When I was eight years old, my father reached into the top drawer of his dresser and handed me an 1832 half dollar (which I still have), 1865 three cent nickel, and 1864 two cent piece. "These never did anything for me," he said. "Maybe they'll interest you." Sixty years later, I guess they did.

My sister and I would spend two weeks in the summer with my grandparents in Yachats on the Oregon coast. Grandma had a gallon jar filled with pennies (this was 1961). On trips to Newport for groceries, we would always stop at the five and dime for an activity. Grandma bought the Whitman penny boards and turned me loose with her penny jar. A collector was born. Six years later, Art Johnson, a CPA with an office behind my dad's Texaco station, insisted that I join the ANA. I did in November 1967 and the rest is history.

In 1961, when I was 9, I was in the checkout line with my father in the Wildwood Shopping Center's Peoples Drug Store in Bethesda, MD, when he was given an 1835 dime in change. He noticed it because it was larger than normal. He knew a neighbor collected coins, so we looked it up in his Red Book that night. (I still have the coin.)

Next, at summer camp (in Oakland, MD, near Deep Creek Lake), a counselor took us boys to a coin shop, where the proprietor had us look at what was in our pockets. I had a 1919 cent and was told it was worth a nickel. (incredibly exciting) For 1961 Christmas my mother bought me a paperback U.S. coin book (which I still have, falling apart, but it's in storage). That got me hooked on "checking change." A year later I inherited half of my grandfather's foreign coin collection. He was from Poland and used to ask foreign-born coworkers for coins from their home countries.

Then my mother started bringing home coins from her world travels. The collector brother of a neighbor heard about my interest, and sent me an assortment of foreign coins which included several heavily worn Spanish colonial silver coins from the 1700s. Richard S. Yeoman’s Modern World Coins, and a few years later, William D. Craig’s Coins of the World 1750-1850, obtained from the coin department (Mrs. Webb?) of the Woodward & Lothrop department store at Friendship Heights, Chevy Chase, MD, were revelations. It all snowballed from there.

My collecting was a direct result of my Navy service, which lasted for 24 years. It started in 1968 as I was transferring out of Japan to an assignment in Germany. I had kept all my Japanese pocket change in a 3-pound coffee can which was almost full after a year and a half. Toward the end, I took out one of each denomination and date then spent the rest on one huge Sayonara party. Living on the Continent for 3 years only built the collection which continued expanding as I went to new places. But it was after retirement that the collections took a new direction into medals, elongateds, woods, ancients, clubs, and many other things, but the best one of all is all the numismatic friends I have made over the years.

When my second grade class was doing "show & tell", a classmate brought an 1817 large cent that belonged to his grandmother. When I held it in my hand, I wondered why it was so large, and only worth just a "penny"? It didn't make any sense compared to the Lincoln cents I had in my pocket. Then I wondered who had owned it? The "8" in the date made me think about the past owners of the 155 year old coin.

I wanted to maybe get that cent, so I went with my classmate several blocks to grandma's house after school. She showed me others from the 1850's (I also wanted one of those), along with the shiniest 1958 "penny" I had ever seen. She told me it was from a proof set (whatever that was). We made a deal that I would rake all of the leaves from the yard "until they were all gone from the tree" for the 1817 "penny". My first job took the next several weeks on Saturday mornings. After I got the 1817 cent, I then went to the local coin shop downtown, purchased a "Redbook", and started collecting.