Last week David Pickup asked, "What is the oldest coin readers have found in their change?" -Editor

"My father and I used to go through bags of loose coins from our local bank in Pasadena, California during the early 1960s. One day after having returned a bag to the bank, we went to the grocery store across the street. When I reviewed my change that afternoon, I found that I had received an 1851 English shilling in place of a quarter. Unfortunately, I lost the coin in a burglary of my apartment in 1980, so I do not have a photo. It was in what I would call fine condition. It was quite the find for me as a teenager."

"I have little doubt but that it got spent out of somebody's collection by a collector who upgraded or rejected it or a close relative without authority to do so, but in 1961 I was in a drug store in Bethesda, Maryland with my father, and my father glanced down at the change he'd just received at the cash register and noticed that a dime was larger than he expected.

"(1835) In my youth I must have cleaned it.

"You previously included my submission of the same (obverse) coin image and story on 03/27/2016. Receipt and study of this coin led to my ongoing obsession with numismatics. Now the coin is a "treasure" to me."

Here's the full story from the earlier issue. -Editor

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.

"Although I started checking closely in 1961, I never came across any "Indian" head or earlier cent, Liberty head or earlier nickel, or any Barber coin in circulation. However, Morgan and Peace dollars were still occasionally being used, maybe by vacationers home from Vegas."

"The query this issue about the oldest coin found in change reminded me of my errant youth and young adulthood, when I worked at Walgreens during high school and college.

"During that period, from October 1996 to January 2003 (just prior to leaving to come to Coin World) I found two Indian Head cents in coinage that came through my cash register, a 1904 coin (auspicious in St. Louis!) and one dated 1899.

"So, at the time, they would have both been more than 90 years old. I also found hundreds of Wheat cents and dozens of silver wartime Jefferson nickels, and the very occasional silver dime, always Roosevelt, never "Mercury."

"I've always wondered what cool finds could current generations encounter to stoke their collecting passions, and Uncirculated Bicentennial coins or State quarters just doesn't, to me, seem to stoke the fires as much as those lovely and lowly coppers, or the glint of some silver."

"The oldest coins I remember handling as a youth were:

• Indian Head and Wheat Cents
• "V", Buffalo, and Jefferson Nickels
• Barber, Mercury, and Roosevelt Dimes
• Barber, Standing Liberty, and Washington Quarters
• Barber, Walking Liberty, Franklin, and Kennedy Halves. (Yea… They still circulated, then.)

"Don't remember handling Seated Liberty coinage nor the large One Dollar coins.

"Guess I am giving away my age; 75 years."

"About the oldest coin received in circulation question in last week's E-Sylum, it was a 1916 Barber dime I got in change 20 years ago at local In-N-Out. The employee looked at it and thought it was Canadian, but I said it was US and he gave it to me."

Thanks, everyone. Great stories. -Editor

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