*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. Previous forum: US Classic and Colonial Coins ***Instead of asking my typical newby question, I thought I'd see if there is interest in a philosophical discussion. Indulge me while I tell part of my collecting history:
I started collecting in 1962 or '63, when I was five or six, and my father gave me a large jar of coins, some Whitman folders, and told me to have at it. I took to it like a fish out of water. It was like a never ending puzzle. It became my childhood passion. I even wrote a fifth grade report and oral presentation on the
Flying Eagle cent. Everyone laughed when I said "Furtwanger."
By the time I was ten, I had assembled from circulation a complete second folder (1941-'64) of Lincoln cents. Complete, except for that pesky '55s. After searching unsuccessfully, I finally went to my first coin shop and bought my '55s for fifty cents. My folder was full!
A little later, my father bought me an expensive Whitman album. I was thrilled. I immediately began transferring my coins to the album. Then I saw it. THE HOLE. It said 1955 dbl die obv beneath it. I had never heard of it, or even knew what it meant. But I soon found out. I also learned it was unobtainable.
That hole seemed to stare at me mercilessly for years. Finally, I bought something called a "poor man's double die". I never could see any real difference from a regular '55, but it filled the darn hole. Another unobtainable Lincoln considered to be part of the "full set" was the 1922 without mint mark.
Ever since, I have had an antipathy to mint errors, and by extension die varieties. Yet it seems I see more and more double die and overdate coins contained in lists of complete date and mint mark sets. I have a fallacious reason for not viewing these coins as belonging to a full set: they were never designed to look that way by the designer. But the real reason is that way back when it was something I could never have, I resented it for being an unsolvable part of the puzzle
So I don't collect these. And that is one of the great things: each collector can decide what to collect. And "these things " that I don't choose to collect are all things that were never designed or were never intended to be minted. The latter category would include the famous, but unlawfully issued 1913
Liberty nickel, the iconic 1804 silver dollar minted some thirty years later and not intended for circulation, and all restrikes. What do they really all have in common? Prohibitive cost.
I must admit that as a boy, I felt the same way about the 1909s VDB. It too, was something I thought I never could afford. I don't own one now because I really don't want one as I am choosing to collect older coins than the current "dead presidents." Still, I refer to it disdainfully as "that silly penny" and I use its mintage as something of a benchmark for judging rarity, particularly with 20th century coins. I feel a little warm and fuzzy inside when I buy a rarer coin for a lower price I.e., 1921, 1921d Walkers plus a myriad of coins from the 19th century. For type collecting purposes, I choose to view the VDB cents as little more than die varieties. I have dozens of priorities higher than finding a nice 1909VDB cent.
I don't mean to denigrate error and die variety collectors. Some of the most intriguing coins I have seen have been some very wild mint errors. I thoroughly respect the research and scholarship that goes into matching die varieties. It's just that neither is my personal thing.
So, I've said a lot here. If my opinionated rambling provokes any thoughts, I'd be happy to know them. If you get to the end of this and perhaps rightly decide it's mindless drivel, I thank you for for your patience in bearing with me to the end.
Posted 10/17/2018 6:14 pm
