New Member From Montana

Hi from Big Sky country!

I've had a passing interest in coins for as long as I can remember. My father always had a modest assortment of coins, but he wasn't a true collector. He just tended to hold on to uncommon circulating pieces - wheat pennies and the odd half-dollar, mostly. I never cared too much about collecting either, but I picked up the habit from him of hanging on to anything I stumbled across that was unusual.

A few particular customers at my job tend to pay their transactions with dollar coins to get rid of them. I also have one guy who routinely brings me Kennedy half-dollars and Ike dollars. I started trading them out for paper bills and now it's become enough of a thing that those customers make a habit of saving these coins to trade to me. I also have one elderly customer who, per her own words, collects pre-1980 pennies for their copper content (notwithstanding she's incorrect as to how much copper they actually contain), so for her sake I've gotten into the habit of pulling them aside for her, as well as singling out wheat pennies.

There's nothing overly special about any of these coins, of course, but I have a thing for the relative novelty of atypical large-denomination coinage. A few days ago I pulled out the bowl of coins I've accumulated to look at them more closely and the next thing I knew, I was researching the history of their production.

And now here I am, a budding serious collector. I've been educating myself hard and fast on beginner basics; ordered a copy of the most recent edition of the Red Book and bookmarked the most informative articles I can find on getting started.

I'd heard of most of the different denominations, but I've been surprised by a few, such as half-dimes. Since it was dollar and half-dollar coins which sparked my interest, I'm going to focus on developing a collection around them, but there is a particular half-dime that really got my attention while I was digging through an online marketplace the other day, so...

At any rate, here I am, a bright eyed and bushy tailed new member, eager to cultivate my new numismatics hobby!