What Are Your Earliest Memories/Experiences With Coins?

First got interested when helping my dad cash up in his shop. So many different designs on the reverses, and different kings on the front, except of course Victoria, some of whose pennies and half pence were worn almost smooth. Th odd farthing turned up, and one or two five shilling pieces. (Dad! What's this?)..

I begin by being attracted to some German coins my dad had in the garage that he brought back from the war. He would let me play with them. Then in 1955 one night my mother came to pick me up from my grandmother's house. She had with her a beginner's coin collector set - a soft bound book on world coins, a little magnifying glass, and a small pack of world coins. I was hooked. In the late fifties and beginning sixties, I would save my allowance from my chores until I had a dollar gathered up. I'd either go with, or give it to my mother when she would go shopping and ask her to look for silver dollars. More often than not she'd come home with a Morgan or Peace dollar, well worn as they may have been. It was still possible in those days to find silver dollars in the cashier tills of stores.

I think that I've told most of this story before. My Mom was a huge collector for most of her life so, I inherited that collection. However, when I was 11 I opened my first bank account. The bank was giving out Morgan silver dollars for new accounts. I still have mine. That was my feeble beginnings of my coin collecting hobby.

My Mom and Dad owned a couple of restaurants in Ohio. Mom collected any silver coins that she found in the register every day.

A cute story... When I was a little tyke, Mom and Dad owned a Diner and ice cream restaurant. A little boy came in one day and wanted an ice cream cone really bad. He handed Mom 24 "pennies" and asked if that was enough money. She looked at the "pennies" and said "ofcourse, yes". The 24 coins were all Indian Head cents! I imagine that a parent might have been upset to find the IHC's missing at some point. I still have all 24 coins.

I thoroughly enjoy reading everyone's stories here! TWO rolls of silver dollars?!?! That would get me goosebumps in a good way!

With me, I was born in the mid-1980s, and in my early teens I found my dad's smallish coin collection when I was snooping for anything of interest. By then, my dad was well out of coin collecting so at that I picked up the hobby there. Boy did it take me a while to get proficient at coin collecting since I was literally the only one in my collecting family who actively got into it. I by now have greatly added to what my dad started by completing several sets and numerous foreign coins plus others.

Really cool stories! I love this thread!!
I remember my mom hoarding any and all silver coins she came across here in Canada. My dad was a restauranteur and mom sometimes handled the cash register. She found lots of coins that she chose to keep in little plastic bags that were tied in a knot. She kept her hoard tucked away and hidden with her valuable gold jewelry.
She often looked at and admired her findings and told us these coins will one day be very valuable!
That was my introduction to coins. When mom passed away in mid 2021, I told my sisters that I'd like to keep mom's coins. They both agreed as they had absolutely no interest in them.
My sister and brother in law are also restaurateurs in Florida, and they too hoarded every coin that they found interesting since 1979. When they heard that I was very interested in coins, they gave me everything they saved. Which was about 8 large plastic (Costco sized) peanut jars which were almost full.
Since mid 2021, I've looked at, organized and researched most of the coins I have. Many are multiple coins of the same denomination and year. So, I've amassed about 12-14 3 inch binders of 2x2s.
I've added a few coins to my collection such as the 2021 Queen Elizabeth collection from the UK, a couple of coins from coin roll hunting in Chicago, a couple of rolls of black toonies and as of last week, at my first coin show in Montreal, several large Canadian cents.
I'm loving every minute of this hobby but I must say, it's starting to take up quite a bit of space.
I'd like to eventually sell or trade some of my duplicates, but I fear I might miss something, as I don't know much about varieties and errors yet. I don't want to sell any coins that may have a greater value than what I am aware of.
Just taking in as much knowledge as I can, for now anyway!

I was born in 1992, and my early childhood coincided with Russia's wild 90s, where coins were plentiful and worth nothing.
However, I have only scant memories of the time before the reform of 1998, when 1000 old rubles became 1 new ruble, and coins were worth something again.

And it's the reform that shows up in one of my earliest coin-related memories: I was at my best friend's house in southern Moscow, and the two of us collectively counted up a large-seeming jar of pre-reform coinage.
Then we proudly announced the result: one and a half new rubles (i.e. 1500 old rubles, or about $0.25 by exchange rate before August 1998).

I don't recall how my collecting started. I know I noticed at some point that there were multiple dates of some new coinage; this might have been in 1998 or 1999. We had a lot of pre-reform (and even earlier Soviet) coins at home and they were fun to play with in various ways.
I remember that in February 2002 my dad brought me some 10 kopek coins dated 2002 (i.e. newly minted), and they were really shiny and pretty to look at! I think I played with them (sporadically) for months. I'm not sure what happened to them later.

The first coin I consciously remember collecting was a badly corroded 20 kopek from 1932. I think it must have been in 2000 or 2001; I'm not exactly sure when.
I've seen a picture of then-contemporary coinage in a math-for-children book by Yakov Perelman set in the 1930s, so when I saw the old coin on a table and decided to check out what this weird black circle was, I recognized the design pretty quickly despite the corrosion.
So I asked my dad if I could keep it and he agreed. (He later told me that it was an unsuccessful attempt at cleaning a coin that started out even uglier.)
And keep it I did; that black circle was still in my collection when I had to leave my home in Moscow in September/October 2022 (so over 20 years later), and I guess it's probably still somewhere in the albums in there and I might yet see it again some day.

Is dsking a married couple sharing the same account?