Read time: 5 min.

I collect a lot of things. Over the years, my shelves and binders have hosted things like basketball cards, century-old Ball jars, and Scandinavian tobacco pipes! Lately, my focus has shifted towards coins. I’m still not sure what I’m doing when it comes to numismatics, but I’ve stumbled into an intriguing new hobby. 

After postage stamps, coins are probably the most commonly collected items in the world. I became interested in them when I was about eight. That year, my dad gave my brother and me each a 1909 wheat penny carefully sealed in a slab. He told us not to open or spend them. As it turns out, 1909 was the year the Lincoln penny debuted. It made history as the first circulating U.S. coin to feature a real person!

Unfortunately, its designer, Victor David Brenner, placed his initials so prominently on the reverse of the coin that it caused an uproar. To quell the controversy, the mint discontinued the VDB pennies just days after their release. Some of those those coins are worth thousands of dollars today! I was blown away to have been gifted such a valuable piece of history, and I fiercely guarded my penny by keeping it tucked safely in my sock drawer. Sadly, I got a new dresser a couple years later. My prized coin disappeared! I couldn’t believe it. “Goodbye, thousands of dollars,” I moaned once I realized it was gone. “How could I have been so careless?”

The loss stung, but my VDB penny wasn’t the first old coin I’d ever been taken with. Dad had a car-spotting game he liked to play when we were driving, and the rules were simple: for every unique vehicle we spotted, he’d reward us with a coin from a Folger’s coffee can he kept in his station wagon. New PT Cruisers or Beetles might have earned us a nickel, while spotting something more unique, like a Plymouth Prowler, was probably worth a quarter. The ultimate prize -a Sacagawea dollar- was reserved for truly elusive cars, like a Plymouth Superbird or a Charger Daytona. We never saw one of those.

Sometimes, the coins were more fascinating than the cars. I eagerly snatched up wheat pennies whenever I spotted one, but every so often, I’d come across an old buffalo nickel or a mercury dime. Occasionally, I’d even find quarters minted before 1965, back when they were still 90% silver instead of a copper-nickel sandwich. All of them intrigued me, but I drifted away as I grew up and other interests took hold.

Well into my thirties, old coins have come right back into the forefront of my mind. A couple months ago, I discovered a pair of wheat pennies in my change. They weren’t my prized VDB, but further research led me down the Wikipedia rabbit hole as I tried to remember their story. Eventually, I decided I could build a new collection as a reward for managing my health. I’ve been wading through some challenges lately, and maybe buying a coin at every milestone could be a meaningful form of motivation!

Some might say that better health is its own reward, but I’m not one of them. With just a couple of wheat pennies to my name, I stumbled across a website offering a $20 starter kit. It included Liberty Head and Buffalo nickels, a Mercury dime, a steel cent, and a handful of ordinary pennies like the two I already had. After some hemming and hawing, I bought it and officially started my coin collection. I stuffed them all in flips and away I went.

I’ve been accumulating coins for the past three or four months. Now, I’m up to an assembly of about eighty that includes everything from a silver 1943 war nickel to a 1954 half-dollar that commemorates George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington. My oldest coin is a Matron Head large cent from 1829, and my newest is a 1987 clad Kennedy Half Dollar, a key date in the series. More than anything, I’ve found myself fascinated with obsolete denominations, from early half-cents to later half-dimes, thrimes, and two-cent pieces.

I’ve bought a few coins online, but most of my pickups have been from the local antique malls I frequented during my Ball jar days. The first time I went looking for coins at the one nearest my house, I almost had a heart attack: there, in the display case, was a slabbed 1909 VDB penny just like the erstwhile one from my youth! I thought it strange that it wasn’t guarded by lasers and tripwire, but then I noticed the price: $16. Not every VDB penny was worth thousands, it turns out, just those minted in San Francisco.

I’m glad the coin I lost wouldn’t have changed my life if I’d kept it. I’m also glad that I’ve been collecting for the sheer fun of it, instead of as an investment. None of my coins are in perfect condition, but I’ve come to prefer those with patina or wear. Maybe that’s just my budget talking, but each carries a story, not just of the mint where it was struck, but of the era it represents, the people who used it, and the hands it passed through. I’m captivated by all of it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I started writing about some of my obscure favorites in the new year.