And Now I Am A Coin Collector

So my youngest son has decided he is a numismatician. Apparently, this hobby has fallen to the point where spellchecking does not recognize it. But he has been watching YouTube videos on different errata coins and their value. He has gone to the bank to buy rolls of coins to look through and see if he can find a rare coin amongst them. So to encourage him in something that is mostly off the phone or video game system, I took him to a coin and stamp show at Relics this weekend.

They had a special program for the youth, where not only did they get a little sack with a couple of low value coins in them and a five dollar voucher to use at the booths, but they also gave him a quiz worksheet where he could stop at certain flagged booths for the answer, and when he filled the worksheet out, he got another three dollar voucher for a total of eight bucks in free coins, essentially.

I was a proud poppa, impressed that he knew most of the answers on the worksheet without having to ask the people in the flagged booths. And he could talk to the collectors about the different patterns in paper currency that made them valuable for collectors.

But among the various things I accumulate, I have never felt called to gather coins. I mean, as a kid, I had some folders that I think started out at my mother’s with pennies from the wheat back era. I might still have those, as a matter of fact, nestled amongst photo albums. And although I have some foreign notes (and, as I mentioned, previously owned a collection of foreign coins which I sold a long time ago). I considered getting a couple of collectible folders so the boy and I could do them together, but I have not acted on them.

And then we came to a booth with foreign currency. The man behind the table told us that he used to collect American money, but when he turned fifty, he started to collect foreign coins instead. And I looked into one of his cabinets and saw Japanese coins from 1868, and I thought, “That’s the Meiji restoration period.”

So they got me. Not just foreign money, but historical coins. So I bought a couple.

I bought three Japanese coins from the Meiji Restoration era (1868, 1881, and 1883) and a well-worn Roman coin. I looked through the Roman coins–the ones at this table had later emperors on them. I did see a nice coin with Marcus Aurelius on it at another booth, but it was $95, and I am neither far enough into the hobby to warrant it. In times when I am feeling flush with cash, I might have bought it, but we’re not in that period now. So I forebore.

So they saw me coming. Well, probably not, but I am definitely interested in historical coins. I mean, Tom Cruise’s character from The Last Samurai might have handled these coins! Well, no, but when I’m reviewing the history of Japan or ancient Rome, I will have bits of the history to touch.

Now, let’s see how much of a collector I actually become. Most likely, not much, as I don’t think I’ll go to coin shows on my own. But one never knows.

Also, I have learned that people collect smashed penny souvenirs that my son has collected from an early age, and I saw numerous video game and other tokens on tables, so there’s some market for those. Which is good, as I have a box full of tokens from various arcades that closed before I used the tokens (or changed over to electric card readers). Maybe I can realize some value in them. But not much.

WAIT A MINUTE. Clearly, I am not a keen-eyed coin collector, as I see in previewing this post, where the photo of the coins is larger than actual size, that one of the Japanese coins is from 1668 and not 1868. So from the Tokugawa Shogunate period, not the Meiji restoration. Ah, well. Still cool.