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How did YOU get involved in COMMEMORATIVES, Please Share.
OK, I'll bore you for a short time with a few excerpts from my hobby story...
As a kid, my parents got me started in collecting via several Whitman blue folders - nothing unique there!
At some point in high school, my interests turned to sports, cars and girls! My coin collecting was rather dormant.
The same can be said for my time in college. Of course, studying and a lack of "extra" funds also contributed.
After graduating, getting a career started occupied much of my time, but I began to have coin thoughts re-enter my mind.
In 1988-89, I went back to the coin store I frequently visited as a kid and bought a few PCGS-graded
Walking Liberty half dollars as I had decided that I was going to get back into the hobby by assembling a "Short Set" of graded Walkers. What I didn't know beforehand was that the coin market was surging at the time and coins were getting expensive! Too expensive for someone who was starting a career and saving for a new car and a house. Coin collecting was again pushed aside.
When I decided to try again a few years later, I picked up a "
Red Book" and went through it several times exploring potential collecting options. On my third or fourth trip through the
Guide Book I decided that the commemorative coins would be my collection target - I liked the variety that the series offered - even though I did it as a kid, I was never enamored with "filling holes" with the same design year after year.
I first put together a raw uncirculated commemorative Type Set in a Dansco album. Then, somehow, my eyes defied the normal aging process and got better - I decided I needed to update my set to a PCGS-graded MS-63 set. Then, miraculously, my eyes got even better and I decided that my collection needed to be MS-65 or better to be appealing. It took a few years of searching for nice examples at coin shops, in auctions and at coin shows, but I eventually completed my Type Set in grades of 65 to 67 (with a couple of attractive exceptions at MS-64).
I enjoyed reading and learning about the coins and soon found myself building a dedicated library of US commemorative coin titles, including those that were long out of print (published in the 1920s and 1930s).
As I dove deeper into the series, I began picking up its related ephemera - holders, mailers, promotional materials, etc. I also found that I had questions about things that none of the books answered.
This realization led me to start doing a bit of independent research to find the answers I sought. In time, I realized that researching the coins brought me as much (or more!) enjoyment as collecting the coins and offered me more opportunities to "discover" things. I was hooked! My research effort intensified!
From that point forward, my focus was on learning vs. collecting - though a fair number of dollars left my wallet and my collection grew as I always wanted to own an example of the things I was learning about!
I soon became an active speaker, exhibitor and author because I enjoyed sharing what I had learned with others - something I still enjoy doing today here on CCF.
And there it is, the short version of how I "got involved with commemoratives." I could go on, but...
Hope you haven't nodded off!
For a listing of my posts about commemorative coins and medals, including other Q&A posts, see:
Commems Collection.
Posted 06/21/2023 10:42 am
