A Collection Of What We Love In Numismatic History

Very nice thread Num_Student.

Definitely an eye-candy, and it's fun to read story behind it.

Wow! Amazing photograph and I had no idea about all of those gold laws!

Personal history flashback

My favorite job of all was when I was a door to door milkman.
I hustled in and out the door of my Divco probably 150 times a day, carrying glass milk bottles, butter, eggs, ice cream, orange juice and more.
I made a lot of change in a days work and my Jefferson nickel collecting really took off in those days. I did find the occasional silver dimes and quarters too. A silver certificate or "red seal" US note was not uncommon.

This is a photoshop effort of the kind of truck I drove. I artistically placed the logo of the dairy on the side of this truck artwork here.
Yes, I have a few old bottles in my collection. Often the coins were in the empties with the bills and paper money in the mouth of the bottle.
I wish I had the eyes I had back then ( and body too! ).

I could cherry pick good coins in the dark with a flashlight.
I remember putting the good ones in different pockets so they wouldn't contact each other until I could get a break and properly stow them away.



A lot of the customers knew I was a coin collector, the tip off was when I would make change in person and look over every coin when I ran into the daytime people. Some knew right away, others must have thought I was just being careful counting money.
I listened to them and heard all kinds of stories and gossip galore.
There were a lot of customers that I would stop and talk with. I would put the milk in the refrigerator and be sure to rotate the milk for some of the older people.

I remember one hot afternoon, it seems like it was yesterday when I first heard of a three legged buffalo.
That was many years ago tho.
I made it up a lot of steps to one lady's porch.
As usual, a conversation started up. It takes a lot of listening to be a good milkman. lol
She told me how as kids in the 50's, at one time, all the kids in Auburn PA were looking for the elusive 3 legger.
I could just see them gathering soda bottles in a red wagon to cash them in on the deposit at Lehman's grocery store and checking the change they got in return.
With no luck as usual, I imagined them in the shade eating a popsicle or drinking a coke in the shade.
She told me that some kids did find a few back then.

I never saw one in person until decades later I inherited a folder of Buffalo nickels from my father. There it was, my jaw dropped ... and here it is in my collection today.



I'll always remember the milk route and neat customers I had.
It was a great small town and country route.
I drove 150 miles on Tuesdays and Saturdays and on Mondays and Fridays were about 125.

Oh the stories I could tell ....

That truck had two sets of pedals.
One to use if you folded the seat and swung it out of the way to stand and drive it and another if you used the seat. I always used the seat but those Divco's were "all truck".
It had "Two-Fifty" air conditioning
Open two doors and drive 50 miles an hour. LOL

Our plant stopped bottling in the early 80's. I don't really know. Somewhere there may still be some delivery going on out there.

To keep this coin related.
Here's a little memory of mine for a Saturday only delivery in Landingville PA no name in the book, just the "Potato Farmer" and Box number. I had quite a few like that - cash only - no billing.

Two half gallons of regular paper - cash only - Saturday only.
( A lot of these people I can still remember what they got as a regular order )

Paper is the typical wax coated carton you still find in the stores, we had those as well as glass. Cost was $2.30 cash. $1.15 a half gallon retail glass or paper.
This nice little Dutch potato farmer would walk out and up to the truck to get his milk.
I noticed he would hand me 2 silver certificates and three silver dimes every time. Mostly roosevelts but a Mercury dime was not unusual. I mentioned that they were silver and silver certificates and he looked at me like I had lobsters coming out my ears. He didn't care. I tried to explain but it just wouldn't compute to this hermit of a guy. So I paid him back with extra time talking about stuff he liked. He lived in a small world by himself out on a back road. It was as if he was in a time warp. I told him I was a coin collector, yet no light came on for this guy.
Anyway, this went on for months and one day he told me he took a whole bunch of pennies to the bank. I mean thousands of pennies.
Heck, the bank is 12 miles away and I didn't even know he had a car.
This was serious now. I told him not to take his change to the bank that I would buy it from him. I would take all he wanted to get rid of. He looked at me odd but I told him " I can always use the change on the route "
I felt a bit guilty, but this guy could not fathom the difference between old money and new and it made no difference to him no matter how I tried to explain that it was worth more to me, than him taking it to the bank.

He wasn't going to count money ( silver and Wheaties ) for me and I knew it by his reaction.
My conscience told me that it was wrong to take it any further, but I asked him to pay $2.30 in all change if he could. Next week he did and for several more weeks, maybe months, I was getting, Walkers and Franklins, SLQ and mercs as well as the common silver Washingtons and Roosies. Never a clad.
By now, I realized this man didn't believe in banks. I think he had been raised not to trust them from the days of the depression and stock market crash or something.
I bet he had drawers full of money and probably money buried out on the farm.
I never did get a big pile of change from him. I never got out of the truck and now I think I know why.
Nobody got onto his porch or in his house I bet.

Then one day, I stopped like usual and he told me his house was robbed and they took his guns. His old Winchester and his shotgun. He didn't say anything about money being stolen, and I didn't say anything about it either but I bet he was devastated and robbed big time.
Either that or he wanted to stop paying with all change and told me a story, but I suspect he was robbed.
I probably reached in my freezer and gave him a half gallon of Ice Cream to ease the pain. I did that now and then for customers.
Things went back to normal after that. Every Saturday, two silver certificates and three silver dimes, so they didn't get it all. Weird story but honest, it's all true. Haven't thought of this for a long time and today, I don't have any of those coins or silver certificate as I used them to "trade up" years later.
Now there's a place to go metal detecting I bet. Surely he would be over 125 years old today so he's gone to Heaven now.

Millions of dollars worth of $1 coins languish in a vault at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's Baltimore branch.
John W. Poole for NPR

Politicians in Washington hardly let a few minutes go by without mentioning how broke the government is. So, it's a little surprising that they've created a stash of more than $1 billion that almost no one wants.

Unused dollar coins have been quietly piling up in Federal Reserve vaults in breathtaking numbers, thanks to a government program that has required their production since 2007.

Those are mostly Presidential dollars. Apparently a very unpopular series that no one wants. They are the 21st century's Morgan dollars.

You asked around about coin dealers and wrote them a letter. Maybe send a telegraph or call on the phone. Dealer would send you a price list of their goods on offer.