But so many things, so little time — I am definitely not very good with a camera. I take plenty of pictures, but almost all of them are for articles like this or a snapshot to help me remember something. …

Rare coins can be a hobby and an investment, right? — The picture above is of a U.S. coin made in 1851. It had the purchasing power of $2.50 and was known as a “quarter eagle” because a ten dollar gold piece was called an eagle. It is 90% gold, 10% copper, and weighs 4.18 grams. With gold at around $2,000…

Let’s strike a new design and date on a perfectly good old coin — You might never have had an Indian Head cent as change unless you are an old codger like me. It’s a pretty coin, isn’t it? It’s what our pennies looked like until the Lincoln Cent replaced that design in 1909. But wait — that coin in the picture is from…

Or maybe not — When she dumped the coins on the counter and shoved the newspaper ad at me, I knew I had a problem. Mike was offering to buy average circulated coins, these were junk: corroded, clipped, some had been drilled for jewelry. I couldn’t pay that price. Collecting coins is not as…

Greed and politics as usual. — I wrote a bit about the politics of silver in Morgan Silver Dollars, and promised there to write a separate piece about America’s Trade Dollars. This is that story. I have glossed over quite a few details and left out most of the politics to keep this story short and…

A story of money, politics, bimetallism, and war. — When I was a young boy in the mid-1950’s, banks still had silver dollars. You could walk in and trade paper dollars for real silver coins. You could spend them at any store; some cash registers even still had a slot for these. But paper bills were what people used…

Should you happen upon a Sacagawea Dollar from 2000 with a “P” mintmark, it could be worthwhile to flip it over. There are two varieties of this year that have a high value to coin collectors. — You may never have seen a Sacagawea Dollar. They were only in circulation for a few years, produced in the hopes that a long-lasting coin could replace short-lived dollar bills. The public disdained using them, and they are now only in U.S. Mint Proof Sets.

Why would you make counterfeit nickels? — This story may seem strange to you. You might not even believe it, but it is true. Counterfeit nickels were made in 1954 and the man who made them was quickly caught and sent to jail. It’s actually not quite as strange as it sounds. A kid with a nickel…

A tiny piece of New York History —

That was no lady, that was Liberty herself! — You may not be old enough to have ever seen a Standing Liberty Quarter. Even if you are my age or older, you may never have noticed that Lady Liberty was standing bare chested on some of them. That design only was made in 1916 and part of 1917. …

Not to mention corruption, politics and hoarding! — The story of the first U.S. five cent nickel coin includes corruption and politics, money supply and hoarding. Add to that the fact that even one of the people most in favor of its production called its reverse design “a tombstone surmounted by a cross and overhung by weeping willows”. …

All these people and nobody is interested? Really? — What the whatever? Medium has hundreds of thousands of readers, I’m told. Or I think that was what I was told. It doesn’t matter, there are a lot of you and it baffles me that all my attempts to get some of you interested in my Collectibles, History.. …

The first coins of the United States — Not many of us can afford to own examples of the earliest U.S. coins. Mintage figures were often very low and some are so scarce that it is difficult even to find pictures of them, never mind have an opportunity to own. By the way, many of the coin pictures…

Trials and Corruption — The coin pictured below is a pattern piece. It represents a proposed design for a five cent coin. In the Judd catalog system, it’s known as J-633. As patterns go, it’s not particularly rare, listed as an R4 (76–200 known). Nor is it expensive, typically selling for around $1,200 to…

When coins had intrinsic value — On September 9th, 1963 the price of pure silver hit $1.293 per ounce. That was a new record for the 20th century and it caused a problem for the U.S. Treasury Department: coins in circulation were now worth their face value. …

The Colonies produced their own coins before the United States existed —

The Year Without a Summer or Eighteen Hundred and Froze To Death —

Rebuilding my Grandfather’s Coin Collection — Some of what follows is conjecture. All is subject to the imperfections of my memory, but the whole of it is truth, at least as well as I know it. As the title implies, it has a little bit of genealogy in it, but that’s not my main interest. We…