Any coin collectors here? (old man / nerd alert)

[culturejam]

Just curious to see if there are any coin buffs here.

Both of my grandfathers got me into coins way back when I was maybe 8 or 9. And I still have all the coins and currency they gave me.

I stopped collecting in late middle school and didn't get back into it until this year. Long break, right? 

There are so many things you could collect coin-wise, even just focusing on US only. So I've narrowed my collection targets to a *relatively* small group of items: Morgan dollars, Barber anything (dimes, quarters, halfs, etc), Mercury dimes, V nickels, Indian head pennies. That's about it for now. Wish I had the cash to get into fun odball stuff like 2- and 3-cent pieces, but you gotta have some limits, right? 

So what about you guys? Any coin hounds in the group?

[jprizz]

I got started by me grandmother telling me to look out for a special penny - the double die 1995 pennies. Was lots of fun hunting for one, going to the bank and trading cash for rolled coins to search through. Found tons of wheat cents, some war nickles, a handful of silver coins and even a buffalo nickle and a Mercury dime. There was a coin shop near where I worked at the time that I would frequent after paydays. (worthless side note: this was Tom Noey of the infamous Ohio Coingate scandal's coin shop) When my dad caught wind of what I was into he dug out his collection from his childhood and turned it over to me. I never knew he had one so it was pretty cool to dig through what he had. Now I have a family and a hundred other interest that all demand my funds so I'm pretty much done trying to finish my twentieth century type set that i was trying to collect, well at least until I'm old & retired...

[bcalla]

I never really caught the bug myself, but my father funded his retirement with his coins back in the pre-401k days.  Also, I worked in the local hobby shop through high school & college, so I bought and sold coins there.  It's an interesting hobby.

[culturejam]

some war nickles,

Damn, I knew I left something off my list! 

I always check my change for 90% silver. For those of you reading this who don't know, dimes and quarters minted before 1965 are 90% silver. After that, they are 0% silver. Right now, silver dimes are worth about $1.30 and silver quarters are worth about $3.25.

And war nickels are those minted between 1942 and 1945. The gov needed the nickel for the war effort, so they made the nickel coins from 35% silver during those years. All other nickels are worth basically nothing from a precious metals perspective, although many do have numismatic/collector value.

[alanp]

When NZ changed coin sizes (I forget when), I saved a set of the old ones. The old fifty cent piece was fairly large!

[jtaormina]

I have a small collection. Some wheat pennies, various coins from around Europe before the euro, China, Korea, Japan (used to travel for work) and Various other coins of age/size from the US. My old man has a nice small collection of really old US coins. Havent seen it in years. My mom inherited a huge coin collection from my great grand parents that's loaded with coins worth a ton. I've only been allowed to see it one time. It was quite impressive from what I can remember.

[culturejam]

I've been a total dime whore lately. 

Just got this in a trade: