Back around 1960, my Dad had a bread route in the west edge of Detroit and the western suburbs. He kept change in a cigar box and would bring it in at night. He would ask me to count it.
One of my older brothers had a friend who collected coins. He saw me going through the coins and asked if I would look for certain dates and Mint marks (which he explained) for him, and gave me a list. When I found something he would give me the face value for my Dad and a nickel for myself. Eventually I bought a Lincoln #2 album.
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
... we rode our bikes to school and the local B&M, soaked steel Lincoln’s in Ivory soap and water (short term gain, long term pain), had potato chips delivered to the house (Charles Chips, seems crazy now) and used the small Charles Chips tin to store the silver we took out of pocket change. Oh, and quantity mattered more than quality. A different time for sure.
If we were all the same, the world would be an incredibly boring place.
@Onastone said:
Lifesavers were a nickel a roll, comics had just gone up from ten to twelve cents each, and wheat pennies were everywhere.
Candy bars were bigger and were 5c until they rose 20% to 6c. A cold 6oz bottle of Coke was 6c and you got 1c back for returning the bottle (which had the original bottling city embossed on the bottom). Pepsi was 12c with a 2c bottle return, but were 10oz. The caps did not screw off.
I worked in the hard count room at the Carson Hot Springs and Casino and drooled over the Morgan dollars that came through. I made 60¢ an hour and was not able to afford any.....ugh.
bob
Registry: CC lowballs (boblindstrom), bobinvegas1989@yahoo.com
The half dollars were Franklin's, the quarters were Washington, silver dollars were available at the bank (and made great birthday and Christmas gifts, it was illegal to buy gold coins except for certain numismatic issues, ice cream came in Dixie Cups with wooden spoon sticks attached to the cups and under the lid was a picture of your favorite Western actor or sometimes a baseball player. TV was black and white and I was the remote control and also the rabbit ears adjuster. There were 3 TV stations and they went off the air sometime around 11pm and 12a. Radio stations were AM and we had transistor radios. When I turned 16 I got a 1952 Chevy in 1966. Gas was 29.9 cents per gallon and when the gas wars were on it would some time go down to 19 cents.
Dad had a hand full of Indian Cents in his dresser and I'd get them out and marvel at how funny they looked. Dad plucked Buffalo Nickels out of change and when he died he has almost 1,000 saved up. The bulk were dateless or else common dates but that was his hoard.
We also had air raid drills at school and we would huddle in the hallways with our heads between our knees.
We went to Sunday School and Church every Sunday morning and then back to church every Sunday night. We attended Vacation Bible School and enjoyed it or else.
That is what being a child from 1950 up to 1966 when I because a man (as my girlfriends father called me but that's another story).
On Saturdays in 1979 and 1980, I'd help Dad mow the lawn and cut the trees and then he'd drive me to the Coin Shop to spend my earnings on 5 and 10 dollar type coins chosen raw from black velvet trays of the obsolete series.
I would buy 5 5mm gold beads each Christmas for $5 to give my mom as a gift. After several years she had about 1/3 of the necklace string with 14K beads.
Swept out a store for 90c per hour, mowed lawns for $1.50 for the entire lawn (including clipping around trees and along sidewalks with hand clippers), scrounged the bottom of the local pool for coins enough to buy a 5c box of Milk Duds
I vividly remember getting a silver dime in change from a coke machine at my church once. I thought I had hit the jackpot! I was born in 1984, so silver had long since disappeared from circulation.
@Weiss said:
I meticulously cleaned my silver dollar collection with EZEst every few months.
Ricko would approve.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Glass Coke bottles were worth 5 cents for a sixpack at the pharmacy. Not one of those nickels made it into my collection; they were all immediately converted to candy.
When I was about 9 years old (1969) I used to go in to bars and sell cut out coin jewelry to the bars customers. They were suckers for a young kid trying to make a buck. The bartender would let me in fo 5 minutes or so.
Nic-a-date Buffalo nickels from pocket change. Used to try to guess the date and mint mark beforehand. If I recall, I got pretty good at it. That was half a century ago or more now.
About two-thirds of the Buffalo nickels in circulation had the dates worn off, and learned the evil ways of "Nic-A-Date!"
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
Fifty years ago I only had access to birthday money and change I could con my mom into having... she has a soft heart... but, 1964 Kenedy Halves were still fairly available. I still have the one I plucked from circulation when I was about 8 or 9 years old... it's in my type set now. I could never bring myself to part with it even when silver was $40+ oz...
Collecting: Dansco 7070; Middle Date Large Cents (VF-AU); Box of 20;
Silver coins were Mercury Dimes, Standing Quarters, Walkers and Morgan. And even some Barber coins. Lots of Buffalo and Liberty Nickels. Those were the days. I remember when Twinkies went from 10c to 12c...….wrecked my financial world!
@BustDMs said:
Coins were SOO cheap and I had SOO little money ☹️
As a teenager, I remember going to a large coin show and seeing a choice BU High Relief Saint in a dealer's case for $900. It might as well have been a million dollars.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
I could get silver dollars at my local bank for face value. One time they even let me go in the vault and look at what they had. When an Indian Cent cost 50 cents to a dollar for a common date, it was great to get a coin dated in the 1880s at face value.
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
When I was a kid in the suburbs of Miami,
1. we had regular deliveries of bottled milk, and a potato chip truck stopped by every 2 weeks to deliver a big metal (ca. 3 gal) can of chips
2. we had a White Castle a couple of miles away--no other fast food joints existed then
3. I occasionally walked to a nearby Woolworth's to ogle at the coins in their coin counter
4. when my grandparents visited us, my grandmother always brought an armload of issues of Coin World and the Rare Coin Review for me to read [Coin World was a much more substantial hobby magazine than today]
5. dealers would dip coins for customers upon request, while the customers waited
6. Franklin Mint had flooded the marketplace with silver collectibles
7. my grandmother took me to an ANA convention in Miami Beach (1967?) and I saw Walter Breen [he looked like a hobo]
8. I had a subscription from Littleton--packets of coins arrived periodically, always a treat to paw through
9. most of the grades in use today did not exist then--the top-end MS coins were called gem or even superb
10. my grandmother and I went to Gables Coin and Stamp on occasion and, at one time, John Albright had close to 100 $3 gold pieces in his inventory--just incredible
Member: EAC, NBS, C4, CWTS, ANA
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
Walking to school with my brothers when I was 6. Back then in my area they had multiple community schools of k-6, two junior high schools of 7-9, and one high school of 10-12. It was easy walking there but hard back. We lived on a 35 degree grade hill on top of another 30 degree grade hill.
My grandfather got me started collecting coins, a life-long hobby and passion to this day. He lived in Huntington Beach, California. In contrast to how most collections are stored today he stored his collection in a fishing tackle box!
I lived mostly in the midwest as a kid, and as you can imagine "S" mint marked Cents were hard to find. My grandmother would spot me $50 and we'd go the bank ever day or other day each summer and get a bag of Cents, exchange a bag..... I'd of course pull out the "S Cents and other good ones.
In the summertime we'd have Saturday night band concerts from a bandstand that was built on steel wheels and pulled into the middle of the main intersection downtown. An ice cream bar was a nickel. The farm kids would come into town with their folks and we'd hang out in groups by age. Our group would be maybe 6-8 of us and we'd look for and usually find some sort of mischief to get into for fun, many times involving the other age groups in some sort of challenges or shenanigans. After the farm kids would have to go back with the folks us town kids would usually hang for a while and even crazier antics would usually ensue. The rest of the week we would go swimming , bike riding, playing ball at the diamond, and looking forward to next Saturday night.
Comments
Back around 1960, my Dad had a bread route in the west edge of Detroit and the western suburbs. He kept change in a cigar box and would bring it in at night. He would ask me to count it.
One of my older brothers had a friend who collected coins. He saw me going through the coins and asked if I would look for certain dates and Mint marks (which he explained) for him, and gave me a list. When I found something he would give me the face value for my Dad and a nickel for myself. Eventually I bought a Lincoln #2 album.
... we rode our bikes to school and the local B&M, soaked steel Lincoln’s in Ivory soap and water (short term gain, long term pain), had potato chips delivered to the house (Charles Chips, seems crazy now) and used the small Charles Chips tin to store the silver we took out of pocket change. Oh, and quantity mattered more than quality. A different time for sure.
If we were all the same, the world would be an incredibly boring place.
Tommy
...and a dollar was worth something.....
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
Had more money then than now!
Candy bars were bigger and were 5c until they rose 20% to 6c. A cold 6oz bottle of Coke was 6c and you got 1c back for returning the bottle (which had the original bottling city embossed on the bottom). Pepsi was 12c with a 2c bottle return, but were 10oz. The caps did not screw off.
I worked in the hard count room at the Carson Hot Springs and Casino and drooled over the Morgan dollars that came through. I made 60¢ an hour and was not able to afford any.....ugh.
bob
The half dollars were Franklin's, the quarters were Washington, silver dollars were available at the bank (and made great birthday and Christmas gifts, it was illegal to buy gold coins except for certain numismatic issues, ice cream came in Dixie Cups with wooden spoon sticks attached to the cups and under the lid was a picture of your favorite Western actor or sometimes a baseball player. TV was black and white and I was the remote control and also the rabbit ears adjuster. There were 3 TV stations and they went off the air sometime around 11pm and 12a. Radio stations were AM and we had transistor radios. When I turned 16 I got a 1952 Chevy in 1966. Gas was 29.9 cents per gallon and when the gas wars were on it would some time go down to 19 cents.
Dad had a hand full of Indian Cents in his dresser and I'd get them out and marvel at how funny they looked. Dad plucked Buffalo Nickels out of change and when he died he has almost 1,000 saved up. The bulk were dateless or else common dates but that was his hoard.
We also had air raid drills at school and we would huddle in the hallways with our heads between our knees.
We went to Sunday School and Church every Sunday morning and then back to church every Sunday night. We attended Vacation Bible School and enjoyed it or else.
That is what being a child from 1950 up to 1966 when I because a man (as my girlfriends father called me but that's another story).
..... spent my silver dollars if I wanted to buy something expensive because I could replace them at my local bank for $1.00 each any time I wanted.
it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide
On Saturdays in 1979 and 1980, I'd help Dad mow the lawn and cut the trees and then he'd drive me to the Coin Shop to spend my earnings on 5 and 10 dollar type coins chosen raw from black velvet trays of the obsolete series.
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
...I was much shorter. And I didn't give a crap about coins.
I would buy 5 5mm gold beads each Christmas for $5 to give my mom as a gift. After several years she had about 1/3 of the necklace string with 14K beads.
Swept out a store for 90c per hour, mowed lawns for $1.50 for the entire lawn (including clipping around trees and along sidewalks with hand clippers), scrounged the bottom of the local pool for coins enough to buy a 5c box of Milk Duds
No body cared about little green stickers
HAPPY COLLECTING
Bought a lot of early copper from an old collector who used a 2nd edition redbook to price it all.
I vividly remember getting a silver dime in change from a coke machine at my church once. I thought I had hit the jackpot! I was born in 1984, so silver had long since disappeared from circulation.
I meticulously cleaned my silver dollar collection with EZEst every few months.
--Severian the Lame
Ricko would approve.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Glass Coke bottles were worth 5 cents for a sixpack at the pharmacy. Not one of those nickels made it into my collection; they were all immediately converted to candy.
Department stores had coin and stamp collecting counters. In NYC to be precise. Peace Roy
BST: endeavor1967, synchr, kliao, Outhaul, Donttellthewife, U1Chicago, ajaan, mCarney1173, SurfinHi, MWallace, Sandman70gt, mustanggt, Pittstate03, Lazybones, Walkerguy21D, coinandcurrency242 , thebigeng, Collectorcoins, JimTyler, USMarine6, Elkevvo, Coll3ctor, Yorkshireman, CUKevin, ranshdow, CoinHunter4, bennybravo, Centsearcher, braddick, Windycity, ZoidMeister, mirabela, JJM, RichURich, Bullsitter, jmski52, LukeMarshall, coinsarefun, MichaelDixon, NickPatton, ProfLiz, Twobitcollector,Jesbroken oih82w8, DCW
When I was about 9 years old (1969) I used to go in to bars and sell cut out coin jewelry to the bars customers. They were suckers for a young kid trying to make a buck. The bartender would let me in fo 5 minutes or so.
Bless there hearts
Www.killermarbles.com
Www.suncitycoin.com
Nic-a-date Buffalo nickels from pocket change. Used to try to guess the date and mint mark beforehand. If I recall, I got pretty good at it. That was half a century ago or more now.
About two-thirds of the Buffalo nickels in circulation had the dates worn off, and learned the evil ways of "Nic-A-Date!"
the next door neighbor always gave me 12 silver quarters to cut his grass. He can probably still get it cut for 12 silver quarters.
No Way Out: Stimulus and Money Printing Are the Only Path Left
Everything over a nickel (and some nickels, too) was silver. And cherrypicking for die varieties was easy.
Coins were SOO cheap and I had SOO little money ☹️
A: The year they spend more on their library than their coin collection.
A numismatist is judged more on the content of their library than the content of their cabinet.
Fifty years ago I only had access to birthday money and change I could con my mom into having... she has a soft heart... but, 1964 Kenedy Halves were still fairly available. I still have the one I plucked from circulation when I was about 8 or 9 years old... it's in my type set now. I could never bring myself to part with it even when silver was $40+ oz...
Successful BST transactions with: SilverEagles92; Ahrensdad; Smitty; GregHansen; Lablade; Mercury10c; copperflopper; whatsup; KISHU1; scrapman1077, crispy, canadanz, smallchange, robkool, Mission16, ranshdow, ibzman350, Fallguy, Collectorcoins, SurfinxHI, jwitten, Walkerguy21D, dsessom.
Silver coins were Mercury Dimes, Standing Quarters, Walkers and Morgan. And even some Barber coins. Lots of Buffalo and Liberty Nickels. Those were the days. I remember when Twinkies went from 10c to 12c...….wrecked my financial world!
I wished i was a "grown-up". At 71, it was such a foolish wish but it still makes me smile! Never did make it but it has been a hell of a ride.
What age are you talking about?
15 to 19 -- I was thinking about My 1957 chevy and girls.
Before that everything was so much simpler !
Sorry, I never heard of EZEst before, had to look it up. OMG.....there's actually a "coin cleaner"?? This should be illegal.
...we all had coronavirus and none of us complained about it!
Franklin halves were still in circulation but I couldn't afford anything bigger than dimes to put in my collection.
Successful BST deals with mustangt and jesbroken. Now EVERYTHING is for sale.
As a teenager, I remember going to a large coin show and seeing a choice BU High Relief Saint in a dealer's case for $900. It might as well have been a million dollars.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Complete this sentence: I remember when I was a kid...
I remember when a Silver Dollar bought A LOT of items at the neighborhood store!
does anyone else remember things like the Milkman and the "pepper rex" guy??
I could get silver dollars at my local bank for face value. One time they even let me go in the vault and look at what they had. When an Indian Cent cost 50 cents to a dollar for a common date, it was great to get a coin dated in the 1880s at face value.
When I was a kid, Indian head cents were a penny. They weren't hard to get in AU and MS.
.
Today it's still not hard to get them in AU and MS. Just a bit costlier, like coins are. The fun never changed. The seriousness ? That's newsworthy.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
Our dad was the milkman cause he milked 40 to 50 head for living. Never heard of the "pepper rex" guy?
When I was a kid in the suburbs of Miami,
1. we had regular deliveries of bottled milk, and a potato chip truck stopped by every 2 weeks to deliver a big metal (ca. 3 gal) can of chips
2. we had a White Castle a couple of miles away--no other fast food joints existed then
3. I occasionally walked to a nearby Woolworth's to ogle at the coins in their coin counter
4. when my grandparents visited us, my grandmother always brought an armload of issues of Coin World and the Rare Coin Review for me to read [Coin World was a much more substantial hobby magazine than today]
5. dealers would dip coins for customers upon request, while the customers waited
6. Franklin Mint had flooded the marketplace with silver collectibles
7. my grandmother took me to an ANA convention in Miami Beach (1967?) and I saw Walter Breen [he looked like a hobo]
8. I had a subscription from Littleton--packets of coins arrived periodically, always a treat to paw through
9. most of the grades in use today did not exist then--the top-end MS coins were called gem or even superb
10. my grandmother and I went to Gables Coin and Stamp on occasion and, at one time, John Albright had close to 100 $3 gold pieces in his inventory--just incredible
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
Walking to school with my brothers when I was 6. Back then in my area they had multiple community schools of k-6, two junior high schools of 7-9, and one high school of 10-12. It was easy walking there but hard back. We lived on a 35 degree grade hill on top of another 30 degree grade hill.
I was a milkman. Sunny Meadows Dairy, Chelmsford, MA. Drove a 1958 DIVCO. Milk in glass bottles.
...when I dipped all my Lincoln pennies in my Mom’s copper cleaner to give them that ‘freshly minted’ look that scrutinizing collectors demand. 😢
Dave
You could walk in to the local coin shop without having the door unlocked to let you in.
My grandfather got me started collecting coins, a life-long hobby and passion to this day. He lived in Huntington Beach, California. In contrast to how most collections are stored today he stored his collection in a fishing tackle box!
I lived mostly in the midwest as a kid, and as you can imagine "S" mint marked Cents were hard to find. My grandmother would spot me $50 and we'd go the bank ever day or other day each summer and get a bag of Cents, exchange a bag..... I'd of course pull out the "S Cents and other good ones.
Great memories.
W. David Perkins Numismatics - http://www.davidperkinsrarecoins.com/ - 25+ Years ANA, ANS, NLG, NBS, LM JRCS, LSCC, EAC, TAMS, LM CWTS, CSNS, FUN
When I was a kid, if you caught a virus you stayed home from school and watched TV. When you were better, you went back to school.......
You had a pass book for your savings account and wrote checks. Your signature meant something and was actually scrutinized.
In the summertime we'd have Saturday night band concerts from a bandstand that was built on steel wheels and pulled into the middle of the main intersection downtown. An ice cream bar was a nickel. The farm kids would come into town with their folks and we'd hang out in groups by age. Our group would be maybe 6-8 of us and we'd look for and usually find some sort of mischief to get into for fun, many times involving the other age groups in some sort of challenges or shenanigans. After the farm kids would have to go back with the folks us town kids would usually hang for a while and even crazier antics would usually ensue. The rest of the week we would go swimming , bike riding, playing ball at the diamond, and looking forward to next Saturday night.
Going to Dan Brown's coin shop in Denver as a YN and buying a few widgets.
We knew how to go out to play and didn't come home until the street lights came on.
We still collected green stamps and hoped to get something good for free.