"Oldest" coin in your collection
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lkenefic
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Not the "oldest" date-wise... but the one you've had the longest. I started collecting coins when I was about 8 years old or so. I have vivid recollections of sifting through bank rolls (~1969-71) for Wheat Cents, silver, etc... Many of these were sold off, spent, traded away, or just lost through the many moves I did over the years... except two... the one coin I managed to keep all of these years was a bank roll find when I was about 9 years old. It's the 1964 Kennedy half that's currently in my Dansco 7070 album. I know it's not the best example of the issue, but it's one coin that's been with me for as long as I can remember.
The next "oldest" is my 1889 Morgan Dollar that was a gift from my grandfather when I was 12 or so. About the same time, I also had a short run of Indian Head Cents gotten from a coffee can my grandfather had from when he was working at a soda fountain in the 1920's or '30's. Mainly worn to VG, but in the eyes of an 11 year old, they were gold. I still have a few of those as well.
Here's the Kennedy Half:
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An 1842 O seated liberty dime in G that was given to me by my grandpa years ago.
@basetsb_coins on Instagram
Posted before as "my first coin." I bought this 1838 half dime in the spring of 1960 from my mother's cleaning lady. I cleaned it and did not store it properly which resulted in the pitting.
1877-cc dime XF/AU from my Grandpa's garage safe circ 1966. Unfortunately, I cleaned that coin with silver polish several times as a kid. It's now a pitted looking XF. I think that safe was the same one he used in his plumbing store back in the 1920's to 1950's.
In fourth grade (1978), my mom used to put out two quarters each on the entryway table for my second-grade sister and me to use to pay for school lunches. My sister had a tendency to lose at least one of the quarters before lunch period, so my mom switched to put out half dollars, figuring that because it was bigger and there was only one of them that my sister wouldn't lose it as often. After a few weeks of this, I found this coin had been left out for lunch:
I asked my mom to give me another coin to use for lunch so that I could keep this one, and this 1949-S half became the first coin in my collection, which quickly morphed into blue Whitman albums and a thorough search of my dad's coin-filled Sparklett's bottle. Currently, it sits in a cigar box in my office with other random items from the 70's and 80's like old baseball ticket stubs and my first saved piece of currency, a really beat up 1953 $2 bill.
Guessing my first "real coin", beyond pocket change, was probably a Franklin Half too.
As a complete novice at the age of 30-something, it seemed as exotic to me then as a Chain Cent seems to me now.
Here's the second "oldest". My grandfather had a penchant for putting better coins in some sort of 2x2 plastic holder of the day. So, this piece escaped the fate (harsh cleaning with either cream of tartar and/or silver polish) of the raw silver dollars he gave to me since I could never figure out how to open the plastic holder! lol!! I did manage to get the holder opened when I was a teenager. The plastic was pretty scratched up from early attempts at opening it! I at least had the forethought to put it in a 2x2 cellophane holder, where it resided in a binder until I was about 28 years old...
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Funny thing to the best of my memory is that the longest held coin by me also happens to be the oldest:
The only reason is because I've sold off my coins so many times in the past.
I've had this Charles I shilling since around spring of 2013, so 4 years is pretty good for me to hold something of value.
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1882 CC GSA Morgan that my dad gave to me when I was 8 years old.
Very sentimental coin to me.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
So far as my very first coin goes, I started with the two Whitman cent folders during Christmas week, 1959. I have no idea which coin I pushed into one of those albums first. It was proably into the one that was marked "1941 - 1959." At any rate this was a decent circulation find that I have considered to be "my first coin," a 1917-S cent.
Bill... you have a fine eye for copper, even back in 1959!
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Though I had already been saving coins from circulation etc., I can remember the first coin I purchased, around 1973, a moderately worn 1892-O silver dollar with rim ding for ~$1.75, from a kid in class who's father was a part time coin dealer. I still have it in a cigar box of other misc coins.
54 years and counting.
Do not remember the actual "first" coin. However it would be a silver Roosevelt dime.
As I have mentioned before in 1963 when I was 7 years old my father came home one day with a Whitman Roosevelt Dime album. He gave it to me as a gift. That gift ignited the collecting bug in me. I started filling the holes in the album with dimes pulled from pocket change laying around our home and from the change my parents brought home from work each day. Still have the album, with every hole filled from pocket change. It has sentimental value and will not be sold by me.
When I made this purchase, my first, I had already been pulling wheaties from circulation and the bank for many years. I still have them. Paid .25 for two cents on the advice of the dealer.
bob:)
Does it count if the coin was in my great grandfather's collection, probably purchased around 1910?
Other than that, it's a 1922 Peace dollar from Xmas in 1964 or so.
[Edit to add:] I didn't get the coins from my great grandfather's collection until 1996, when I bought my grandfather's collection, so they are not going to meet the rule here. I was hoping to use 1910 instead of 1996!
One of my great grandfather's coolest coins was an 1837 bust half dime, EF, in a stapled cellophane holder like the Lincoln cents in the post above this. I might be wrong about the date when he got it (just guessing that it was when he was a young adult).
Absolutely! I collected many wheat cents from bank rolls as a kid, but I sold that collection years ago. I'm talking about coins that you got as a kid but still have to this day...
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My grandmother gave this 1954 proof set to me for Christmas...in 1954!
Started me on my way!
Here's a warning parable for coin collectors...
1959 Memorial Cents. Six of them in a cut-up album page. Three obverse and three reverse. They were freebies from the local bank that were given out to elementary school kids to show us the "New" penny design. It got me started and I've never stopped.
I like that. Grandmothers are neat. I remember mine. And I miss her.
Mine is a 1924 D maybe AG 3 found in the late 1960's roll searching. Its still in this board.
My birth date is older than some of the coins posted.
Darn I must be old!
I still have an uncirculated 1926-P Lincoln cent that was in a jar of old coins given to me in 1972 by my maternal grandparents. This jar of coins along with two Whitman folders was my initiation into coin collecting. I no doubt still possess most of the coins that were in that jar, but they've been mixed with other coins that I've acquired over the years so I can no longer differentiate where any one of them originated. Only that 26-P do I know for certain.
I think @DIMEMAN stated he pulled some seated liberty dimes out of circulation from when he was a kid working at the Mercantile near the little house on the prairie.
Later, Paul.
a common jeff in a nickel folder
and I bet its the most "valuable" coin in your collection sentimental wise
HAPPY COLLECTING
Most of my childhood collection disappeared while I was in the Navy.... all of my '55DDo's, Columbian halves etc.....A few '43 steel cents, wheaties and one almost slick IHC, squirreled away in an old box survived. I also have some German silver coins my Dad had (he was not a collector, just had acquired some interesting coins). Cheers, RickO
Almost... as far as reminiscing about my days as a young numismatist, yes... but the 1889 Morgan gets me thinking about my grandfather. He was a truly remarkable man.
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This 1972 DDO is the coin I have owned the longest - found via roll searching in 1973.
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/gold/liberty-head-2-1-gold-major-sets/liberty-head-2-1-gold-basic-set-circulation-strikes-1840-1907-cac/alltimeset/268163