Ever Overlook Treasures In Your Collection?

When I first started collecting as a young lad in the early 70's, my relatives would give me Ike dollars. They were (and still are) big and heavy. I liked them because I actually felt like I had money.

I never really paid much attention to them because, after all, I could afford only to collect Lincolns and dollars were for the "grown-ups".

Well, I kept many of those dollars and just recently, a fellow collector asked me, "Are you interesting in selling these (pointing to some of my 1971-P IKE's)?"

I cooly asked, "What would you offer?",

He replied, "Would you take a $100 for it?"

I replied, "A hundred?"

"A hundred for each..."

Well, I politely said no and collected myself. Told him these were gifts from _____ and they were sedimental (which was far from the truth!). Got back to my office and decided to research IKE's and can only think that these coins in MS65 and higher are very rare and worth a nice dollar.

Frankly, I was shocked. They minted almost 48 million of these, but I guess only a few are in MS65 grades or higher. Talking to my local coin guy, he told me that most were poor stikes and a bunch ended up in Vegas for slot machines. Of course, these coins quickly became circulated and worn.

Wow!! Red Book has this coin at MS63 for $4, so I never paid attention to it. But now as I really take a hard look at these, they all have nice luster and may grade higher. Who knows?

I guess you never can stop learning !