What is the best/favorite coin you have pulled out of circulation?

I'm curious to hear some amazing circulation finds. I am fairly new to coin collecting and my favorite thing to do is to look for coins from circulation. I haven't found anything great yet but I haven't given up hope. My nicest is a 1972 DDO. Not the big one but it is a nice DD. I don't have any pictures because my photography skills are questionable at best.
Chris
My small collection
Want List:
'61 Topps Roy Campanella in PSA 5-7
Cardinal T206 cards
Adam Wainwright GU Jersey
My small collection
Want List:
'61 Topps Roy Campanella in PSA 5-7
Cardinal T206 cards
Adam Wainwright GU Jersey
0
Comments
-Amanda
I'm a YN working on a type set!
My Buffalo Nickel Website Home of the Quirky Buffaloes Collection!
Proud member of the CUFYNA
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
I was at a slot-car racing place and in change I got a 1949-S!! The LAST one for the set that was completely assembled from circulation. Even with some of the huge coins I've gotten in my older age nothing comes close to that coin.
Those were COLLECTING days!
In this part of the world, I am constantly amazed at how many old nickels are still in circulation. Last week I pulled out a 1940, and a 1955 D. Nobody must look at the nickels.
WS
I am always looking to cherrypick a BU 1950-D DDR at the coin shows. Still haven't cherried one.
But, a couple years ago I got a silver dime in change -sure enuff, it was a 1950-D DDR in VF.
and they're cold.
I don't want nobody to shoot me in the foxhole."
Mary
Best Franklin Website
Edited to add: This probably dosn't count, but I found the 1921 Vam-24A (the coin used as my icon to the left) in a roll of circulated 1921 morgans. It is now in a ANACS MS61 slab with the designation.
2 1921 mercs that a friend of mine traded me out of
kept a close watch on coins that came my way. The clads were starting to get "interesting"
but I considered them uncollectible because the FED had a bad habit of losing clads in storage.
They had done this with the older coins too but with them it was a few tens of thousands of
coins but with the new coins it was millions. Even if a coin could be identified as more desirable
the market would be destroyed if the FED suddenly released millions more.
I wasn't actively collecting any coins because all my available funds went to more important
things such as affording dates and the like for three years.
It was at this time I recieved a "brand new" (AU++) Denver minted quarter with a real nice DDR.
My first inclination was to set it aside of course, but I very soon spent it. It may have been a
'71-D or a '72-D. There are two known '71-D and fewer than half a dozen of the '72-D if memory
serves, and only one of these is better than XF.
Ironically it was only a few weeks later that the Chicago Tribune ran a story the the federal reserve
and mint was changing to FIFO accounting. One of the changes necessitated by thiw was to rotate
out the oldest coins in storage first. Obviously this meant all coins would become pretty evenly worn
so I started saving nice examples. I still don't have either of these DDR's in my collection.
My small collection
Want List:
'61 Topps Roy Campanella in PSA 5-7
Cardinal T206 cards
Adam Wainwright GU Jersey
There was plenty of Franklin half dollars/now and then a worn Walker/pre-64 Washington Quarters, dimes and lots and lots of silver era war nickels. Later date Wheat cents were like 3 to 4 out of every 10 cents in pocket change, but examples back to 1909 could be found in circulation or in Grandma's stuck away coin purse or sugar bowel.
I still have 5 or 6 MS-65 1963 Franklins left in a twisted end roll my Grand Father got at the local post office. Spent some and later on sold some to purchase/trade for other coins. Yeah...you heard right, spent some! lol Back then it was no biggie to drop a silver coin back into circulation. Being young like that, you had no concept of what it would be like in 40 years.
Buy the end of the 60's all that just suddenly dried up...hoarded, stashed, sold, still missing and dispersed.
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
<< <i>To the older collectors here who have been collecting for 40 years on and off, in the mid 60's you could have a field day in the mid-west. Not so much in the big cites, NY, LA, St Louis, Dallas...but small towns away from Federal Reserve Banks.
There was plenty of Franklin half dollars/now and then a worn Walker/pre-64 Washington Quarters, dimes and lots and lots of silver era war nickels. Later date Wheat cents were like 3 to 4 out of every 10 cents in pocket change, but examples back to 1909 could be found in circulation or in Grandma's stuck away coin purse or sugar bowel.
I still have 5 or 6 MS-65 1963 Franklins left in a twisted end roll my Grand Father got at the local post office. Spent some and later on sold some to purchase/trade for other coins. Yeah...you heard right, spent some! lol Back then it was no biggie to drop a silver coin back into circulation. Being young like that, you had no concept of what it would be like in 40 years.
Buy the end of the 60's all that just suddenly dried up...hoarded, stashed, sold, still missing and dispersed. >>
This was typical everywhere. The mint was cranking out silver until early 1966. The FED
didn't even start removing it until mid-'68. All twelve FED districts started removing silver
at the same time. These were removed by simple machines but by mid 1969 there was no
longer enough silver to warrant the cost of running them through the machine.
There was probably less silver in circulation in 1971 than there is now. In '71 there were
still stashes of silver being released in limited areas and this is no longer true. Some of
these releases in '71 could have even been mint or FED sources.
I,also found a 1999 wide AM in my pocket change,graded out at MS64 red.
Another coin I found was a 2000 Maryland quarter with "Missing clad layer" in an unopened roll,also graded out at MS64.
I keep looking.
Brian
President, Racine Numismatic Society 2013-2014; Variety Resource Dimes; See 6/8/12 CDN for my article on Winged Liberty Dimes; Ebay