Old Timers Please Share Your Coin Collecting Stories And Beginnings

I read this thinking that it was from a young person because of the tittle. I have been collecting for more than 30 years but thankfully I am not an "old timer" as I am younger than the OP.

Jim, I could write a book on it but will just cover the start. And I resemble that "old" remark.
My grandmother got me started at age 10 in 1957. She gave me an old leather change purse she had full of old coins that she had saved over the years. Included were many Indian cents and Liberty Head nickels. An 1853 arrows Seated half dime, 1844 Large Cent, an 1893 Columbian Half she actually got at the World's Fair, many older foreign, mostly mid to late 1800's, and what she always referred to as her Confederate Half Dollar (1925 Stone Mountain). I recently gave that purse to my son and most of the coins that were in it to pass on to my grandkids.
So my interest was started. Next step was to go to the local F.W. Woolworth, "Dime Store" as we referred to general stores back then and bought a .35 blue Lincoln Cent coin folder (with Dad's money). Now the hunt, checked my Dad's change when he got home from work each night (that was free money to me), Friday it was off to the bank to spend my .50 allowance for a roll of pennies to sift through. This was the late 1950's so almost every date was available in circulation. However, I never did find an SVDB or 14-D. California was S Mint country so it was easy to pull all the better date S Mint coins from circulation. One day we did a visit to my Great Uncle's, a CPA in Hollywood CA. He had a giant jug filled with change. So I got to sift through it looking for coins I needed. Anything I already had I passed on (not the brightest move), 11-S, 12-S, and so on. He also had many Buffalo nickels in it. So time to start those. Luckily my private banker was there (Dad) to fund my coin finds that day. I worked on both of those sets for several years. Cents and Nickels were about all I could afford on .50 a week. I did save a couple weeks pay and bought my first Silver Dollar one Friday night at the bank, an 1879 Morgan. I couldn't believe a coin that old was still circulating. Unfortunately, that was a high value item so I didn't keep it very long.
That pretty much sums up my start. And that Great Uncle also got bite by the coin collector bug after watching me sift through all his change.
The 1950's and early 60's were really great fun for coin collectors. Things were easy to find and cheap to buy if you needed to. It all seemed to change in 1964-65 with the end of silver coins.

I was about 10 years old when I started collecting about 1960. The 1960 small dates had just been discovered and I heard my uncle (the coin collector in the family) talking to my Dad about it. I showed some interest and my uncle asked if I wanted to help him go through a bag of nickels he had borrowed from the bank. Well that Friday evening I sat down at the kitchen table at my aunt and uncles house and started looking through rolls of nickels.

My uncle give me a list of what dates to look for and to pull out all buffalos and wartime nickels.

The best coin I found was an AU/Unc 1939-D Jefferson. The last time I saw it was that night in 1960.

Fast forward 50 years to 2010 and I visited my elderly aunt and uncle. Naturally the topic of coins came up. I askd my uncle if he remembered that 1939-D nickle that "we" had found that night so long ago.

His answer: "Remember it? I've still got it!" I asked him if I could see it again or buy it from him. He told me he'd dig it out of his safe. About 6 months later he called me and told me to come and get the nickle. I made a beeline to his house and the nickle was still as pretty as the day I found it over 50 years ago.

Sadly, both my aunt and uncle passed away about 3 years ago within a few months of each other. They were well into their 90's and had been married for 75 years.

The nickle now resides in my office in a frame above my desk as a daily reminder of where it all started for me.

Jim, in high school it was girls, coins, girls, sports, girls, and school work.

Another story....

I was a 12 or 13 year old kid that helped my Dad on his wholesale milk route during the Summer in the early 60's. He paid me $1 per day and $5 on Saturday. My weekly wages were 10$. I would save as much as I could and once I had 20$ I headed to the bank.

I would go to our local bank in Texas and get a 20$ roll of silver dollars and hope to get a scarcer "CC" Morgan or a better date Peace dollar. I'd look through the roll and pull out the best coin I found and take the other 19 coins back to the bank. Even then, the rolls were loaded with 1921 Morgan's and 1922/23 Peace dollars.....(at least at the bank I went to)!

In later years I heard from an elderly friend that worked at that bank (head cashier) that the officers of the bank would order bags of silver dollars from the Dallas Fed and sit in the conference room and go through the bags when they were delivered.

No wonder I never found anything "good"!

The CRH's were very active back then, too!

Great stories!! Even though I am only 14, I can tell a story! Right! Not a long one, but everyone in my family got the bug from their father. My mother stole my fathers Ikes when she was a kid to buy candy. (oh if Jbuck hears this)!! I got the bug from my father, who faded away from the hobby when he became a powerlifter (national champion) in the 80's and even more when he became a stock trader in the 90's. But he got the coin bug from his dad and grandfather and so on. My dad remembers a bit, but doesn't remember it all.

Wow, thanks Mox, really means a lot to me.

I was at Primary School (Americans would call it kindergarten) in 1965 when our teacher, Mrs Davis, told us that some pennies had lighthouses on them and some didn't. These of course were the big old English pennies. That started my interest, as I began to look at the dates on the coins and the monarch's portraits on the other side. In those days, 'bun' pennies of Queen Victoria, dated 1860 to 1894, were occasionally found in circulation, and the Veiled Head pennies of 1895 to 1901 were quite common. 50% silver coins dated from 1920 to 1946 could also be found easily, but pre-1920 92.5% silver was rare.

I remember being very excited when my parents gave me a Churchill crown, and having mixed feelings about decimalisation: I was excited about the new coins, but sorry to lose the old ones.

There were lots of local coin shops in those days, with most medium sized towns having one or two. Stationery shops often sold Whitman coin folders or small albums (with PVC pages!) for coin storage. There were three or four monthly coin magazines and newspapers often ran articles about rare coins to be found in change. After 1971 it all rather faded away and I don't remember much interest being taken in the new decimal currency until the Olympic 50 pence coins were released in 2011.