Your Motivation For Coin Collecting

When I was about 12 my grandfather gave all of his coins and paper money to my mother and when he did he showed them to me. I was instantly hooked. I went thru all the coins and put them in holders, dated them and the current value on them. I didnt have the money to buy any coins and didnt have any luck finding them like my grandfather had, he would buy change from people at work without looking at them and then inspect them when he got home. by the time I was 13 my coin collecting days were over. now I'm a 26 yr old disabled veteran with alot of time on my hands. about a week ago I accidently clicked on a link that brought me to the US Mint website and started thinking about the coin collection that hasnt been touched in 13 years. one coin in particular. an 1891 Morgan dollar. its stuck in my mind all these years because on the eagle side it has an extra letter on it. all by itself. its the letter "E" so I started picking up a few proof sets here and there and looking into this Morgan dollar. however I havnt found any like it or even close on the internet.. so if any of you have an thoughts or info on that I would appreciate the help.

Good question. I've been collecting since a very early age.

I'm motivated in large part because of the historical aspects of the hobby (assembling a Civil War era type set, etc).

Also, the variety is overwhelming, nickels, dimes, quarters, dollars, cents, Half Cents, Walkers, Barbers, SLQs, gold, silver, seems endless.

I think the underlying love of money is a great motivator. Not to say I worship money, I don't. Just as someone can love a first edition, a historic car, technological accomplishments, etc., I just love money anc collecting it.

As a kid I was interested in coins because they were pieces of history. I used to imagine what things were like when my large cents and Indian cents were minted. Today I'm attracted to the beauty of the coins I collect and enjoy acquiring coins I could only dream of when I first started.

I don't think I've ever found out why accept that they are made of metal usually, and I've always been fascinated with metal. I still am. I'm still picking up pieces of junk in the road. I have sugar containers all over the place full of pieces of scrap metal that I have no use for.

I like tokens, medals and coins, but I've never been able to get interested in paper money, or stamps or trading cards. I even lost interest pretty quick in military post cards that I was buying for awhile to go along with my military tokens. The only pattern here that I can see is they are not metal.

I once bought a coin club medal made from leather. I thought this will really be neat because it's different. No, it wasn't. Not made of metal---borrrrring.

Well that would explain why Paris was following me around in the mall last month when I left the coin show. I though she was in jail?

Another reason I always liked was that maybe a coin collection is a fantasy (a major fantasy in my case) of the perfect society: happy Individuals living in the Collective. But then that should be true any kind of collection, so I'm still back to why coins?

Another way to drive my wife nuts.

My grandfather had put together a blue Whitman folder of Lincoln cents, for my two brotthers and myself. One day, when I was 10, I found it, and thought it was cool.I went right out with my allowance for the next few weeks, and bought the Wjitman folders for the Jefferson, Roosevelt, Washington, and Kennedy, and started those. I have evolved from Whitman folders, to 2x2 squares, to Dansco albums. I am also started on every denomination, and type of U.S coin.

I still enjoy the hunt, so a few years ago I started buying the Mint sets, along with the Proof sets to keep my sets as high a condition as possible, I started in on my drothers collection. I still have to fun of searching through my change, and have uncirculated sets. It's kind of the best of both worlds.