Short but sweet. My father, done 15 years now, took me to our local B&M and purchased for me a 1781 North American Token and a few other small things including a Large Cent. The Token was a $12 coin back then in what was called "Fine" (no numbers in general use here then). There was also a coin shop on Queens Blvd near my dad's furniture store and I went there and bought my first real coins - Barber 10C and 25C, two of each. It was great thrill owning something with a date from the 19th century. Soon after I was into Mrgans and Walkers...bught my first "soft" ANA cache graded coin not long after with its soft plastic fold-over case. I remember when they came out. I was buying MS Morgans and reselling them at a hefty profit. Paid $15 and sold at $80 an so on - not bad for a young kid. Early rips I guess. My dad was impressed that I could pick out the better grade MS examples from dollars stored in egg drop soup containers for years. Shortly after I was picking FSB Mercs out of rolls - not much premium in those days with the shops I was dealing with, but the old B&M sure paid well. Good profits there as well. A few years alter I had a sell sheet and was dealing high grade CC Morgans to my teachers :-)
I was 8 and playing in the park accross the street from the house when I found the coin that hooked me forever--a 1917 type 1 quarter in what I later learned was XF condition. Whoohoo, naked boobs! I've carried it as a pocket piece ever since. It now looks like this.
Since I started off with naked boobs is it any wonder that 50 years later I am STILL known as the "Bustchaser"?
Just because I'm old doesn't mean I don't love to look at a pretty bust.
OK I really can’t put a date or event on it but it had to do with a young kid out in Kansas making the realization that they had put a Greek God on what appeared to be the smallest coin that was worth twice as much as the one with a buffalo on it. Most that I normally had seen before that were the cents that had the stuff that grew out in the field on them. Never did a formal collection as such back then but I did have a cigar box of stuff that seemed to disappear when I enlisted and went on with life. Got back into it in the late 1970’s and watched the silver boom take its toll. Still have some of that stuff in the accumulation of stuff that I now call a collection.
i was 12 in 1969 and had a paper route when i would collect all the money and take it back home mom and dad would take the silver out for me and replace, fast forward 30 yrs after both parents passed i was left with a coin collection that till this day i have not gone thru all the rolls of silver quarters they kept, just this morning after reading all these other great notes i found a 1867 s quarter its not in great shape but can read the date and see the s on the back i am going to send in 8 coins in the next couple weeks and take there collection up one more notch. i learn something new everyday and this is such a great informative site. oh yeah i won an internet contest over 10 yrs ago you could have a gold coin or 500 cash, well they tried to get me to take the 500 but i insisted on the gold coin they sent me a 1924 st gaudens in a pcgs holder ms64 i love this coin and was glad i didnt take the 500 its my only gold piece........
My parents gave me a 1961 proof set in a blue capital holder for my seventh birthday late in 1961. I loved how shiny and perfect the coins were - much different than the coins I saw in circulation.
But since proof sets only came out once a year with no Denver coins, I wanted something more. Interestingly enough, I received a blue Whitman penny folder as a handout for Halloween that year! I lived in Racine, Wisconsin at the time, home of Whitman publishing.
With that penny folder I linked up with a neighbor my own age and we had access to the change from parking meters. His father would bring home a sewn canvas bag about twice a month and we would got through them looking to fill the holes in our folders. Of course we graduated to nickels after that to keep interest up. Dimes and quarters were rarely used in parking meters at the time, plus they were a little spendy for a little kid.
Anyway, that got me hooked on the hobby. I enjoyed it into my teens and then took time off until I got back into it in my thirties.
Oh, I almost forgot - I still have that 1961 proof set. The holder is a little scratched up after 48 years, but it is still priceless to me.
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
I dont think there was one event, it was a combination of different experiences. I am 55 now, so when I was a kid in the 60's there were still silver coins and wheat cents in change and I would go thru my dad's change dish and pull out interesting coins. An occasional steel cent, buffalo nickels, war nickels. I got a few Whitman folders and started collecting all the Lincoln cents and war nickels I could find. I looked at one of those war nickels in the 1990's and it was a 1943/2. I couldn't believe it. Heck, it could have been the discovery piece.
When I was about 8-10 years old, I was at my uncle's house with my dad and we were talking about coins and my uncle brought out 8 circulated common silver dollars and offered them to me for face value and my dad only bought 4 ! I was bummed out. My mom would take my brother into downtown Chicago for shopping and a movie and Leonard Stark's coin shop (is that the correct name? I forget) was on Dearborn at the subway stop and we would stop in there for a minute, never buy anything. I was enamored with these lucite cubes that had new Lincoln cents floating inside. He had a poster of a 1955 doubled die cent on the wall. Yet in 1972, when I was a senior in high school, I was so busy with school and work that I was not even aware that there was another doubled die cent out there. So it evolved for me.
when I was little kid my Dad used to bring me to a real old-fashioned soda fountain, he would drink a "Ko-kola" as he called it and I would drink a Dr Pepper or a cherry phosphate. Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan, God rest their souls, were the proprietors. They knew I liked coins, so they would give me '50-D nickels or '38-D Walking Liberty halves. They thought I was putting them in my collection, but I would go home and call Mr. Davis who would come and buy them from me. (I would not be deceptive about it today ... I was a little kid, so give me a break.) This was in the mid-1950s, so I guess I have been a coin dealer now for more than a half-century.
Can't quite remember for me, but for the little one it was that brick of missing edge letter Washington dollars spread out on the table. I think it was just the amount of coins, he could have cared less about the MEL.
If you understand what is coming, then you can duck. If not, then you get sucker-punched. - Martin Armstrong
I think it was the sensation of sliding the edge of one of my father's Morgan silver dollars up my scrawney leg (which was wearing one of my mother's silk stockings) that hooked me on coins and made it (and silk stockings) such a big part of my life.
(By the way, a silver dollar in a PCGS holder won't substitute for the dentils of a silver dollar running along a silk stocking....zzzzzzzip!)
Not sure exactly, but my clearest memories were getting a Red Book for Christmas when I was maybe 5 or 6, that was pretty cool and I used the heck out of that book going through all of my family's change. Also, going to a coin shop when I was about the same age and the dealer asked me what my favorite coins were, and I said Nickels. I bought a couple and in my change it was all BU Nickels of various dates from the 60s and 70s, and even a 1956 in BU that I still have. Thought that was the coolest thing ever. Looking back at it now, I wonder what my change would have been if I said $20 St. Gaudens was my favorite
I have posted this story before, but I will post it again.
For me, I became a collector in 2008. But it starts long before that, back in 1995. This story is really special to me because it features my father, who I never really spent a lot of time with- he worked two jobs daily and slept most of the time he wasn't working.
(Keep in mind, when reading this story, that I was born in 1984)
In 1995, I can recall hearing about the doubled die cent that was made that year. It started us searching for them, all four of us in my family. But mainly me and my dad. Around the same time, I somehow managed to get a 1865 three cent piece, some world coins from the Science Store in Danbury CT, and a small selection of wheat cents, and Canadian, all pulled from change. A friend of mine, who owner a coin shop/NASCAR shop, gave me at that time a book with three pages for the cardboard 2x2s and enough to fill those pages, which I filled with my treasures, which included a quarter I painted an X on with white out (I don't know why I did that anymore), some holed and bent coins, and stuff from the 1970s, which at that time seemed really old to me. As well as the best examples I could find of each 1995 coin. He also gave me an 1853 dime worn nearly smooth. Even though it's condition-wise one of the worst coins in my collection (but not THE worst) I treasure it as a gift from my friend, who I lost contact with around 1996/97 when he closed up his shop and stopped doing the local card shows. (NASCAR diecast is my primary hobby, and how I met him)
Anyway, we looked for one of those 1995 cents, but never found one that was blurry (I didn't learn the term doubled die until I found this very forum). Eventually, I lost interest and most of the coins I had saved ended up being turned into my own homemade water fountain. We filled a jar with water, and dropped the coins in, and watched them float down to the bottom. Eventually even that lost my interest, and they sat there in the water for a while. I don't know what happened to them but I would guess eventually the water (which turned green) was drained and they were put into the family coin jar and eventually spent.
So ended my brief time as a coin collector, if you could call it that, which I don't.
Then, in 1999, the State Quarters came out. I saved one of each design, not even knowing what mintmarks were. Eventually my brother started ordering them from Littleton when we couldn't find them in circulation anymore. For a while it got to be more then a year before we would see them, and one of them, I now forget which one, we didn't see until 2008, it was one from 05 or 06. Anyway, I still didn't consider myself a coin collector.
In 2002, I lost my dad to cancer. He had been fighting it since 1997 but in February 2002 we lost him, and my life changed for the worse.
Fast forward to February 2008. We to this day have not been able to go through all my dad's stuff but my brother was working in the back room of the basement, where the important stuff like the heater, water softener, etc. is stored. I don't really go in there and it's the only part of my house I've not seen. Well, resting against the back of the heater, (!) my brother found a stash of my dad's. He brought it up from the basement, and it was then and there I became a coin collector for life. In the box, I saw things I never knew existed! There were some Peace dollars and a Morgan, a handfull of Mercury dimes, a few Buffalo nickels, some wheat cents, some BiCentennial quarters, and a handfull of half dollars. Also included were some pieces of paper money, including a large size note, some silver certificates, and a red seal United States Note. I had never seen things like this before. I didn't even know the USA had ever MADE large dollars, both metal and paper. I dumped them out onto a cookie tray (not one I intended to eat off of, I use one of them as a base for my laptop)) and sorted through them. Mainly just by type. Anyway, they sat in my room for more then a month and I would look through them from time to time. I was liking what I was seeing but I didn't think much towards the future. I guess you could say I was a bit overwhelmed.
Anyway, come May 2008 and we take a family vacation. We end up going to a very popular spot on the Ocean about 5 hours away from home. While we were exploring, I spotted a coin shop. We passed by then but went back the next day. I didn't even know the name of it, but my brother and I went in, while my mom stayed in the car. Little did we know, any of us, that that day would change my life. We looked in the cases, and saw some amazing things- large coins from the 1800s, one from 1806-the oldest thing I had seen at that time. I picked out, from a five dollar bin, an 1832 half dime and an 1852 cent. I had no idea what either was but I could read the dates and I knew they were older then anything I had. Then and there I got those two, as well as a handfull of world coins out of the 10 for a dollar bin, and two silver certificates. My first numismatic purchase came to $18, and from then on, I was hooked!
When I got home, I spent a week sorting through the coins from my father's hidden stash, as well as the more then 500 wheat cents both my parents collected from circulation in the 1960s. Unfortunatly, most of them were damaged in a series of basement floods, but I kept all but the worst of them. I also went through my family's entire spending money jar. All the change we get goes into a very large jar, where when it gets full, or at least heavy enough to be too heavy- we deposit them into the bank account.
It took me a week because I had to go through it several times. First, I didn't understand the concept of mint marks, so when I realized there were two of them- I didn't know about any other then P or D yet- I had to sort them all again. Then, I realized I had judged all the coins by front alone (I had yet to hear the term obverse) so I resorted them all again. Then, I had to sort the rejects again several times as my notes I took while doing the sorting didn't match what I could find. As it turned out, I had mistakenly put some I wanted to keep into the spending jar, and it's a good thing I resorted them, because I discovered a few that I had missed. I dealt with about 3000 coins over that week so I'm not surprised I made a few mistakes. Luckily for me, I got into the hobby not long before it was almost time to turn them in!
I ended up putting the best of each date/mint mark into my collection, and the second best into my backup collection, what I keep in case of damage to my primary collection (Or should I loose something) or to trade. I also kept everything from before 1965. Since then I have constantly been on the lookout for upgrades.
At that time I also typed my collection into Excel- each denomination got it's own sheet, with several statistical charts and whatnot. I'm somewhat of a "statistics freak" so it played right into my hands. I also have a chart of what I need which I carry around in my wallet. It's color coded to what I don't have, and what I want to upgrade.
Not long after, my mom got one of Scott Travers' books from the library. It was mostly about the investment side, which I didn't care for, but it gave a list of all the mints the US Government had used. I had at that point only known of Philadelphia, Denver and San Fransisco. This was all in May of 2008. On June 1st of 2008, I joined this forum. That opened me up to a whole world of knowledge, and I was soon directed to the Red Book. I purchased it and red it in one day. I learned a ton, and I have since gone back and reread it several times. I've read a lot more, too.
I can't afford to add to my collection too much, maybe three or four times a year. I have gotten most of my coins from circulation, I enjoy roll searching, and I try to do 4 rolls of cents a week. I went to my first coin show last October. I learned more there. But I enjoy what I have, and I enjoy reading about and talking about coinage. That's why I get several magazines and read multiple forums daily. I don't think it's possible to ever know everything about coinage. I'm glad of that, as I truly enjoy learning. I'm loving every minute of this, and I know that this time, collecting coins and currency, even on the low level I collect at- will be with me for the rest of my life. As my main hobby (1/64 NASCAR diecast) is slowly killed by inept leadership of the only licensed company- this is poised to become my main hobby.
1969. I'd always been exposed to coins in a small way with Buffalos and Mercs available here and there along with my Mom's accumulation of Morgan dollars, but my great aunt opened up a bag of silver coins and out came things I'd never seen, like Walkers and (gasp) Barbers! I was 7 then and I've been collecting ever since.
Sincerely,
Stewart Huckaby mailto:stewarth@HA.com ------------------------------------------ Heritage Auctions Heritage Auctions
My grandmother, who was a coin collector, took me to an ANA convention on Miami Beach when I was 10. All those coins did it for me. I bought a gold sovereign from Dave Bowers, and wish I hadn't sold it when I was a teenager.
Member: EAC, NBS, C4, CWTS, ANA
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
It was 40 years ago, a rainy Saturday and I had absolutely nothing to do that day. My dad finally talked me into going with him to a local coin show. I bought a 1931-s buffalo in fine for about 8 bucks. By the time I left the show I was hooked for the rest of my life.
"location, location, location...eye appeal, eye appeal, eye appeal" My website
Comments
Hi All,
Short but sweet. My father, done 15 years now, took me to our local B&M and purchased for me a 1781 North American Token and a few other small things including a Large Cent. The Token was a $12 coin back then in what was called "Fine" (no numbers in general use here then). There was also a coin shop on Queens Blvd near my dad's furniture store and I went there and bought my first real coins - Barber 10C and 25C, two of each. It was great thrill owning something with a date from the 19th century. Soon after I was into Mrgans and Walkers...bught my first "soft" ANA cache graded coin not long after with its soft plastic fold-over case. I remember when they came out. I was buying MS Morgans and reselling them at a hefty profit. Paid $15 and sold at $80 an so on - not bad for a young kid. Early rips I guess. My dad was impressed that I could pick out the better grade MS examples from dollars stored in egg drop soup containers for years. Shortly after I was picking FSB Mercs out of rolls - not much premium in those days with the shops I was dealing with, but the old B&M sure paid well. Good profits there as well. A few years alter I had a sell sheet and was dealing high grade CC Morgans to my teachers :-)
Best,
Eric
Since I started off with naked boobs is it any wonder that 50 years later I am STILL known as the "Bustchaser"?
I used to be famous now I just collect coins.
Link to My Registry Set.
https://pcgs.com/setregistry/quarters/washington-quarters-specialty-sets/washington-quarters-complete-variety-set-circulation-strikes-1932-1964/publishedset/78469
Varieties Are The Spice Of LIFE and Thanks to Those who teach us what to search For.
But since proof sets only came out once a year with no Denver coins, I wanted something more. Interestingly enough, I received a blue Whitman penny folder as a handout for Halloween that year! I lived in Racine, Wisconsin at the time, home of Whitman publishing.
With that penny folder I linked up with a neighbor my own age and we had access to the change from parking meters. His father would bring home a sewn canvas bag about twice a month and we would got through them looking to fill the holes in our folders. Of course we graduated to nickels after that to keep interest up. Dimes and quarters were rarely used in parking meters at the time, plus they were a little spendy for a little kid.
Anyway, that got me hooked on the hobby. I enjoyed it into my teens and then took time off until I got back into it in my thirties.
Oh, I almost forgot - I still have that 1961 proof set. The holder is a little scratched up after 48 years, but it is still priceless to me.
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
My digital cameo album 1950-64 Cameos - take a look!
When I was about 8-10 years old, I was at my uncle's house with my dad and we were talking about coins and my uncle brought out 8 circulated common silver dollars and offered them to me for face value and my dad only bought 4 ! I was bummed out.
If you understand what is coming, then you can duck. If not, then you get sucker-punched. - Martin Armstrong
I think it was the sensation of sliding the edge of one of my father's Morgan silver dollars up my scrawney leg (which was wearing one of my mother's silk stockings) that hooked me on coins and made it (and silk stockings) such a big part of my life.
(By the way, a silver dollar in a PCGS holder won't substitute for the dentils of a silver dollar running along a silk stocking....zzzzzzzip!)
Michael Kittle Rare Coins --- 1908-S Indian Head Cent Grading Set --- No. 1 1909 Mint Set --- Kittlecoins on Facebook --- Long Beach Table 448
For me, I became a collector in 2008. But it starts long before that, back in 1995. This story is really special to me because it features my father, who I never really spent a lot of time with- he worked two jobs daily and slept most of the time he wasn't working.
(Keep in mind, when reading this story, that I was born in 1984)
In 1995, I can recall hearing about the doubled die cent that was made that year. It started us searching for them, all four of us in my family. But mainly me and my dad. Around the same time, I somehow managed to get a 1865 three cent piece, some world coins from the Science Store in Danbury CT, and a small selection of wheat cents, and Canadian, all pulled from change. A friend of mine, who owner a coin shop/NASCAR shop, gave me at that time a book with three pages for the cardboard 2x2s and enough to fill those pages, which I filled with my treasures, which included a quarter I painted an X on with white out (I don't know why I did that anymore), some holed and bent coins, and stuff from the 1970s, which at that time seemed really old to me. As well as the best examples I could find of each 1995 coin. He also gave me an 1853 dime worn nearly smooth. Even though it's condition-wise one of the worst coins in my collection (but not THE worst) I treasure it as a gift from my friend, who I lost contact with around 1996/97 when he closed up his shop and stopped doing the local card shows. (NASCAR diecast is my primary hobby, and how I met him)
Anyway, we looked for one of those 1995 cents, but never found one that was blurry (I didn't learn the term doubled die until I found this very forum). Eventually, I lost interest and most of the coins I had saved ended up being turned into my own homemade water fountain. We filled a jar with water, and dropped the coins in, and watched them float down to the bottom. Eventually even that lost my interest, and they sat there in the water for a while. I don't know what happened to them but I would guess eventually the water (which turned green) was drained and they were put into the family coin jar and eventually spent.
So ended my brief time as a coin collector, if you could call it that, which I don't.
Then, in 1999, the State Quarters came out. I saved one of each design, not even knowing what mintmarks were. Eventually my brother started ordering them from Littleton when we couldn't find them in circulation anymore. For a while it got to be more then a year before we would see them, and one of them, I now forget which one, we didn't see until 2008, it was one from 05 or 06. Anyway, I still didn't consider myself a coin collector.
In 2002, I lost my dad to cancer. He had been fighting it since 1997 but in February 2002 we lost him, and my life changed for the worse.
Fast forward to February 2008. We to this day have not been able to go through all my dad's stuff but my brother was working in the back room of the basement, where the important stuff like the heater, water softener, etc. is stored. I don't really go in there and it's the only part of my house I've not seen. Well, resting against the back of the heater, (!) my brother found a stash of my dad's. He brought it up from the basement, and it was then and there I became a coin collector for life. In the box, I saw things I never knew existed! There were some Peace dollars and a Morgan, a handfull of Mercury dimes, a few Buffalo nickels, some wheat cents, some BiCentennial quarters, and a handfull of half dollars. Also included were some pieces of paper money, including a large size note, some silver certificates, and a red seal United States Note. I had never seen things like this before. I didn't even know the USA had ever MADE large dollars, both metal and paper. I dumped them out onto a cookie tray (not one I intended to eat off of, I use one of them as a base for my laptop)) and sorted through them. Mainly just by type. Anyway, they sat in my room for more then a month and I would look through them from time to time. I was liking what I was seeing but I didn't think much towards the future. I guess you could say I was a bit overwhelmed.
Anyway, come May 2008 and we take a family vacation. We end up going to a very popular spot on the Ocean about 5 hours away from home. While we were exploring, I spotted a coin shop. We passed by then but went back the next day. I didn't even know the name of it, but my brother and I went in, while my mom stayed in the car. Little did we know, any of us, that that day would change my life. We looked in the cases, and saw some amazing things- large coins from the 1800s, one from 1806-the oldest thing I had seen at that time. I picked out, from a five dollar bin, an 1832 half dime and an 1852 cent. I had no idea what either was but I could read the dates and I knew they were older then anything I had. Then and there I got those two, as well as a handfull of world coins out of the 10 for a dollar bin, and two silver certificates. My first numismatic purchase came to $18, and from then on, I was hooked!
When I got home, I spent a week sorting through the coins from my father's hidden stash, as well as the more then 500 wheat cents both my parents collected from circulation in the 1960s. Unfortunatly, most of them were damaged in a series of basement floods, but I kept all but the worst of them. I also went through my family's entire spending money jar. All the change we get goes into a very large jar, where when it gets full, or at least heavy enough to be too heavy- we deposit them into the bank account.
It took me a week because I had to go through it several times. First, I didn't understand the concept of mint marks, so when I realized there were two of them- I didn't know about any other then P or D yet- I had to sort them all again. Then, I realized I had judged all the coins by front alone (I had yet to hear the term obverse) so I resorted them all again. Then, I had to sort the rejects again several times as my notes I took while doing the sorting didn't match what I could find. As it turned out, I had mistakenly put some I wanted to keep into the spending jar, and it's a good thing I resorted them, because I discovered a few that I had missed. I dealt with about 3000 coins over that week so I'm not surprised I made a few mistakes. Luckily for me, I got into the hobby not long before it was almost time to turn them in!
I ended up putting the best of each date/mint mark into my collection, and the second best into my backup collection, what I keep in case of damage to my primary collection (Or should I loose something) or to trade. I also kept everything from before 1965. Since then I have constantly been on the lookout for upgrades.
At that time I also typed my collection into Excel- each denomination got it's own sheet, with several statistical charts and whatnot. I'm somewhat of a "statistics freak" so it played right into my hands. I also have a chart of what I need which I carry around in my wallet. It's color coded to what I don't have, and what I want to upgrade.
Not long after, my mom got one of Scott Travers' books from the library. It was mostly about the investment side, which I didn't care for, but it gave a list of all the mints the US Government had used. I had at that point only known of Philadelphia, Denver and San Fransisco. This was all in May of 2008. On June 1st of 2008, I joined this forum. That opened me up to a whole world of knowledge, and I was soon directed to the Red Book. I purchased it and red it in one day. I learned a ton, and I have since gone back and reread it several times. I've read a lot more, too.
I can't afford to add to my collection too much, maybe three or four times a year. I have gotten most of my coins from circulation, I enjoy roll searching, and I try to do 4 rolls of cents a week. I went to my first coin show last October. I learned more there. But I enjoy what I have, and I enjoy reading about and talking about coinage. That's why I get several magazines and read multiple forums daily. I don't think it's possible to ever know everything about coinage. I'm glad of that, as I truly enjoy learning. I'm loving every minute of this, and I know that this time, collecting coins and currency, even on the low level I collect at- will be with me for the rest of my life. As my main hobby (1/64 NASCAR diecast) is slowly killed by inept leadership of the only licensed company- this is poised to become my main hobby.
I'm looking forward to what the future holds.
Stewart Huckaby
mailto:stewarth@HA.com
------------------------------------------
Heritage Auctions
Heritage Auctions
2801 W. Airport Freeway
Dallas, Texas 75261
Phone: 1-800-US-COINS, x1355
Heritage Auctions
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
My dad finally talked me into going with him to a local coin show. I bought a 1931-s
buffalo in fine for about 8 bucks. By the time I left the show I was hooked for the rest of my life.
My website