How old were you when you started collecting?

Aethelred · May 16, 2004 1:48PM

I was about 6.

cacheman · May 16, 2004 1:54PM

I won't mention the age but it was just two years ago...I bought my first darkside coin about 15 months ago and my first Goetz piece a year ago April 27th

shirohniichan · May 16, 2004 2:05PM

I think I was in first or second grade, so I must have been 14.

GoldCoinLover · May 16, 2004 2:09PM

<< I was about 6. >>

I was 7. Started seriously collecting again 1 year ago.

When I was 8 I saw a cartoon and one of the characters got a gold coin for his birthday. It was the one with that character who shoots arrows with a bow. I decided to get a 1/4 oz. american eagle for my birthday at a store called "Gold'N'Coins" at brea california. Literally on the borderline of La Habra. (It's next to LA). The place where I currently live is the only place, unfortunately, to have no coin stores, or anything remotely related to coins. The next coin store is 4 hours away in phenonix. And I hate to order off the internet. I live in Lake havasu, AZ, which happens to be very close to the hottest place on earth. And is the hottest place, (as far as I know), in arizona. I then did what I did recently, I put a small scratch in the coin to see if it was fake. I forget what I used, but obviously I didn't learn my lesson as I have now. The scratch was MUCH less sever than the one to the sovereign. I will post a pic of the scratched sovereign soon.

Here's the pic of the sovereign:

PS: I was surprised they didn't also put 'rim nicks' on the ANACS label. As it has some as shown in the photo.

satootoko · May 16, 2004 2:21PM

Some time in the last century, when I was in my early 30's, but I'm having a senior moment and can't recall just when

that was.

sumnom · May 16, 2004 2:53PM

I started collecting when I was 8 but drifed away from the hobby when I was about 13 or so. I started collecting again when I was 32.

eureka · May 16, 2004 3:08PM

6 here also. Parents got me a Whitman penny folder and I was hooked.

SYRACUSIAN · May 16, 2004 3:33PM

Same as sumnom.

Sylvestius · May 16, 2004 4:01PM

when i was 6, on and off since then, i went serious when i was 16.

Severo · May 16, 2004 4:27PM

<< when i was 6, on and off since then, i went serious when i was 16. >>

Same here, exactly.

sumnom · May 16, 2004 5:42PM

My grandfather gave me an US 1801 cent that was nearly worn smooth. That got me started.

Darkhorse · May 16, 2004 5:57PM

I was about 13.

cosmicdebris · May 16, 2004 7:21PM

For a little while around when I was 10 and then picked it up again 5 years ago.

ajaan · May 16, 2004 8:45PM

1964 when my Uncle gave me a 'new' Kennedy Half. That would make me 6 years old.

sumnom · May 16, 2004 9:21PM

Even during the years when I wasn't collecting, I was still collecting. I put away interesting circulation finds, always looked throug my change, and noted variations in the foreign coinage that I came across in my travels. I just wasn't sorting out, looking through references, and sitting around with flips and staplers. I don't know that it is possible to lose that numismatic consciousness.

theboz11 · May 16, 2004 9:23PM

about 20 years ago, after I retired from the Navy

1960NYGiants · May 16, 2004 9:23PM

On and off (mostly on) since 1967. Got real serious again (focused) in 1997.

Gene

MadMuffin · May 16, 2004 9:48PM

I was about ten. Started up with Danish coins (being from Denmark), but for the last 10 years I have been more focused on world coins. Too much travelling, I suppose

Marcel

Shipcoin · May 16, 2004 10:44PM

I started collect, when I was 3.5 years old, collecting some kopeks, I was thinking I'll let to my Mom stay at home without working, as I can worry now about the money

After that Dad brought me some coins from his trip to Hungary & Yugoslavia and it converted my collection to the serious darkside collection!

Well after that there were some breaks in that my hobby, connected with school, university, work, changing the place of living, university, marriage, children, work and ... a few years ago I started to collect gain and even defined for myself some special areas of collecting...

Aethelred · May 16, 2004 10:50PM

<< 1964 when my Uncle gave me a 'new' Kennedy Half. That would make me 6 years old. >>

It was a Kennedy Half that got me started as well!

cladking · May 16, 2004 11:24PM

<< I started collect, when I was 3.5 years old, collecting some kopeks, I was thinking I'll let to my Mom stay at home without working, as I can worry now about the money

After that Dad brought me some coins from his trip to Hungary & Yugoslavia and it converted my collection to the serious darkside collection!

Well after that there were some breaks in that my hobby, connected with school, university, work, changing the place of living, university, marriage, children, work and ... a few years ago I started to collect gain and even defined for myself some special areas of collecting...

>>

Wow! You started early. I was nearly 4 years old before my formal collection was
started. I had been interested in coins for some time but never even thought about
actually saving them or about the mechanism for acquiring or keeping them. By the time
I realized I could actually have a collection it seemed too late and that time had passed
me by. This caused me to procrastinate more long weeks until one day I took the bull
by the horns and just started saving them.

I guess it's all perspective...

...I can't imagine how I went for weeks without being a collector.

Of course the boards weren't available in those days.

tbirde56 · May 16, 2004 11:29PM

I was about 6 too, I think, when I got small change from my parents and a Whitman penny folder began to get filled. Some Mexican coins and Brazilian notes from friends of my parents piqued my interest even more though but I had no source for more like I did the cents, nickels and dimes. Finally, at age 12, I saw an ad for world coin approvals from Littleton Coins and have been hooked ever since. I picked up a couple Yeoman world coin books for references. Five years later I had to have a copy of the new Standard Catalog of World Coins as well as a charter subscription to World Coin News. I found a few reliable mail order dealers with great prices. Much later I found a local coin show to regularly go to. And finally Ebay emerged as the best place to find deals.

coachleonard · May 17, 2004 1:17AM

8 years old-- collecting wheat cents i got in change (back in '71 you got them fairly regularly, but they were
still all 1940's and 50's) as well as the foreign coins dad brought back from overseas. One of my first collecting goals was to get ANY coin older than 1940!

canadiancoinguy · May 17, 2004 11:05AM

5, but I didn't really care then since I was into sport cards, so it wasn't until some 10 years later that I focused on coins.

GDJMSP · May 17, 2004 2:04PM

Started when I was 7 in 1960. Quit for a while in the late 60's about the time I discovered girls

Started back up a few years later in my 20's. Still here

GoldCoinLover · May 17, 2004 2:51PM

Philip · May 17, 2004 3:29PM

My first interest in coins came when my high-school history teacher (a collector himself) used a few Third Reich and USSR coins to show how coins are used to enforce the ideology of the time the coins were minted. I gaped for an hour and a half, collected for 2 weeks and finally realized that I need a Krause

I was in 17 back then.

Had to wait for a Krause for three years until I finally could get hold of one. That was three years ago and I have been actively collecting since.

Compa · May 18, 2004 2:33AM

Who can remember that far back!

It was in the early sixties that I started. That would have made me about 7 or 8. There were plenty of wheat cents back then as well as an occasional indian head. Silver was still in circulation. Buffalos were not uncommon in change. My father had been collecting some for a number of years. We were living on a military base so them foreign type coins showed up regularly.

Really didn't stay active all the years in between but always had my eyes open for change I received.

Only in the last 10 years that I've been very active once again.

CIVITAS · May 18, 2004 2:38AM

What?! People actually collect these things?

OK, I started about 9 I think. I've kind of gone for the cycle on collecting. Coins > Stamps > Baseball Cards > Comic Books > Coins again. Well, I can't really afford to collect right now for lack of any disposable income, but if I were it would be coins.

python · May 18, 2004 3:43AM

I think I first started collecting at around 10 or 11 but lost interest until the state quarters.

coincollector1989 · May 18, 2004 3:50AM

I was 16.

Aethelred · May 18, 2004 1:38PM

<< I think I first started collecting at around 10 or 11 but lost interest until the state quarters.

>>

Get outta here!

DoubleDime · May 18, 2004 10:35PM

13, in 1969. The Boy Scout Coin Collecting Merit Badge got me started.

Sylvestius · May 19, 2004 4:24AM

<< Who can remember that far back! >>

Unfortunately it's not too far back for me, i think i started in 1989/1990, call it 1990 to be safe.

PCBUM · May 19, 2004 4:56AM

I was 14

How old were you when you started collecting?

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