Unexpected Find In My Closet

During the holidays, I pulled out a box from my bedroom closet. It contained a whole bunch of miscellaneous coins, paper money and stamps that I hadn't looked at in a long time.

After I finished gazing with wonder at the Civil War fractional currency, I moved on to a small bag of coins that my Uncle Len (1907-1988) had given me in 1987. In it were a lot of Canadian coins as well as a small helping of U. S. coins: several common date V nickels and Mercuries. But then I hit the mother lode: an 1802 large cent, an 1838 large cent and a 1907 Barber quarter! As you can see, the two large cents are in not bad condition while the quarter is pretty wiped out.

Numismatically, I know these aren't any great shakes. But I enjoy anything from the 19th century, and I don't have many Barber coins. I must not have looked at this bag very closely when I first got it, as I would have definitely put these coins aside. It was an unexpected delight to find these and realize I had had them all along (over 40 years!). Or, as my Uncle Len used to say, "It was really swell."