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I've been collecting for 50 years (since I was quite young)....
lsica
Posts: 1,574 ✭✭✭✭
I was 10 years old, and I remember the first coin I found in change myself. It was a 1970-S Nickel, and I thought it was the absolute bees knees 
I knew it wasn't valuable, but since I lived in NJ at the time S-mint coins were pretty unusual to find in change (actually back then more unusual than finding a common P or D Wheatie). And, no I don't have it any more. I got more numismatically cynical as I increased my numismatic "experience" and spent it on something-or-other. Oh well.
Philately will get you nowhere....
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Nice! Glad to see you are still interested in coins! I too remember finding an occasional D mint and very occasionally an S mint coin in change growing up in New England. Canadian coins were much more common than branch mint coins and also were fun to find.
K
Yes, the rarely encountered (on the east coast) S mintmarked cents and nickels were quite an exciting find for a young coin collector.
I was 10 when I started collecting in 1961. The first thing that I learned was what that little d was for that was under the date of one cent pieces.
Do they still find San Francisco mint coins in the pocket change and bank wraps out West?
I can’t shake that same feeling I got sixty years ago when I spot that S today.
I remember searching for a 1955-S cent...................in New York........................What was I thinking...................
Mike
My Indians
Danco Set
I have friends who by boxes of coins from the bank every couple of month looking for rarities. They often find an S mint proof or two on the west coast
Well . . . . you made me think of the years. I remember distinctly culling silver out of change on the kitchen table in 1965, so I would think I have been at it for 58 years.
My grandmother worked in a bank in Villisca, Iowa (yes, the axe murder town) and over time, actually put together three sets of Indian cents from circulation for each of her grandkids as she culled through the change in the 40s and 50s. All dates . . .all keys . . .just not necessarily in pristine BU. An aunt, living close to her while we moved to Utah, culled out anything better than an 1894, from all three sets, and we were given what would today amount to a partial set from about 1897 to 1908. We never forgave her . . .
As a kid, I still remember riding my Schwinn Typhoon to Robert Vaughn's (not the actor) house to wait daily for the mailman to deliver. we had ordered several times from magazines and could not wait to get our slick AG early Lincoln Wheaties we had paid 5c to 10c for. I mowed lawns so I could order those slicks to put in my first Whitman folder. My 1909-VDB cost a full quarter, and was an honest G-06. I remember staring at it for hours thinking I had the coolest coin in the western United States . . .
Drunner
Never understood the hype about S minted cents. Growing up in Sacramento, they were everywhere!! The Philadelphia minted coins were rare! (at least in uncirculated grades)
"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" Romans 6:23. Young fellow suffering from Bust Half fever.
So, it’s Western collectors driving demand for the “missing mint mark” offers on eBay?
We should have known each other 65+ years ago, if you're that old...............we could have traded coins
Mike
My Indians
Danco Set
To this day I still collect the 68-74 S Lincoln Cents and the 68-70 S Nickels from circulation.
"When they can't find anything wrong with you, they create it!"
Living in CO it’s not a rare occurrence to find non-proof S mint coinage in change. D mint marks are obviously super common, and about all we see.
Coin Photographer.
I searched through hundreds of thousands of cents in New England and the Chicago suburbs and never found a 1955-S Lincoln. My father picks up four rolls of pennies on a business trip to San Francisco for me to check and sure enough, I find one.
I vividly remember digging up a 1903 Barber dime in upstate NY while metal detecting back in 1999. Did it have a mintmark? Seems unlikely in the northeastern states. Flipped it over, and...
In the early 1960's as a young teen I was collecting walkers out of change my allowance money.at the grocery stores, no credit cards back then. Cash only or checks. .I one day reveived a 1902 Barber half vf condition. I was very excited. Still have it
I was 6 years old when I my parents took me to a hobby shop and purchased my first Dansco penny folder. The salesman explained that the San Francisco mint had just closed, and he thought all "S" mint coins would soon be harder to find. I didn't find a 1955-S until the late 1970's, after most wheaties had already been removed from circulation. I was hooked, though, and started sets of Jefferson nickels and Washington quarters by 1957. I couldn't afford to collect half dollars yet; they would have to wait until the 1960's.
Interesting. As of this month I've also been collecting for 50 years just like Isica stated in the title of this thread. I was 7 and my maternal grandparents gave me a jar of "wheaties" and two Whitman blue folders for Lincoln Cents. I was immediately hooked and I still have those Whitman folders in my desk drawer.
You're right about that. As a kid in New York in the 60's, trying to find that 55-S to finish the Whitman 1941- to date folder was impossible. I had to buy one. I think I paid 50¢ for it.
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
I was 10 in 1980, and scoured my change for wheat pennies and pre-65 silver. 1976 quarters were cool at first but then I realized they were really common so stopped collecting those. Ikes were cool but a whole buck was a lot to come by so I couldn't really afford to collect those. Didn't care a hoot about S or D mintmarks, only wanted old dates, I set an arbitrary cutoff for 1959 as "old". Once in a blue moon I'd find a Buffalo nickel or Indian penny, or snag some cheap thing at the one local coin shop (rural Maine).
Best of all, my grandmother had a small pouch of Liberty V nickels and I guess I technically stole them, I treasured that little pouch like Gollum with his ring, some of them you could read some of the word LIBERTY and that meant you were moving up the grading scale. Good times.
Don't get cynical! I still love getting newly minting coins from change
I do as well. Reminds me of childhood happiness whenever found the elusive "S" coin.
It was a barbershop or the local grocery store in a small town of about 1800. I would get a dime's worth or a quarter's worth of Lincoln wheatbacks. They always had them' 1960's......
At first, it was a contest between a brother and I, who had the oldest cent. He was winning with a 1918 cent until a 1910-S came along.
Leo
The more qualities observed in a coin, the more desirable that coin becomes!
My Jefferson Nickel Collection