Coin Collecting

Several years ago I worked at a Barnes and Noble cafe. We had some wonderful regular customers. One couple was Al and Eileen (two mochas extra hot). I don't remember how the conversation first came up but one day I started talking to Al about coins. There is something about a tiny piece of metal surviving for years and all the history it survived through that just catches my imagination. I had a few mercury dimes and wheat pennies. Well about a week later Al came in with a surprise for me. He had a tube that had in it several buffalo nickels and wheat pennies. And that was all I needed to start a collection which has grown beautifully. Some coins I have been given, some I have bought and most I have found. The best find was a liberty head nickel in a coin star machine. You see, the older coins often have a different makeup/weight and so the automatic machines reject them.

I can't say for certain which coin is my favorite. I can name my top four: The peace dollar, the mercury dime, the buffalo nickel and the flying eagle cent.

More about some of my favorite coins:

The Peace Dollar:

On one side you have the profile of Lady Liberty, the words In God We Trust, and the year minted. On the reverse is an Eagle sitting on a rock with a rising sun behind it, United States of America, E Pluribus Unum, One dollar, and the word Peace written on the rock. The way a coin is judged on quality is often the detail in the crown, hair and sun since these lines will be worn down quickly by a lot of handling and use. The Peace dollar was minted after WWI to replace the supply of silver dollars (Morgan dollars) that were melted and sold to England to support the war.


The Bicentennial Quarter:

There is something about the bicentennial quarter (1776-1976) that I love. I don't know what it is about the Revolutionary drummer on the reverse of the coin but it's uniqueness and honor of our founding catches my imagination.

The State Quarters:

The open books hold two complete sets (minus the Denver minted Alaska and Hawaii coins). The third is now only missing a Hawaii quarter- either mint. Speaking of state quarters how about this pair

My soon to be old home state and my soon to be new home state. I like looking at the individual designs given to each state. I do feel a little bad for the NH quarter which features the Man on The Mountain, which sadly since the coin was minted has slid off the mountain.

The Mercury Dime and Buffalo Nickel:

The larger versions in this picture of the coins are silver pieces commemorating the actual coins. The smaller versions are the real size coins. In a coin store near me I saw miniature versions of these two coins (about the size of a small button) I asked the salesman how much for the minis and he told me they weren't for sale. Personally I was a little annoyed and felt it shouldn't be in the show case if it was not for sale. But had he sold them to me they would have looked great with the large versions. The mercury dime was my first favorite coin. The image of winged liberty was at first mistaken for the Roman God Mercury and the name stuck with the coin. Apparently the coin faced a number of issues when first minted because pay phones (remember those) and vending machines had trouble with them.
The Buffalo nickel shows a Native American on one side and a North American Bison on the other. It was minted from 1913-1938, the minimum a coin can be minted due to an 1890 act of congress. It had a lot of die and cast problems and so no one objected to replacing it with the Jefferson nickel. They are easy to find in coin stores and should be pretty cheap because on many coins the date was easily worn down to the point where many existing coins have no date. Also the hill that the buffalo stands on gets worn easily. For a slight historical note during the depression hobo's (actual engravers also jumped into the game) would take the buffalo nickels and carve designs into them. I have seen one picture where the Indian head has been turned into Santa Claus. The large head and buffalo made this the coin of choice because there was a lot of space to work with. I don't own any of these coins yet but I keep looking. Here are a couple of good examples I found:

The Flying Eagle Cent:

The 1857 coin in the white coin protector was a birthday gift from my sister. This coin was only minted from 1856-1858, it was before the congressional act that required a coin to be minted for a 25 year minimum. These coins were originally minted to not only replace large cent pieces that were becoming to costly to mint but also to replace Spanish colonial coins still being circulated in the US. Other than the fact that I find the eagle in flight stunning my biggest draw to the coin is the history that these tiny pieces of metal have witnessed. I mean when these coins were minted Oregon had just become the 33rd state and Abraham Lincoln had just become president. These coins were minted before the telephone and light bulb were invented and 50 years before the Ford Model T first appeared on the market. Since the minting of these coins America had a civil war,  three presidents have been assassinated, we have had a woman's right movement and a civil rights movement, two world wars, and a great depression.

I don't know what the face value would be of the coins in my collection. I know if I took in to consideration the rise in value and collection value that amount would go up considerably. However, the historical value like I listed with the flying eagle cent is why I collect. The beauty of the designs, the stories they tell, and the events they have survived have a value in and of themselves.

Now as I move south I will continue my collection and maybe some day add some of the rarest coins: confederate coins.