Posted 12/02/2012 7:36 pm
The coins were all collected in Texas. He was a druggist and owned a store. At closing every evening, he and my grandmother would go through the register and pull any old coins. In addition to the culling the cash drawer, people would bring him interesting coins and trade. He may have gone to coin shows too, I don't remember. The collection was gathered from (approximately) 1930's to 1970. The collection lived in various cigar boxes kept under beds. When my grandparents died a lot of the larger denoms and valuable coins were sold and the rest divided between my mom and uncle. The coins were kept as-is, never really sorted, finding a comfortable home under new beds until now, lol.
As a kid it was great fun going over there and digging through the treasures. During my lifetime I don't recall him actively working on the collection in any way although I guess they were still culling the register (1960's). He may have been more of a numismatist in his younger days, but by the time I was born I think it was more of a habit.
Most of the coins are not as nice as these Indians I've been posting. I think the bags of Indians were never really examined. In piles of raw Indians, I'd say 10% were poor to AG3, 5-6% XF or better, and the rest mostly G-VG. The silver coins are heavily circulated except for those he traded for, and most of those are far from pristine. There are some gold coins, not many, and nothing earth-shattering.
I haven't really assessed all the Barbers and Seateds yet. They're pretty rough. I found ~275 Standing Libs and they're all low grade. Same for the Walkers. Many of the beautiful coins I remember seeing in sleeves and books at his house were sold long ago-- they were probably the more valuable coins. Seems like I recall seeing a bunch of Trade dollars but none are left. Most of the Morgans are gone, only ~30 left, and very few Peace dollars. 31 pounds of buffalos. Ditto for wheats, steels, and lots of War Nickels. 1000 Wash quarters, all circ, ~3000 Mercs, etc. And this is just half of what was left of the collection (Mom's half).
I was bummed that there was only one Flying Eagle cent and in addition to being very worn, someone purposefully scratched up the eagle! Boo!!
Still, it's fun looking at each one and the pile of Indians has yielded some wonderful surprises :)
As a kid it was great fun going over there and digging through the treasures. During my lifetime I don't recall him actively working on the collection in any way although I guess they were still culling the register (1960's). He may have been more of a numismatist in his younger days, but by the time I was born I think it was more of a habit.
Most of the coins are not as nice as these Indians I've been posting. I think the bags of Indians were never really examined. In piles of raw Indians, I'd say 10% were poor to AG3, 5-6% XF or better, and the rest mostly G-VG. The silver coins are heavily circulated except for those he traded for, and most of those are far from pristine. There are some gold coins, not many, and nothing earth-shattering.
I haven't really assessed all the Barbers and Seateds yet. They're pretty rough. I found ~275 Standing Libs and they're all low grade. Same for the Walkers. Many of the beautiful coins I remember seeing in sleeves and books at his house were sold long ago-- they were probably the more valuable coins. Seems like I recall seeing a bunch of Trade dollars but none are left. Most of the Morgans are gone, only ~30 left, and very few Peace dollars. 31 pounds of buffalos. Ditto for wheats, steels, and lots of War Nickels. 1000 Wash quarters, all circ, ~3000 Mercs, etc. And this is just half of what was left of the collection (Mom's half).
I was bummed that there was only one Flying Eagle cent and in addition to being very worn, someone purposefully scratched up the eagle! Boo!!
Still, it's fun looking at each one and the pile of Indians has yielded some wonderful surprises :)
