What Got You Started?
Stella
Posts: 730 ✭✭✭✭✭
It might be fun to talk about what got you started with a particular world/ancient coin collection or collecting in general. I had been interested primarily in American coins (beginning with Morgan Dollars and the like) as a child but began collecting world and ancient coins after purchasing this British poultry medal around age 14:
I loved the charming design of hens on the obverse. This simple medal began a lifelong collection of non-eagle birds in numismatics, which now includes everything from toucans to herons to ducks and spans from ancient Greek to coins minted last year.
What was the first coin/medal/token that got you into a new collecting area within World and Ancient Coins? Or maybe the one that started you collecting in general?
Coin collector since childhood and New York Numismatist at Heritage Auctions.
7
Comments
I was at the local shop looking at the bidboard when a guy came in with a bag of world coins to sell. It was mostly poundage, the dealer wasn't interested and asked me if I was. I ended up buying the coins and later, a SCWC to look them up. The variety interested me and I pretty much stopped collecting US coins at that point.
Coins started for me as a kid. My paternal grandparents were both deep into the collectibles world and my grandmother ran an antique shop for 30 years with a small case of coins but it was enough to pique my interest. I was always more into baseball cards but I knew my red book as a young kid.
Circled back hard into coins as a young adult but sold off my entire collection shortly before kid #1 was born to help get my family into a bigger house. No regrets.
Then got back into it a few years after that but much slower and less resources devoted to it. Picked up steam in the past few years as my kids got somewhat into it with me and I got really into building out a 7070 set.
When I finished that set I was ready to spread my wings and venture to the Dark side. Mainly I was just ready to look at some coins I’d never looked at before after having US type under my loupe or on my computer screen for years.
I feel like I’ve leaned a lot in the past year but still so much I don’t know and the educational aspect is part of what makes this whole thing so much fun. A lot of the experts who chime in here are some of the most knowledgeable folks within their areas and when they talk I try to listen.
Im really enjoying collecting everything from classic Thalers and Spanish colonial Reales to Brazilian 960
Reis to modern 20th century stuff that catches my eye for whatever reason. Wish I would have stumbled into this world earlier but glad to be here now!
It started 15 years ago, when, searching through some old boxes, I rediscovered a little silver Franz Josef Korona that my grandmother gave me when I was 6, telling me the story of the emperor and why is the cross on his crown tilted. She also emphesized that silver is a precious metal and that I should take care of the coin, put it in a safe place. I started collecting (more like hoarding, in fact) all the silver coins I could get and sold everything a few years later when I needed some cash.
After that I still felt the need to collect and so I settled for my current theme, the 1984 world coins, because all the memories I had or I wish I have had from that stage of my life. It also seemed easy on my budget, later I found out that this was not quite true. I am very happy with my choice now and have big plans for the future, grading, making books and just growing the collection.
I can't recall if I've shared my origin story on this forum, so here goes.
It was 1980, and I was 8 years old in Australia. I collected postage stamps, mainly because my big brother collected postage stamps and it was a copy-big-brother thing. Our parents took us to a stamp and coin show, and I found myself more interested in the coins for sale than the stamps, asked parents if I could buy some.
With my parents noticing my interest in coins, they gave me the "family coin bowl" - you know, the bowl of odd, curious, foreign, obsolete and otherwise not-actually-money coins that pretty much every middle-class family accumulates in their house. And the collecting grew from there. My interest only increased when, just a couple of years later, the family moved to Canada for six months and I was exposed to the North American coin collecting scene.
So I don't really have just one coin that ignited the spark, but rather a whole bunch of them. However, I do recall being fascinated by one aspect of the foreign coins I rummaged through at that coin show: the "gold" ones. Australia had no golden-coloured coins in circulation at the time, and the concept fascinated me, even after my parents explained that they were pretty sure they weren't actually made of gold. I would still have them, unless they were in poor condition and I've since upgraded them; one such coin is a French 20 francs 1952B.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded the DPOTD twice.
@MasonG That sounds like a treasure hunt!
@MEJ7070 I agree about the educational part, which is what makes collecting so fun. Always something new to learn!
@1984worldcoins Very cool!
@Sapyx I can picture what you are saying about going to your first coin and stamp show. It was at a coin show where I first got interested in numismatics in general (with a Morgan Dollar.)
Thank you for sharing your stories!
Wall street bets was celebrating taking down a hedge fund, that people rely on for their retirement.
So I figured it was a good time to get some gold for the impending economic crash that would spike gold. The one that just happened last year
Got a gold Krug, and a silver krug since silver was surprisingly cheap.
Llamas and alpacas are camels. They aren't like camels, or related. They are camels. When was anyone going to tell me this?! How long had Bill Nye been holding out on us?
I never liked collecting a series. Too boring for me.
I started with modern (US) commems, then migrated to classic (US) commems. Those proved boring too, so I thought I’d bid on a pattern.
I was a total noob. I heard about the Pittman sales in Coin World and ordered the catalogs (for a hefty fee at that time). I had no idea who Pittman was, but I liked his Walking Liberty half dollar pattern and had the funds to buy it (though at the time I wasn’t experienced enough to know what it would sell for).
Drove down to Baltimore, got stuck in bad traffic, couldn’t find the venue nor parking. Finally arrived at the auction room about an hour before the sale began.
David Akers refused to register me! He said it was too late. (And me being the noob didn’t pre-register.)
So all I could do was sit there and watch the sale and drive home. No more US patterns for me.
This was all in 1997, so pre-numismatic internet, but I had been using the “net” since the 1980s.
Then I discovered Mexico. Shortly thereafter, I bought an extremely rare 1842 Peso pattern (finest of two known, now PCGS SP62) for roughly the same price as the Walking Liberty half dollar pattern. Never looked back.
By the way, both patterns, the US and the Mexican, were sold raw.
Finding VOCs in circulation in NYC in the late 1960s. What has fueled it has been my interest and amazement of ancient coins from Judea, to hold something in your hands from the Maccabees when the Temple was still standing, is amazing to me. And just plain boredom with US coins. There are so many excellent designs in foreign coins (along with a lot of junk, IMO). The Dutch were putting out great commemorates at one time about things I cared about. The minting techniques were fascinating for what could be done in modern coinage and arts.
Then it came apparent that it was affordable to get really historically interesting coins for reasonable prices in high grades, especially 17th and 18th century dutch coins. All these things have fuel my collecting of Foreign and ancient coins.
I started on November 25, 1976. It was Thanksgiving Day and we were at my step-grandmother's big old house in Atlanta. I was not quite eleven years old. The grownups wanted me out of the kitchen, so I was asked to set the table for the upcoming feast. In the silverware drawer in the sideboard in the dining room, I found a 1936 Mercury dime. It was forty years old at the time (four times as old as I was), so it seemed incredibly ancient to me. It also featured a design I had never seen.
I still have it somewhere. Fifty years will have gone by, come this November, when I celebrate my 50th anniversary as a numismatist.
Grandmomma is gone now, of course (she'd be 117 now). And that wonderful old house and the woods that surrounded are also all gone, swallowed up by urban development. But it's all still very vivid in my mind.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
Since this is the World coin forum, I should mention that very early on I became enamored with British large pennies, and the first World coin I can remember buying in a shop was an 1806 George III halfpenny, for five bucks.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
My Grandmother was born in 1917. Her husband, my Grandfather, had an interest in coins and brought us GSA Morgans when I was way too young to appreciate them
He had a Beaauty Parlor on Nostrand Avenue and Flatbush Avenue at the Junction in Brooklyn. And down the block was a small coin shop... which was exactly where I brought my first Mercury Dime 
Started collecting US series wayyyy back in the 50’s, yawn, sold those. My current interest in foreign is a deep dive into coin types that circulated here from Colonial times until 1857+. I’ve expanded that set a bit into interesting coins that “may have” circulated here. I still collect US type, but not many of those left to collect (and big $$$). I just love these little windows into the past.
As a German born in the mid-90's, my first currency was the German Mark. In February 2002 my dad walked me home from school and stopped at the local bank because he had some buisness to do. While I was waiting for him, the bank teller gave me a flyer about all the different Euro coins in circulation. The Euro got introduced just one month prior and it was exciting to see the images of all the circulating coins from the 12 regular (plus three additional) participating nations. So I asked my parents and grandparents if I could collect them by searching through their change every week. Quickly I learned that some classmates collected coins aswell and we started exchanging coins with each other. During the summer one guy went to Finland and brought some coins with him, another guy's dad had to travel a lot because of his job and always brought some coins from his latest destinations, including non-Euro coins. That got me hooked. Relatives, friends and collegues of my parents heared about my hobby and sometimes gave me their leftover coins from the pre-Euro-era, trips abroad and stuff they had laying around.
My first silver, my first 1800's coin - it was all so exciting. And every time we went to visit my relatives in the UK, I tried to find the commemorative 50 Pence, 1 & 2 Pound coins I was still missing.
When I was probably 12 years old, I went to a local flea market, where a elderly guy sold old German coins I had never seen before.
Large silver coins, some gold and lots of pre-decimal coins from various German states (before 1871, when the German Empire was founded). He showed me some coins minted in my home town during the 1600's and 1700's, wich felt so unbelivable to me. After a lengthy conversation he sold me some of them for 1€ each, at a great discount.
From that day on I focused on coins from my home town and German Imperial silver coins, if I can get them close to melt. So I spent all the Euros and British Pounds from my collection in order to afford my first medieval coin from my home town and never regretted it.
A few years ago I really got into metal detecting, a pretty great hobby if you enjoy old circulating coins.
So today there are three main branches of my collection: coins from my home town (early medieval to late 1700's), a small stack of German 90% silver coins plus some foreign gold and the few crusty coins I found metal detecting local parks, tot lots and sports fields.
As a kid I had one foreign not too old coin, I was about six years. It was something special to have the thing witch nobody had, I mean another children. Then my grandmother gifted me about fifteen coin, commemorative Soviet roubles. Like Olympics 1980 etc. By 11 years I had a little collection of foreign and old russian coins. But my current direction of collection I had chosen only by around 35: republics, revolutions and wars for independence, big silver coins. I don't collect the kings and don't like them).
Ps. But executed by Republican King's coins are good too.
Sic semper tyrannis.
I bought my first Central American Republic coin in 1994 from a friend at a coin show. It was an 1837-E Costa Rica 4 Escudos that would later grade 64, it was “only” $4000, and it was gorgeous. I wasn’t planning to collect the series, or anything like that. I just liked the coin. But over the next 10 years, I picked up another 5-10 coins, and I was halfway serious about collecting them. Then came the Eliasberg world gold sale in 2005, and there were 7 coins I wanted. I wasn’t really in a position to spend a lot of money at the time, but I still figured bids on the coins. I think I may have audibly groaned through the whole thing, but I bought 6 of the 7 at an average of about 50% more than my maximum bids. I figured it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and that if I was going to collect the series, backing down was not an option. Definitely worked out well in the long run. I upgraded one of them years later, but I still have 5 of the 6.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
“I figured if I was going to collect the series, backing down was not an option.”
Very well said and thank you for the inspiration @MrEureka.
I’ve also found the few times that I’ve had to really bite down hard to make a financial stretch have turned out to be among my best purchases, and more importantly my favorite coins.
Really hoping this evening doesn’t become a total bloodbath on HA