rid of those cumbersome silver dollars. We didn't have any room in the till for them so I would toss them in a bucket under the till. When the bucket got full I would haul them off to the bank. 😝
    Every man is a self made man.
  • CocoinutCocoinut Posts: 2,515 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I received my first "penny board" in 1955, after showing an interest in coins as soon as I could read numbers. Back then, it was common to find steel cents, Buffalo and wartime nickels, Mercury dimes, Standing Liberty quarters, and Walking Liberty halves. Unlike some areas of the country, halves circulated freely in Ohio, and Walkers were as common as the then-current Franklins. I never found any Indian cents, V nickels, or Barber coins in pocket change, but I didn't buy rolls of coins to search from the bank. I clearly recall receiving my first Memorial cent in 1959, Kennedy half in March 1964, and the first greasy-looking clad quarter in November 1965. One of my first purchases of a coin from a shop was a 1950-D nickel, for which I paid $26 in 1965. Even though silver was removed from everyday coinage, silver coins were very reasonably priced for several years. Some examples: BU Walking Liberty halves from original rolls for $3.75 in 1967, a BU roll of 1963-P halves for $11.50 in 1968, a BU roll of 1881-S dollars for $52.00 in 1970, and a bank-wrapped BU roll of Mercury dimes for $35, also in 1970. In 1971, I acquired my avatar, an 1879 quarter, for $95.00; it was submitted to PCGS in 1988 and received a grade of MS65. If only we all knew then what we know now!

    Jim
    Countdown to completion of my Mercury Set: 1 coin. My growing Lincoln Set: Finally completed!
  • drwstr123drwstr123 Posts: 7,045 ✭✭✭✭✭
    A lot of bars had the only remote control TVs - the Zenith image which worked with tuning forks.
    With clad quarters we could change channels just droping them on the bar.
  • That brings back memories. I remember as a kid going out to eat with the family traveling to our favorite Diner...check the pay phone for silver coins! It was a great payout!

    That channel "clicker" makes me laugh. Cool story.
    Persuing choice countermarked coinage on 2 reales.

    Enjoyed numismatic conversations with Eric P. Newman, Dave Akers, Jules Reiver, David Davis, Russ Logan, John McCloskey, Kirk Gorman, W. David Perkins...
  • That brings back memories. I remember as a kid going out to eat with the family traveling to our favorite Diner...check the pay phone for silver coins! It was a great payout!

    That channel "clicker" makes me laugh. Cool story.
    Persuing choice countermarked coinage on 2 reales.

    Enjoyed numismatic conversations with Eric P. Newman, Dave Akers, Jules Reiver, David Davis, Russ Logan, John McCloskey, Kirk Gorman, W. David Perkins...
  • That brings back memories. I remember as a kid going out to eat with the family traveling to our favorite Diner...check the pay phone for silver coins! It was a great payout!

    That channel "clicker" makes me laugh. Cool story.
    Persuing choice countermarked coinage on 2 reales.

    Enjoyed numismatic conversations with Eric P. Newman, Dave Akers, Jules Reiver, David Davis, Russ Logan, John McCloskey, Kirk Gorman, W. David Perkins...
  • That brings back memories. I remember as a kid going out to eat with the family traveling to our favorite Diner...check the pay phone for silver coins! It was a great payout!

    That channel "clicker" makes me laugh. Cool story.
    Persuing choice countermarked coinage on 2 reales.

    Enjoyed numismatic conversations with Eric P. Newman, Dave Akers, Jules Reiver, David Davis, Russ Logan, John McCloskey, Kirk Gorman, W. David Perkins...
  • WoodenJeffersonWoodenJefferson Posts: 6,491 ✭✭✭✭
    If I remember correctly it was just before Christmas in 1965 when we first saw the clad quarter in circulation. Not only did it look different, it felt different...just seemed out of place. The novelty soon wore off as you started to get more and more of the clad coinage in change.
    Chat Board Lingo

    "Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
  • goodmoney4badmoneygoodmoney4badmoney Posts: 1,297 ✭✭✭✭✭
  • WoodenJeffersonWoodenJefferson Posts: 6,491 ✭✭✭✭
    We spent silver dimes, quarters & halves for face value and thought nothing of it...
    Chat Board Lingo

    "Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
  • derrybderryb Posts: 37,560 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I remember when I could remember.

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