Whats Your Story?

I started collecting in my early teens. I dabbled with metal detecting for a year or two about 1977. I got into roll hunting about 1980 when I was 17. That was right in the middle of the big silver spike and 20% interest rates.
25 years lapsed and I'm now back into dirtfishing and roll hunting, I've found thousands of silver and old coins, my oldest being a 1758 spanish silver, that I dug in a farmyard here in Michigan. My roll hunting has really slacked off, but dirtfishing is my real passion. I also continue to buy silver and gold coin, investment for future.

Caught the habit off a family member. I just decided to go through all the coins I had saved up and try and get one from each year.

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road...

Oh, wait -- wrong story!

I'm in my mid-40s right now and used to collect coins casually back when I was a youngster. Back then, I just collected whatever happened to catch my eye and I had some early silver (Barber coins, Mercury dimes, etc.) as well as a ton of foreign stuff. I eventually shoved it all in a box and it ended up in somebody's attic somewhere (perhaps even mine, I can't say for sure). I also used to get Eisenhower dollars from my dad whenever I got a good report card (one dollar for every "A"), but I spent all those since they were still in circulation and there was nothing "rare" or "collectable" about them at the time.

About a year ago, my five year old son came home from Kindergarten all excited because his teacher had a 50 State Quarter map and was asking the kids to look through their change to help her finish the set. He asked if he could get his own map, and I said sure. I then discovered just how hard it was to randomly find all the various quarters in pocket change...

Out of desperation, I looked on ebay (where I used to buy and sell pocket watches years ago but never coins) to see if I could pick up some hole fillers cheap. While looking around, I began to rekindle my interest in the old coins I had collected as a youth. In addition, I started learning about a whole new world of old U.S. coins that I never even realized existed! I mean, I knew about Barber coins, Franklin half dollars, Mercury dimes, Lincoln Wheat Cents, Indian Head cents, Buffalo nickels and Morgan dollars, but this was the first time I ever heard about Liberty Head Nickels, Seated Liberty coins, Shield nickels, Two Cent Pieces, Three Cent Pieces, Large Cents, etc., etc., etc. Well, I just had to get me some of those!

For awhile, I was just bidding on anything that caught my eye that I could get at a reasonable price, as well as stocking up on Eisenhower dollars just for the sake of Nostalgia. I then discovered the wonderful world of proof coins and went a bit crazy buying roll after roll of proof Eisenhower dollars and Kennedy half dollars.

Anyway, I finally found my way to this forum and learned about the Dansco 7070 U.S. Type album and realized that here was the perfect way to focus my interests while still allowing me to get a little bit of everything I liked. So, I got myself an album and then worked as quickly as possible to fill every hole, even if I couldn't afford great quality examples.

Once I finally finished my album, I started working on upgrading the coins therein, and I expect that will keep my collecting interest in focus for years to come. I also decided to create a virtual 7070 album and have been having a lot of fun photographing all my coins and figuring out creative ways to display them. Oh -- and I also bought my son (now almost 7 years old) his own 7070 album and am helping him slowly fill it as well.

My interest in coins started when I got two Eisenhower dollars from my dad. I think I have mentioned that a time or two.

From there, my interest grew. My mother started buying me books, magazines, and Whitman folders. My parents let me sift through their change to plug in the holes. Eventually, they took me to coin shops and helped me mail-order things. Whenever I visited my grandparents, my grandfather would take me shopping as well (he bought me my first Dansco albums).

Suppose one doesn't have the ring of Sauron and lives a normal length ripe life. If the person starts collecting at age 16 with a single coin, adds double of each previous year, and lives to age 80 (collects for 64 years), here's the Math:
1 coin 1st year + 2 coins (2 to the 1st) second year + 4 coins (2 squared) third year + 8 coins (2 cubed) fourth year + ... + 2 to the 63rd power coins 64th year.
That will be ... 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 coins!

Assuming the average thickness of a coin of a half millimeter if you stack all these coins the column will be over one light year tall. And of course this many coins would cover the planet Earth (land and oceans) in more than five layers.
Carl, you may want to reconsider your collecting goals.

When I was 15 my father passed away, he had been sick for a few years so we didn't have much money but he had managed to stash a couple of Morgans,Walkers, and silver quarters away which my mother gave to me. I thought they were rather dirty so I cleaned them up with a pencil eraser so they looked much better.
That sparked my interest which my great grandmother flamed being the only coin collector in the family. She let me look through jars of Mercs.,LWC and Buffs to get me started. Since then, slow and steady. I still don't have a huge collection but I'm still working on it 30 years later and still have the original coins my father left me.

Yes. You do know me well.