As we approach Mother's Day...
Coinstartled
Posts: 10,135 ✭✭✭✭✭
Let's share some mom related coin stories.
I'll break the rules first. It was my grandmother and currency was involved. 
1968 or so we were at Northland Center (now Mall) in the Detroit suburbs.
My granny was a tough European immigrant that had run a beer garden in NYC before moving to Michigan.
We strolled into the lower level coin and stamp shop at the center. She eyed a two dollar bill in exceptional condition that was marked $14. "Fourteen dollars" she exclaimed (in a heavy accent)...."I have one at home, you will give me fourteen dollars for it"?
The dealer took a deep breath and patiently explained that the price was based on the high quality of the bill and as a dealer he could not pay that much from a customer. Granny stormed off with us in a huff declaring the dealer to be a gonif. We did have a nice lunch at the near by Coney Island.
I can see why dealers drink.....
Comments
My mom knows nothing about coins nor does she really care about them. I was more influenced by my dad.
However, my mom loves angels. One day; I showed my mom some obverse images of some Walkers and she asked me, if it was an angel?
I got a kick out of that.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
I did a double take reading "beer garden".
A term I never hear anymore and a term I remember fondly.
Nice story, btw.
"If I say something in the woods and my wife isn't there to hear it.....am I still wrong?"
My Washington Quarter Registry set...in progress
Neither of my parents have any interest in coins at all. However, my mother has gone with me to every coin show, including two national shows. Thanks mom!
Fan of the Oxford Comma
CCAC Representative of the General Public
2021 Young Numismatist of the Year
Awesome.
My mom wanted to get me a gift for my 18th birthday. I think she wanted to get me a watch and I said I don't need a watch because I already have one. So she didn't know what to get me. I was heading out to a coin show and she said that she wants to see what this coin show was. I figured she wanted to make sure that I was going to show and not going out to drink or invade a small country or whatever moms think their kids do when they're not around. As we're heading to the show, she said that she would buy a coin for me for my birthday, and that it has to be "nice one". Couldn't believe it. So every time I would look at something, she would say you could find something a little nice, a little more expensive. Ended up getting a 1881 PCGS XF40 Shield Nickel for $600. My first real key date coin, and first coin above $300. A few years later for another birthday, she borrowed me the money for a 1878 PF67 Shield Nickel that I had my eye on. Told me to pay her back once I finished college and got a real job. Made my year. It will be 6 years in July since she passed and those coins are never going to get sold. They will get passed down to my future kids some day and hopefully stay in the family for a long time.
My Mom goes with me to shows--reluctantly at first, but now enthusiastically. She collects gold and likes both blast white and toned coins, mostly dollars and half dollars, but also a few Seated Liberty dimes and half dimes with toning (she loves blues). She is also a currency hound, and pulled me into some currency as well because of her inspiration.
Way before I was born, like so many others, she hoarded her silver in the early 1960s in old clean wine bottles. I was amazed as a young kid to see green glass bottles full to the brim with Mercuries, Roosies, and Washingtons crammed into each bottle. Franklin, Kennedy, and even a few Walkers, too large for the bottles, were put into peanut butter jars and coin purses.
So Mom was a hoarder! She grew up at my Grandfather's grocery store and saw lots of stuff including a few gold coins in the safe. She says that's what inspired her to buy Saints later in life.
As I grew up and got into coins, it was Mom who carted me to the LCS and bought me my first Red Book and type set coins in the late 1980s as a reward for doing well in school. Even got me my first gold coin, a 1988 1/10th AGE with Roman numerals that was worth more to me than gold, and I intended it to be the first in my Scrooge McDuck coin vault that I saw in DuckTales (remember, I was only 10!)
So numismatics and my Mother are intertwined and I cherish our shared collection and her input.
Gonna get me a $50 Octagonal someday. Some. Day.
My Mom was never a coin collector and when I joined the Navy at 17, a lot of my coins (loose, in containers or my dresser drawer) were gathered up and used - that is where my '55 DDO's went. Some years ago, when I retired and moved back to the area, I told her about that.... after that, she would save cents and bring me jars or bags of cents 'to check for those special ones'......Mom passed away last year at 91... Still have some of those bags of cents... Cheers, RickO
My mom was a bookkeeper. Every cent had to be accounted for and the books had to balance.
And how dare I spend a dollar on a dime. It made no cents. LOL
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5