How Did You Start Collecting?

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John1

I started as a kid in the 1950s when my parents finally trusted me with a 1914 Indian quarter eagle that my great-grandmother had left me when I was born. I quickly graduated to the little blue folders, but really the only ones I could afford to keep were the Lincoln and Indian cents. Back then, it was possible to complete the entire WL Half set from circulation (well worn of course) by spending a few hours sorting at the local bank each week, but the face value was too high to keep them - so I'd just turn them in and start over.

It begins with my grandmother, who died before I was born. She started my father in coin collecting, and after she died he inherited her old Whitman folders. My father got me started in the hobby around the age of eleven. There was a huge flea market nearby, and I was taken in by the huge selection of world coins. My dad's in the army, so I had some coins from his travels and from coworkers of his, and I was enthralled with the vicarious travel of the coins. I started getting interested in American coins after seeing some of the selection available - I bought my first Morgan dollar when I was eleven at that flea market, ad my dad and I have been building our collections together and separately ever since.

At around 6, my grandpa gave me a Wheat cent album to fill. I did fill it and now have started collecting very seriously.

Thanks Carl, I needed that laugh.

How can you possibly find/know all this, Jbuck?

I was at a gun and knife show when I was probably either a senior in highschool or a freshman in college (2007-2008). One of the dealers had a couple of coins he was selling off to the side. I bought an Eisenhower dollar for $3 because I thought it was crazy how big it was and it was the first time I had ever saw one.


Then it really just snowballed from there. I went online and did research, sifted through a jar of foreign coins my parents had collected when we lived overseas, eventually looked up a local coin store and went there to buy a real silver dollar. That visit to the coin star really picked up collecting once I saw how much cool stuff I could pick up for cheap.

Soon I came across CCF and found a wealth of knowledge here. That inspired me to see if there was a coin club in my local city so I could talk about coins with people in the flesh instead of just online. Found a friend there who was also a CCF member (mycrob) and would trade e-mails and stories back and forth with him about coins.

I have been off-and-on about collecting over the years mostly due to what financial circumstances I had at the time, but my collection has grown to the point now where it's going to take some creative planning on how to even store it all...like it needs it's own dresser or something. That $3 Ike dollar has grown to about $7,000 in miscellaneous stuff in seven years.

My dad was out walking one night and a drunk veteran asked my dad for some real money for beer in exchange for some wheaties. There were probably 100 wheaties. My dad gave him 3 dollars for the wheaties and my dad gave them to me. I was not into coin collecting at the time but those coins are what got me collecting. Funny thinking back on it.