Friday, July 17, 2009
Collectible Currency Things
At Things, most of us are collectors. Nearly everyone who works here collects someThing. I collect almost everyThing. My grandfather introduced me to numismatics--also known as coin collecting--when I was just a kid. We'd dig through bag after bag of unsearched coins looking for a rare find--like a minting error or a coin that would complete a series he'd been working on.
I drove myself bonkers trying to collect all the state quarters as they were issued. I even started asking friends and family to empty their pockets so I could look for the missing state for my collection. My sister told me, "these quarters have become a sickness with you," but she's always saying dramatic stuff like that. Then, one day we were both standing in line at a sandwich place and, without even thinking about it, I asked the complete stranger in front of us he had the South Dakota quarter in the change he just got from the cashier. My sister rolled her eyes at me with that "I told you so" look on her face. The next day--thoughtfully or selfishly--she bought the whole collection for me. As a gift. For no reason. Now I have all 50 quarters in uncirculated condition, plus a mounting
board that even has a place for the territory quarters.Gramps was always on the lookout for the Million Dollar Nickel. We'd have piles of nickels spread out on his card table and he'd tell me about the controversy surrounding The Liberty Head Nickel. It was first issued in 1883, without any text that indicated the five-cent denomination, and it didn't take long for some unscrupulous folks to cash in on the mistake. The most famous was a deaf-mute named Josh Tatum, who allegedly gold-plated the nickels and passed them off as five dollar coins. The popular story is that Tatum wasn't convicted for "joshing" about the coins because no one could testify that he had said anything fraudulent. But the story doesn't end there. In 1912, the mint was ordered not to produce the nickels in 1913--they were supposed to wait for the new Buffalo nickel design. So how and why did five (or maybe six) 1913 nickels get into circulation? Nobody really knows, but the last one to surface--in 2007--sold for $5 million!
Admired for its medal quality artwork by James E. Fraser, the Buffalo Nickel is a favorite among collectors today. But it wasn't always that way. Though it was first issued in 1913, the coin-collecting public didn't develop a serious interest until 1931, when the San Francisco Mint was the only one to produce the coin (1931-S). In 1932 & 1933, no Buffalo Nickels were minted, which further fueled speculation that the coins might one day exceed their face value. And serious collecting began.
This half pound bag of vintage silver coins is a perfect intersection of beauty, history and value. It includes the last silver dollar ever minted in the U.S., the Peace Dollar. In good condition, it's worth a lot more than a dollar. In fact, the last one I saw on an auction web site was ungraded, but it still sold for over $40! In this bag, every .900 pure silver coin is guaranteed to be of highest collectible quality. Many of these coins haven't been seen in circulation for decades--this complete set might be the last available. Anywhere.
Unsearched bulk coins are a great way to jump-start a collection. We make it easy with a full pound of unsearched pennies--148 of them. Each pound is guaranteed to contain one first-year-of-mint 1909 penny that could turn out to be one of the rare coins with the sculptor's initials, VDB, which could be worth as much as $3,000.Million Dollar Nickels and Thousand Dollar Pennies aside, coin collecting isn't something most of us do to make money. It's a hobby that connects us to our history and our culture. Coins and the stories behind them reflect the politics, the popular artists, and the collective mood of the time. To me, that's what makes them priceless.
See you next week,
Bobby
Posted by Bobby at
5:00 AM
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