The Person Who Started Me In Numismatics

The Person Who Started Me in Numismatics.
I have thought about subject since I joined CCF and wanted to write about WHO actually got me started in Numismatics. This is my 200th post and I thought it was an appropriate time. I apologize for the length and tried to make it as short as possible but some details I felt compelled to add.

I am 46 years old now and this is my recollection of my grandfather complied from my grandmother (before she passed) and my mother about the collection he left for me. My grandfather lived in Lake City, Florida. He was older even from my first memories of him, born in 1898. Lived his entire life there and passed away in 1989 which is astounding considering how he lived and what he did throughout his life.

He became a boxer around 1917 and we believe his record was 38/3. He spent 4 years fighting but it took a lot out of him, partially blinding him in the left eye and numerous dislocations and breaks. I have found out that boxing then was quite different than what I watched on television as a kid considering equipment and medical knowledge.

His work on automobiles around 1925 and would refit them to carry more weight and boosting the engines capabilities. This led to him working for groups to "transport" whiskey between the states; this of course was during Prohibition. There were some "issues" with State Police in Georgia and that ended this part of his life. I found some "documentation papers" wrapped up in quarter rolls, but that will be another post . Telling my mother I was writing this, she did not want this included but how could I tell his story without it. How many people can say they actually had "bootleggers" in the family.....

My grandmother and he married in late 1930, my mother was born in 1933. He took a job working on the intrastate railway lines building the tracks that would eventually become the railways of CSX. He worked for this company for around 12 years which took him up and down the east coast which is when he really started collecting. There were many accidents working then which caused more damage to his body, legs and left hand.

They were very frugal and saved enough money to buy land near Lake City. Then WW2 came so he ended up in the war, with his knowledge of engine and motor design he ended up reconstructing engines. He was wounded several different times during the war and was hospitalized twice.

After the war he came home and built a warehouse to start working on machinery. He became a repair technician with Wurlizter (jukeboxes) and Gottlieb (pinball machines). He added to the property and built a warehouse that could house all of the machines. This is the time his collection really started.

Now, I can actually comment because my memories of him start around 1972. His warehouse was around 20,000 square feet which as a kid looked bigger than the Pentagon. As children, my sister and I thought it was the best place on earth. We could go play on any of the 100 or so pinball machines that were in there. We always had our favorite ones to and were so very sad when they were removed the following week. The maintenance issues revolved around electrical or the coin slots becoming jammed. He saved bags of all the different coinage that people would shave down to fit inside so they would not have to use their modern coinage. He was not the collector that many are here on CCF, his was quantity versus quality.

We would 2 or 3 weekends a month, playing the machines and drinking Yoohoo and Orange Nehi's. These were the only drinks he EVER kept in the house. He lived in the warehouse; had built a retaining wall with a small kitchen and bath. My grandmother ended up buying property nearby because she was tired of living in a warehouse. Now it was even better, we had the warehouse to play in and then an actual bedroom to sleep at night.

Granddaddy liked his whiskey and gave us a little sip now and then. My mother would yell at him, he would just laugh and say never again (at least until the following week...). I never, and I mean NEVER saw him without a cigar. One day in 1977 he gave me one of his highest grades IHC, it was an 1862 I believe around MS60. He always told me to keep it safe, don't rub it or try to clean the coin. So I kept it in a plastic container and have it here with me as I'm writing this.

During the next few years he would show me coins that had jammed in a machine. He said people would use obsolete coins in place of what was being used at the time. There were many "Love tokens", IHC that were ground down to the shape of a dime and so on. He also had many cent rolls from the bank near the warehouse.

I went off to college and was away for most of the time during the last part of his life, college was 2000 miles away. My mother called in September of 1989 and told me he was in the hospital and was being moved to hospice. He had cancer for years and did nothing until he finally collapsed. He had ALWAYS told me "don't trust the government, doctors or anyone who says he is a lawyer". He hated doctors, hospitals and never went until it was too late to try anything. I came back home and went to hospice, I brought him the IHC he had given to me so many years before. He couldn't talk at this point but we just looked at each other and held hands for a while. I came home and would spend the next day with him, an hour after I was home, my mother called to say he had just passed away. That night all I could do was think about how I should have talked to him more. He had so many experiences and knowledge, but we all have had those times in life when someone leaves us, we should have talked more....

I had started my first company here, worked 7 days a week for 14 years then sold it. I then worked for a company which had me traveling throughout the world. I visited 41 countries over 9 years seeing more than I could have ever dreamed. I met my future wife on one of these first trips. All this time those bags of coins were just sitting at my mother's house, completely forgotten about.

In 2009 I started having medical issues, which became worse over the next 3 years. I had been a health nut all my life, running 4 and 6 miles a day, no alcohol and ate very healthy. My Grandfather drank like a fish, smoked constantly, was wounded everywhere and I'm falling apart. I just kept thinking of how he lived his life and lived so long. I was forced to stay at home when I remembered about all those bags that Granddaddy left. I could do nothing else, so I thought now is the time to start on this project.

I brought it up to my mother and she finally agreed that I could start going through them to divide them between my sister and I. There were a total of 8 bank bags, each weighing between 30 to 40 pounds, although we never actually weighed them. I thought we had just hit the jackpot! I saw these old coins and knew must be worth millions. I opened the first 2 bags and emptied them out in the living room (my wife was ecstatic about that!). The first two bags were almost entirely War Nickels. I thought, well.....nickels, at least they are worth 5 cents each. I bought a few books then started going to each coin store within driving distance to see what I could learn and who I felt the best dealing with. Of course I learned what War Nickels were. The next few bags contained more nickels as well as many rolls of dimes (Roosevelt, Mercury and Barber), quarters (Washington, Liberty and Barber). Then the "Christmas" bag was opened and this is when I fell in love with the Capped Bust coins. There were many Capped Halve dollars from 1811 to 1838, there were a few that made XF the rest G to VF. The gold coins were also in this bag. There were also plastic bags that were disintegrating inside the bank bags (all of you please stop cringing) containing quarters, dimes, IHC and others. All just loose together in a bag banging around together for however long they were in there. There were some key coins in higher grade which I'll post on later. There was an entire bag of his local bank wrapped Wheat cent rolls. The last bag was a mixture of Silver Dollars, Twenty Cent Pieces, large and Half Cents and 2 and 3 cent coins.

I joined CCF on October 1, 2011 after looking through site after site, and have enjoyed the time here so much. Every day, I would read posts here trying to increase my knowledge. 2012 was very rough, but almost every single night I read even though I could not type for a while, narrators can look back as I "disappeared" for about a year. I thought about all that Granddaddy went through to get these coins, and how fortunate I was to be able to have them now.

Blessings come in many different forms. I had made great money from my company but our medical bills continued, escalated and I was forced to use part of the collection to sell at a few of the LCS. I am glad that we have as much left of his collection as we do, however I hate myself for selling what I did as I have learned what they were worth on fair market and 2 stores really took advantage of someone who had little knowledge.

There are members here such as SuperDave, Moe, JBuck and many, many others that have some of the most amazing coins I will ever see and it motivates me to work on our sets and lean as much as I can. I still have more to go through, so every day I am still sorting and cataloging as much as I can, when I'm not reading posts here.

All of us have coins we have collected which mean so much to us, they ARE part of the family. As much as I have hurt for 4 years, I would not trade my IHC or the first Capped Bust halve (1811) that I pulled out of that bag for anything, not even the 1894 s Barber dime that was posted here a few weeks ago. I don't know what lies ahead but I know I can still work on completing my sets for the next generation with the great start that my Grandfather left for me.

I thank each of you for reading this (far too long) story and hope to hear stories from some of you here. Coins are not just our nation's history but our family's history as well.