I Gave My Kids Proof Sets For Christmas And...

This is a great thread; thanks for starting it, DylansDad. This evening I spent quality time with a six-year-old and an eight-year-old; their mother is a former student of mine, and she often drops by after picking them up from their father's place here in town. I had said something about the bag-searching that I do, and she said that she was sure that they'd enjoy that, too, which flabbergasted me. So I picked up a 3-pound coffee can of foreign coins from my local coin shop, and they had a blast going through the 19 pounds of coins and picked out a dozen or so each that they could keep. I identified the coins for them, told them what they might be worth or had been when they were circulating, and they both seemed to enjoy the experience, educational as it was. Just shows you that coin collectors don't have to start up in your own family, and perhaps the kid next door might be a potential collector (just don't show him where you keep the gold, lol).

Gift giving is what pulled me into this at the moment. I got a silver "happy birthday" bar for someone this summer and that started me looking at silver coins and bars.

First of all, Neil, I would love to be your neighbor because my kids would love the coin sets.

Second, I love to hear stories like this. Right now I am writing this post while my 6 year old is looking through my change to put quarters in his new "coin book". He has such a love for this and can not seem to get enough of it. I have slowly been giving him some of my doubles, older books and partial sets, I just wish I had his collection when I was growing up. If some one I knew helped me like I am doing with my son, then who knows where my collection would be today. Now, if I can just teach him value so he does not keep telling me how he needs the 1909SVDB.

Wow I wish you were my neighbor.
My dad is not interested in coins so I usually have to take the train to the city if I want to go to some coin dealers.

I'm on this forum mostly on Saturday and Sunday mornings before everybody is up. I read your story and enjoyed it tremendously! My youngest daughter on 13 years ask me why I collected coins, and I told her that each coin is of a imagine capture on the year that coin is minted. Part of our nations history. Her reply - I can understand that.