What Is Your Collections Crown Jewel?

This would be the first coin that interested me in the hobby. Or at least I wanted one for myself. I do believe my Grandfather made this fake during the depression and I first saw it around 1960 or so as a very young boy.
So can a crown jewel be made of lead? Or is it the sentimental value that makes this a gem?
A somewhat worthless coin to others but I remember where I was and the laughing between my Dad and Pop Pop and me looking on with wide eyes. Glad I have it as it is one of my favorite coins, if we can call it that.

1926 Lead Standing Liberty quarter Slug

Sentimental value is the most important, IMHO.

Here's one of my more obscure "jewels" of my collection--found unattributed.
What's special about this coin is an E/N overpunched letter in REGINA:

I've spent some time thinking about what I want to post in this thread...

Originally when I thought of the term crown jewels I thought I should post my collections stand outs as relates to value.

But then I thought it might be better to show 3 coins which made me grow as a collector. Surprisingly enough each of these were very close in out of pocket expense.

Let's start with the first coin I ever spent $200 on. It killed me. $200 was a lot of money. I was newly married, my wife was still going to school, I was teaching in an inner city school. We were SO broke, but even 10 years ago $200 was fairly cheap for a 1928 P Peace dollar (I grade it at AU, might be EF. Doesn't matter it won't be sold.)




Once I broke the mental hurdle of being willing to spend $200 on a key date, the next hurdle for me was to be willing to spend the same amount on something which was QUITE A BIT UGLIER. My Barber dime collection was nearing completion and I knew the 95 O was going to be my stumbling block. The set was an AG / G set, so I was able to go the AG route. None the less I thought (and still think) it's crazy to spend $195 on a beat up old dime.




Finally, We come to the third coin. As a collector I know that mintage's greatly affect the price of a coin. Throw an error in on top of it and it only get's worse. So when I started my MS63+ Roosie set I put some planning into it, decided which coins were going to go into the set, and determined which coin was going to be the most expensive. At that point I started on the set, but was actively pursuing one coin in particular, the 1982 No Mintmark dime. I knew once I had this coin the rest would be easy (or so I thought, who knew the 82 and 83 regular clads would end up giving me the most heartache.) When this coin popped up on ebay for $165 I jumped on it (It was in an NGC slab certified as 64).



So there you have it. The three coins which I think turned coins from being just a past time into a serious hobby for me.

Guess, I've got a few. Here are some.

Bonedigger, is that the 1815/12? Very nice! I like those Bust Half overdates...I recently found a 1829/1827.
Beautiful toning on that Morgan!

Not really in hand, but it is baggy. The coin club members who looked at it a few months ago all put it between 62 and 64, seeing as it's a raw coin in a Coin-World holder.

I got a pretty good deal on the (ANACS, VF-30 -- old holder) 1815 a few years ago, but could never touch it for $2500 again. Had to put that baby on plastic and boy-howdy did I catch you know what for it. I can laugh now, but then...

Take Care
Ben