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time travel for the coin collector
davewesen
Posts: 5,950 ✭✭✭✭✭
If you could make a trip to any year and location ONCE, with a 6 oz chunk of gold to exchange for $100 face in coinage, what year and location would you choose? You would then return to present day after your trip...
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Philadelphia mint. 1815. Before the fire.
1921 to buy peace dollars! when can we go
Early 1909 in San Francisco. ( 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent )
Late 1916, Id buy a roll of quarters and dimes!
1932, to buy the Washie quarters, plus dimes/quarters from 1916, Peace $1's from 1921, and 1909s-vdb cents (along with whatever key & semi-key dates I could still afford before my allotment ran out.....). Might as well try and kill many birds with 1 stone...............
1893 to the San Francisco mint to pick up 5 rolls of new silver dollars minted there.
1921 to buy MS rolls of 1921-S, 1921-D & 1921 P Walkers. I'd also pick up some Peace dollars while I'm there.
“I may not believe in myself but I believe in what I’m doing” ~Jimmy Page~
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
1795
1895 for proof morgans.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
I agree with 1795. It would be a great time to pick up a little of everything from the first 4 years!
I like some of the dates already listed. But I'd stick around here in Denver in 1927, for 5 '27-D double eagles!
Gonna get me a $50 Octagonal someday. Some. Day.
1793 ms 65 large cents!!!
HAPPY COLLECTING
1793 sounds good. Disregarding the paradox that would be caused by interaction with folks of that era. But that is a whole other kettle of fish.
1907 to pick up several newly minted St Gaudens high reliefs
Why wouldn't you ask around and get uncirculated ones?
The Indianhead cents would be nice as well, and maybe they had some proof Lincolns sitting around.
1955 Boston. I'd get $100 in quarters, buy 400 packs of smokes from the nearest vending machine, through them in the trash and hopefully end up with 800 1955 DDO Lincoln cents.
it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide
Sounds about right. Pick up high grades of every denomination.
I'd have to pick between:
1870, San Francisco, for half dimes, Seated dollars, and $3 gold pieces,
1873, Carson City, for No Arrows dimes and No Arrows quarters, or
1873, San Francisco, for No Arrows half dollars and Seated dollars.
Given that both 1873-S NA half dollars and 1873-S Seated dollars are known to have been minted, and none are known to exist, I would make that my pick.
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
Philadelphia mint. 1815> @tommy44 said:
And... you could drop by Fenway Park to see the Red Sox. Not all that bad in '55. Fourth place. The "Splindid Splinter" was the best. All time. Does anyone remember Harry Agganis? What a loss. R.I.P.
@davewesen said:
The Indianhead cents would be nice as well, and maybe they had some proof Lincolns sitting around.
Agreed...maybe get the best of both!! PS.. may as well grab some rolls of the 1909-S lincoln cents too.
Chicago, Dec 30th 1903. I’d stop by the Iroquois Theater with a non-faulty stage light then go to the bank and get $100 in cents. Then I’d have fun for the next year going through them all.
The spring of 1793 in Philadelphia to get a Chain Ameri. Cent in Unc. and that a fast exit to avoid the yellow fever epidemic that came late that summer.
If you spent your $100 on something with a low face value, such as 1873-CC No Arrows dimes, you would bring back 1,000 of them and flood the market. Better something with a high face value and just get a few of them so as to not make waves.
How about 1798 and an assortment of the 1795, 1797 and 1798 gold struck in that year, and hope that they have a couple of 1796 quarter eagles sitting around to boot!
The summer of 1861 and I am in Georgia Gulch, Colorado Territory, visiting the private mint
of J.J. Conway & Co. I would obtain examples of his $10, $5, and $2 1/2 gold pieces...
1797
Previous years coinage. Then 96 quarters, 96 and 97 halves.
I like the ideas posted, but you could get a lot of small change with $100!
1838 Charlotte, then ride a horse to Dahlonega, GA
I'd sign up for that.
My War Nickels https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/nickels/jefferson-nickels-specialty-sets/jefferson-nickels-fs-basic-war-set-circulation-strikes-1942-1945/publishedset/94452
A 6oz chunk of gold would get me $120 face of Double Eagles. So I'd have to leave one behind?
Aside from that thought...... I'd go to 1792 and get all the Half Dismes I could. They could keep the change.
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
1921 to SF and back to HI
or continue on to NY to visit @ricko then back.... 
I've given this whole time travel thing and Coin collecting bit a lot of thought since I was a little kid. It is after all something an 8 year old would give consideration to. But....there's a glitch. Think about it. If for instance, I was to go back in time to the Philadelphia mint in early 1815, And I bought a whole bag of 1815 half dollars and then I brought them and me back to the 20th Century, there's a problem. And the problem is this; Collectors would have empty holes in their coin albums because I have their coins. Think about all the empty slabs that did have 1815 half dollars in them but now I have them. Think about it.
to keep from messing anything up you would need enough time to try and go to work at mint and make extra coins but then you would put someone out of work so I dont know ?
This could easily disrupt the space/time continuum, so let's be careful.
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
I am going to around AD 30 during the reign of Tiberius in Jerusalem. I'd grab a few coins but I got someone else I want to meet
I think they wrote a best selling book about him.
Looking into that kettle of fish I mentioned above there is only one way to have no consequences going back in time. That is to observe only and not be observed. Any change, no matter how small, you introduce would ripple forward causing un-imagined chaos. Every coin, or anything for that mater, you bring back would not be there for a great, great, etc, etc. relative of somebody to possess. And that would be disastrous going forward. So you could only look, not touch or be seen.
Then there is the popping into existence back then. Remember your grade school science: two things can not occupy the same space at the same time. Air is a thing as is your body. Talk about a big bang if you tried.
The Earth is orbiting the Sun, which is orbiting the Milky Way, which is moving through space. All these past positions would have to be calculated with extreme accuracy or you would pop into empty space. Or the center of a star.
That kettle of fish is starting to smell a little. Complicated? Yes, very.
Aluminum back then was worth more than gold. Very difficult to purify without electricity. A $100 of Aluminum today would be worth 100's of times of gold back then. But you'd mess up much more if you did that. Observe only and not be observed. No interaction of any kind. Your dress and speech would be totally alien and you would be feared. Probably killed.
I think the only way to do this without interrupting anything in the present would be to watch all the people in the past who dropped valuable coins on the ground and then go to the spots to dig them up in the present. No collectors would suddenly have missing holes in their books because all of these coins are still out there to be found, even today. Ship wrecks would be an interesting one as well, watching them sink in the past and tracking their exact locations to the present.
Going back in time and getting instant knowledge of the location of every valuable coin that has ever been lost would be the way to do it.
Precisely this... Which is why I would go to 1893 San Francisco and pick up (50) Dimes, (40) Quarters, (20) Halves, (40) Dollars, (1) Half Eagle, (1) Eagle and (1) Double Eagle. I'd then come back and sort through the coins and separate them out from highest to lowest grade. I would send in 10 of each of the lowest grade silver coins each year and the gold coins the first year for grading. Slowly introducing them to the market lowest grades first working up to the highest grades. I would keep the highest grade of each denomination to make a complete 1893-S Dime through Double Eagle set as a trophy.
...ripples on the fabric of universe?
Olivia
...here is the lighter part of the equation
and I do
now let's go through the black hole N possibly back
@Kudbegud
@ms70
@1Mike1
Going back in time would be for me more about historical events and not coins. It would be awesome to see some of the key coins in mint state condition being handed out in transactions. It would be mind blowing to watch Lincoln give his Gettysburg address. Or watch Washington be sworn in. Or watch some ancestors get off the boat in Boston 1632. Maybe go back to the late 60s early 70s to pick up a nice muscle car would be more my wish but if I had to pick a coin I'd select 14d Lincoln or one of those 33 gold eagles that aren't supposed to exist.
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
Put me on the steps of the San Francisco Mint in 1854 and I would scarf up some 1854-S 2+1/2's and $5's!
1916 - Denver Mint - Give me $100 in Dimes please.
1794
My YouTube Channel
1955......................10,000 1955/55 to bring back and sell ever so slowly
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
You would be far better off trading your 6 oz of gold for stock in certain corporations at certain times. Done correctly, this could turn your investment into hundreds of millions or even billions....... Then, you could come back and assemble any collection you desired.
Of course, stuck with your parameters, I'd show up sometime around 1799. $100 face would buy a huge quantity of small-denomination silver and a few small-eagle gold pieces to round it out.
Very good thread, 1895 san francisco, get some new dollars, halves and quarters and see if any 93's are still hanging around
All the above are interesting numismatic opportunities... Being the maverick that I am (mav e rick, get it?)....I would go to Denver, 1964, and get a newly minted '64D Peace Dollar - or two or three, not a lot...Then return in time to meet @Paradisefound and give her one.... quietly sell another and keep one for myself. Cheers, RickO
44 BC for some Eid mar denarii. See what else I can find and bring back.
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