Barber Half Dollars, a Year Set of Circulated Pieces

2011-06-12T04:07:00.000-07:00

Six Pieces of Silver - A Bust Half Collection

2009-11-05T05:09:00.000-08:00

A Type Set

2009-06-04T07:47:00.000-07:00

This is a lot of fun posting here because it's the first time I have put all these pieces together in one place on the computer. In most cases below, you can click on a picture for a larger image of it. I hope to update this post, and keep it at the top of the blog. Later posts may add some musings, as well as examples of other sets that exist within my collection so far.

Remembering how it all started!

2009-06-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a small cardboard carton and a piggy bank each filled with collectible pocket change. It was long before I collected the coins pictured on this site.

Three early influences led me to fill those bygone containers of coins. It all started in the mid-1970's in Kansas. Around the corner from our tree-lined street in Wichita, we had a neighbor who owned a metal detector. One summer, he and his wife took to inviting me and my younger brother Tim and other neighbor kids to look for coins in their front and back yards. We'd pass that metal detector over the grass and swing it back and forth with him, listening for telltale electric squeals, and doggone it by and by we'd get a hit! He'd dig it up and there'd be something like a small roll of Lincoln cents that we could all share. Then, we'd have the Kool-aid or lemonade that his wife brought out for us all to drink. At the time, we never did catch on that he was planting those little coppers and trinkets just for us. But the thrill of the hunt and the celebration of the catch spurred me on. From then on, I always kept an interest in checking my pennies and keeping the wheat-backs to push into a simple Whitman coin folder. Checking my pocket change once around this time, my heart leapt for joy when I discovered a 1919 Lincoln. It's age astounded me, and I didn't care that there were earlier Lincolns to be found. Finding something that old - 1919! - gave me the thrill of winning a rare prize.

The years and months after that leading up to the Bicentennial were a lot of fun, as was that Bicentennial summer. Lots of colonial history, patriotic happiness, colorful parades, summertime picnics, and for the first time in my young life, coins with new designs were released into circulation. I was twelve that summer of '76. Ever after, I got a kick out of adding to a ceramic piggy bank all the 1776-1976 quarters, half dollars, and Ikes that came my way. Seeing that the reverse of the Eisehhower came in two varieties somehow fascinated me, especially since the version with big block lettering seemed harder to come by than the one with thin lettering. It helped that Tim and I started a paper route in 1977. The previous paper boy did only just enough to get by, I guess, because my brother and I got a big wind-fall of money from folks on our route who hadn't paid their newspaper bills in awhile. The change with which they paid often added to my hoard of bicentennials!

The third big excitement in my early collecting was a small stash of silver coins that Mrs. H gave to me and Tim. She wasn't even related to us. But her son's Grandma Rena was our grandma's best friend, and because of their close friendship, we called her "Grandma Rena", too. So I suppose that made Mrs. H an aunt of sorts to us boys.

Now our grandma lived in western Kansas, in the town of Medicine Lodge, and outside town lived the H family on a big nice ranch, surrounded by big sky. Well, more than a decade before, Mrs. H had gone on holiday to a casino in New Mexico I think it was, and when she came back, she kept at home a small bit of her leftover winnings from the slot machines. Much time passed, until during a conversation in one of our rare visits to their home, she felt inspired to share with us her long-held stash. She felt that we could appreciate what she had saved and held aside all those years. And so out of the kitchen she came, surprising us with a little jar of money. It was probably less than $10 in face value of quarters and dimes that she gave us. But all were coins of shiny silver - like new, they seemed! - and to us boys it was a jar of real treasure.

A Type Set of Mostly USA Coins

Barber Half Dollars, a Year Set of Circulated Pieces

Six Pieces of Silver - A Bust Half Collection

A Type Set

Remembering how it all started!