It’s too bad that budding young coin collectors missed out on the opportunities I had when I first started collecting coins. It was 1970 and believe it or not you could still find silver coins in change from time to time even though the US Mint stopped producing them in 1964.
I used to go to the bank on Fridays after school because they were open later that day with ten dollars and get two rolls of dimes and then go outside and look through each roll for silver coins for my collection. After doing this for awhile I got to the point where I could tell a silver coin just by looking at the coin’s edges and when I saw that familiar grey edge stand out in the roll my heart would jump a little as I never knew what coin was waiting for me.
Sometimes it was a run of the mill 1964-D that was so plentiful back then they were almost a nuisance but every now and then you would strike gold, I mean silver, and come across a Mercury dime in pretty decent shape. Jackpot! I would always replace the coins I kept with the same number of clad dimes being that I was an honest lad and would go back inside and exchange them for two more rolls.
At first the tellers wondered why anyone would do this and I think they suspected that I was trying to short change them but after explaining to them that I was a coin collector and that I replaced the coins I took out they were more than happy to help me. I think people were more trusting back then as they never bothered to count the rolls I exchanged.
I would always wonder why someone would turn something like a Merc into the bank instead of saving it but I guess it’s no different than the time a girl in my junior class sold me 10 silver dollars for the grand total of $10! She didn’t care as she was just going to spend them on lunch and I was more than happy to buy them from here for exactly her asking price. Unfortunately not being as astute as I am today I quickly sold them to another collector for $11 and patted myself on the back for making 10% on my money in just a couple of days.
My dad also helped my budding hobby out by having a bartender friend save out any silver coins he got in change and every week he would pick them up for me. I would get these for face value but some weeks there were several dollars worth of silver coins and I had to actually turn them away because I didn’t have enough money to buy them. I’m not sure what my Dad did with them but I think he might have kept them for himself after giving me first crack at them.
It’s been years since I got a silver coin in change and even though I understand that they haven’t been made for over 40 years it’s too bad that someone that is just starting to collect coins has to buy many of the coins I used to get at face value for their collection.
Maybe collecting the new state quarters provides the beginning collector with the same thrill I got when I was just starting out but in all honesty I have never really liked the clad coins and don’t think they are anywhere near as good looking as the silver coins I grew up with. Oh, how I long for the good old days of coin collecting!
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