Coins Vs Mere "Change"

I've started collecting classic U.S. coins, late 19th century to mid 20th century. I do have the State Quarters, a few Ikes, and I just bought 3 Franklins that are my birth year, but I'm sort of new around here and open to whatever comes along.

I suppose I'm bias toward silver, new coins don't have the content, the ring to them that the older coins do.

As Jayman 931 said "If nobody collected coins of their era we would never have the BU/MS older coins that are collectible now..."

I love to look back on the HISTORY that every coin has been through in it's lifetime. We need to remember that we are only stewards of the coins we have been lucky enough to obtain while we're here.

I also have a multiple answer of sorts.

I tend to collect some kinds of coins that are "outside" the realms of pocket change to begin with, such as counterfeits (contemporary and modern), ASEs (bullion and proof) and silver 5 Bolivares (basically old Venezuelan silver dollars). These are things that aren't really "spendable" as it were, and are in a very separate category.

However, the majority of my current interest is firmly rooted in finding things "in the wild" via pocket change, CRH, and circulating counterfeits, so the line here is much more blurry. Some of these pieces are worth "taking out of circulation" (i.e. as ninamason said, they "cease to have value as spending money") where others are simply fun to hold and fun to spend (for example: halves, $2 bills and dollar coins, which I both "collect" and do business with daily).

Me too so put that one down, I want it first.
I collect coins, all sorts, all dates, all types as long as they are coins. And some that aren't too.

trout105, I call my sets "complete", but they are never finished.
The next "upgrade" is always to be found out there, somewhere ...

That is so true. I started collecting coins from change a long, long time ago. Then slowly started to purchase coins to improve the overall condition of Albums. This slowly turns into an obsession to make a set as perfect as possible which is almost impossible. There is always a coin out there that is a little bit better, somewhere.

gaelic_femme, I don't think that's silly at all. My favourite coins are from the late 30s through mid-40s--coins my grandparents may have received for penny candy or carried across the ocean and back as lucky pieces during WWII. Even though I know the odds are that none of the coins I have ever actually sat in my grandparents' pockets (and even though there is 100% NO WAY to know for sure), I feel more connected to them holding those dates in my hand, as though a piece of them--the very young part that, by necessity of genetics, I never got to know--lives on in those pieces of metal. Is it possible that the Mercs and 1940s wheaties I own might once have boarded a train with my newly-enlisted grandfather at Union Station, still a few months shy of his 18th birthday and already on his way to Nagoya, Japan? My grandmother's nickname, "Penny Pretzel," came from the pennies she would ask for at the roller rink to buy her favourite snack and is so associated with her that to this day, twelve years after her death, you can visit her grave and find half a dozen pennies laying on the stone--were any of my pennies ever passed across a counter by her hands? Did she ever throw one of my 57's or 58's in a jar to save up for the baby, my mother, she had on the way?

I don't think your reasoning is silly at all. I think at heart, it's why a lot of us collect--there's more to history than battlefields and leaderships. Who knows--your half-crown may have been spent by, among other people, Oscar Wilde and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Wouldn't it be amazing to know it was part of the payment received for A Study In Scarlet or The Portrait of Dorian Gray? These are the what-ifs that make the hobby exciting.