Realcent.org

This thread is for you to post and update your own personal milestones in the hobby. What finds/sales/purchases/trades stand out most to you?

I'm going to post mine chronologically, and edit the list as I think of more. Cool thing is that a lot of my stuff, I can figure out the date by searching through old posts and threads!

Growing up, my great grandmother would save up her pennies for when I visited. I kept my pennies in a cigar box my grandpa gave me. He used to give me a wheatie a lot of times when they would come and visit me. I had the Whitman penny books when still in grade school in the 80's.
Back in 1997 ... While working at a Clark gas station, I found a truly wild Indian. Bought it from the till.
Summer of 1998 ... I started collecting British coins. Still finding new (and very old) stuff all the time!
Summer 1998 ... Started really sorting through bags of pennies for wheats and Canadian and other fun stuff.
October 2000 ... cashed in over $500 in pennies to pay for my honeymoon.
Sometime in 2001 or 02 ... Started searching halves for silver.
Early 2009 ... Started sorting out copper from Zincolns.
October 24, 2009 ... I joined RealCent. Life has never been the same.
June 4, 2010 ... I found an 1896 Indian, #2 and the first since I started sorting copper.
September 2011 ... Bought my first gold, from BEAUANDEROS.
January 2012 ... Bought a really nice 6oz pyramid ingot from MARKET HARMONY - the largest silver I own.
February 2012 ... Bought a Ryedale, from BEAUANDEROS.
May 22, 2012 ... Sold my first coppers. Refined the idea of the $18 face mini-CTU.
May 2012 ... Found my third wild Indian, a 1907. This one in the Ryedale zinc pile!
August 8, 2012 ... Got a bank bag with 1,244 wheats viewtopic.php?f=7&t=16879
September 25, 2012 ... One of my mini-CTU's was featured on coinflation. viewtopic.php?f=7&t=18345
November 2012 ... Bought a $5 gold commemorative for $200 - less than half of melt.
December 3, 2012 ... Found my fourth wild Indian - a 1901. (this coin was the catalyst for creating this thread)
December 24, 2012 ... broke even on the Ryedale purchase price from sales of copper.
January 16, 2013 ... Found my fifth wild Indian - a 1906.
January 17, 2013 ... Found my sixth wild Indian - a 1902. TWO DAYS IN A ROW!
March 2013 ... made my largest copper sale, to a RealCent friend.
March 19, 2013 ... Got a bank bag with 576 wheats! Five bags this week all had 40-70% copper.
March 26, 2013 ... Got the next bag to drop, with over 100 wheats, including 38 DIFFERENT pre-40s.

More to come! What about all of you?

Well, a lot of early ones I don't remember exact years since I was a kid, but roughly.

Late 60's - early 70's.....started collecting coins and saving any silver I found, I was somewhere around 10 years old.
Mid 70's.......bought my first gold coin with money I earned myself, a $100 Republic of Panama Balboa.
Mid 70's.......started buying misc. silver poofs from Franklin Mint.
During the spike in 1980.....as a college freshman I made a ton of cash (for a college freshman in 1980) acting as the middle man for kids in high school who were cleaning out their homes of silver and gold and were not old enough to sell it. Ok, MAYBE it wasn't totally legit, but I was charging 50% of the proceeds for my services and I'm sure the statue of limitations has since expired.

No real milestones during the rest of the 80's and 90's that I recall - just picked up stuff that caught my fancy.

2001.....decided it was time to go heavy into pm's and bought then added to it each month since, sometimes alot and sometimes just a little, but made sure I added something even if it was just one coin.
Early 2010.....started handsorting at least a box of pennies a week. I hit $1000 face in copper then slowed to doing them only when I don't have halves to sort.
April 2010.....joined realcent.
Mid 2010.....after seeing folks sorting halves here I started myself - really wish I thought of it years ago.
Sometime in 2011.....found my oldest coin sorting - a 1838 half.
July 2012....sorted my 1000th box of halves and it just so happened that I found my first Barber in it.
Aug 2012.....turned 50, and according to my kids I'm officially an old fart. It's not coin related, but since they started it I use it against them. Them: Why do we have to do that Dad? Me: Because I'm an old fart, that's why.

I figured this would get more replies than this. Thanks for participating, BamaJoe! Anyone else want to step up?

Hi everyone - I started hand sorting pennies exactly one year ago this week. In that timeframe I have sorted an saved 12 Brinks boxes of US Cu and 1 Brinks box of Cdn Cu. In addition I have filled a 1 lb Hersheys Cocoa can with wheat cents found during the search.

My highlight so far has been 3 IH's found over the course of the year - 1 in XF condition

Franco American wrote:Hi everyone - I started hand sorting pennies exactly one year ago this week. In that timeframe I have sorted an saved 12 Brinks boxes of US Cu and 1 Brinks box of Cdn Cu. In addition I have filled a 1 lb Hersheys Cocoa can with wheat cents found during the search.

My highlight so far has been 3 IH's found over the course of the year - 1 in XF condition

That's a nice wheat/IH to copper ratio... and Canadian...

Bump.

A long time ago, before I ever had an Internet connection, I started saving
copper pennies. Got up to something like $80 but then had to take them to the bank
because I was broke. I was copper before copper was cool!

Once I bumped into Realcent I was back on board.
Hit $1000 in hoarded cents last year and haven't looked back.
Being able to afford it has helped too!

In 1997 I started an ambitious project - accumulate a solid roll of each Jefferson nickel by date and mintmark. My source was the casinos here in Las Vegas, which provided the best opportunity to search. Simply put bills into a machine, cash out, search, repeat. I kept detailed records of when each roll was completed. Some are still works in progress, some of course will never be finished, but here are the current results, by date of completion:

58D - 1/11/99
59D - 2/11/99
57D - 2/22/99
41P - 8/11/99
54D - 9/7/99
40P - 9/29/99
46P - 12/8/99
56D - 1/22/00
39P - 2/18/00
47P - 3/16/00
55D - 5/11/00
48P - 8/17/00
53D - 10/5/00
54S - 12/18/00
52P - 2/18/01
49P - 9/28/01
41S - 2/25/02 (Small S) (Five years into project)
52S - 5/14/02
42P - 5/22/02 (Non-silver)
54P - 5/23/02
41D - 7/13/02
57P - 7/30/02
53P - 8/7/02
56P - 8/10/02
47S - 8/14/02
40S - 8/16/02
52D - 10/8/02
40D - 12/11/02
48D - 1/15/03
43P - 2/9/03 (Silver)
53S - 2/11/03
43S - 2/26/03 (Silver)
46D - 3/14/03
49D - 3/25/03
59P - 4/12/03
47D - 6/19/03
51P - 5/1/04
58P - 6/10/04
51D - 6/11/04
46S - 10/28/04
49S - 4/8/05
45S - 12/1/05 (Silver)
51S - 2/24/07 (Ten years into project)
44P - 8/25/07 (Silver)
42D - 8/21/08
48S - 8/25/08
45P - 11/9/08 (Silver)

Incomplete

41S - 36 (Large S)
50P - 30
42P - 26 (Silver)
55P - 22
42S - 19 (Silver)
45D - 18 (Silver)
44D - 17 (Silver)
44S - 17 (Silver)
39S - 16
43D - 8 (Silver)
38S - 4
38D - 3
39D - 3
50D - 2

Proofs

81S - 2
90S - 2

One each: 61P, 62P, 70S, 71S, 73S, 74S, 76S, 80S, 85S, 87S, 88S, 94S, 01S, 02S

Most common buffalo (58 found)

36P - 6

V nickels

1899, 1906, 1912P

Most casinos have gone coinless now so my search frequency has taken a hit in the last few years, but I still occasionally find a keeper. Hope you enjoy checking out my stats.

Las Vegas' last casino to feature one cent slots closed in Jan 2012. Until then it was open season for all kinds of great finds. Here's the last survey I did. It began Jan 1st 2008 and I tried to see how long it would take me to find 71 of the 140 wheat dates (not counting varieties) or more than 50% of the series. Here's how it went:

1/3 - 44P, 48P, 52S, 57D (4)
1/5 - 38P, 45P, 50S, 51D, 52D (9)
1/6 - 46S, 56D, 58D (12)
1/7 - 35P, 40S, 41P, 45S, 47D (17)
1/13 - 36P, 47P, 48S, 54S, 57P (22)
1/15 - 10S ( ), 46D, 53S, 58P (26)
1/16 - 19P (27)
1/18 - 36S (28)
1/20 - 42D, 46P, 48D, 51S (32)
1/22 - 53D (33)
1/23 - 55P (34)
1/27 - 42P, 43S (36)
1/29 - 13P (37)
1/30 - 20D, 39P, 54D, 55D (41) [More than halfway there in one month! ]
2/1 - 34P, 37D, 44S, 51P (45)
2/2 - 44D (46)
2/5 - 26P (47)
2/7 - 40P, 49D (49)
2/9 - 49P, 54P, 56P (52)
2/10 - 41S, 50P (54)
2/17 - 41D (55)
2/24 - 50D (56)
2/26 - 29P (57)
3/4 - 40D, 52P (59)
3/7 - 47S (60)
3/9 - 17P (61)
3/11 - 45D, 53P (63)
3/16 - 42S (64)
3/28 - 55S (65)
3/30 - 37P (66)
4/8 - 49S (67)
4/27 - 27P (68)
4/29 - 35S (69)
5/18 - 33P (70) [Half the series, woo hoo!]
5/27 - 37S (71) [Finished in less than five months!]

Results:

Everything found from 1940-58 except the 43P & 43D steelies, which normally didn't show up in slots since the internal magnet usually catches them. Don't know how the 43S made it thru.

20 of 86 pre-1940 found.

Lowest mintage: 1910S (6 mil) A real shocker!

Highest mintage pre-1940 no-show: 1920P (310 mil)

Earliest PDS: 1937

Lucky 7's: Found 1917, 1927, 1937, 1947 & 1957

After that point, did you continue the search? Ever find an Indian?

uthminsta wrote:After that point, did you continue the search?

No, I took a breather after that. What you don't see in the above numbers are the trips I took, mostly near the end, where I got nothing new. As great as it was searching, I needed a break from the smokers, the drunks, the noise, etc. It was fun, but exhausting.

uthminsta wrote:Ever find an Indian?

Not during, but weeks later when I got my wheatie urge back, I found two in quick succession, 1900 & 1901. I'm sure some Canadian interlopers made their presence known too, but I just didn't keep track of those this time. I have a much more comprehensive 100,000 penny survey from 1996 that I could post the results of, just gotta find the stats.

THE APRIL HOARD

On Dec 12, 1996, I walked into my fave casino like any other day. Went to my bank of penny machines and saw the intriguing sight of a young woman feeding pennies into a slot machine from a rather large ziplock bag. When someone is using a container other than the casino's own cups, it usually means they brought in their own coins to dump. So I sat down next to her and casually noticed all the pennies were rather brown and worn, and my heart skipped a beat. I struck up a conversation: "Those look pretty old" and she was friendly and said "Yeah, they were my grandfather's" and my heart skipped another beat. She looked to have about $3-4 left in the bag so I offered $5 for it, telling her I was a coin collector. She readily agreed and said something that haunts me to this day - "I wish I had met you sooner, I've shoveled a bunch of these into this place." After I recovered from that, I thanked April (after we introed ourselves) I took the bag of coins out to my car and went back in to play the machine she had vacated. That night, I tallied the single biggest haul of early wheaties I could ever hope to find in the wild.

09VDB - 6
09P - 2
10P - 5
10S - 4
11P - 6
11D - 1
12P - 2
12D - 3
12S - 1
13P - 6
13D - 4
13S - 2
14P - 5
14S - 1
15P - 1
15D - 2
16P - 10
16D - 3
16S - 1
17P - 8
17D - 2
17S - 7
18P - 13
18D - 5
18S - 6
19P - 13
19D - 7
19S - 7
20P - 8
20D - 8
20S - 7
21P - 6
21S - 9
22D - 1
23P - 3
23S - 6
24P - 10
24S - 7
25P - 10
25D - 2
25S - 5
26P - 8
26D - 4
26S - 4
27P - 11
27D - 1
27S - 8
28P - 9
28D - 7
28S - 11
29P - 9
29D - 1
29S - 14
30P - 6
30D - 7
30S - 6
31D - 1
32P - 1
32D - 2
33P - 1
33D - 4
34P - 9
34D - 1
35 - 1
38 - 1

...and nine more post-1940. Conditions were AG-F mostly, but a few VFs were sprinkled in. Every pre-1935 date/MM was present except 09S, 09SVDB, 11S, 14D, 15S, 22Plain, 24D, 31P, & 31S. Over the next several weeks I'd still pull an occasional early teen, but never in the numbers I got that night.

DUDE! Close your eyes and try to imagine someone sitting at the penny slots... popping those keys and semi-keys out of grandpa's Whitman book... poking them in, one after another....

That's essentially what she was doing.

I think I would have fallen all over myself trying to calmly, and with some semblance of composure, convince her to hand them over.

When I was young I remember my grandparents coin roll hunting but never new it then. Later on they were buying all kinds of silver and gold jewelry at garage sales for dirt cheep.

uthminsta wrote:DUDE! Close your eyes and try to imagine someone sitting at the penny slots... popping those keys and semi-keys out of grandpa's Whitman book... poking them in, one after another....

That's essentially what she was doing.

I think I would have fallen all over myself trying to calmly, and with some semblance of composure, convince her to hand them over.

That's a pretty good description of how I felt Aaron. Coupled with the realization that every minute I hesitated, more went into the slots, with the potential of being scratched up by the coin hopper's metal feeder fingers. *shudder* And there's this unwritten casino etiquette rule - you don't bother people while they're playing, especially about the money they're playing with. If you do, more often than not you'll get a suspicious look and/or the person moving away from you lol. I lucked out, but I still wonder what I would've found if I had been there even an hour earlier.

coindood wrote:THE APRIL HOARD

On Dec 12, 1996, I walked into my fave casino like any other day. Went to my bank of penny machines and saw the intriguing sight of a young woman feeding pennies into a slot machine from a rather large ziplock bag. When someone is using a container other than the casino's own cups, it usually means they brought in their own coins to dump. So I sat down next to her and casually noticed all the pennies were rather brown and worn, and my heart skipped a beat. I struck up a conversation: "Those look pretty old" and she was friendly and said "Yeah, they were my grandfather's" and my heart skipped another beat. She looked to have about $3-4 left in the bag so I offered $5 for it, telling her I was a coin collector. She readily agreed and said something that haunts me to this day - "I wish I had met you sooner, I've shoveled a bunch of these into this place." After I recovered from that, I thanked April (after we introed ourselves) I took the bag of coins out to my car and went back in to play the machine she had vacated. That night, I tallied the single biggest haul of early wheaties I could ever hope to find in the wild.

.

She will someday be a coin collector's widow.
This happens in the USA daily.

1996 One Cent Survey

On Jan 14, 1996 I began a Lincoln Cent project with the objective of searching 100,000 coins, bringing home $10 at a time from the casino. The 100th and last $10 batch was searched on Oct 5, 1996 and here are the results:

Wheats ---> 396
Most wheats in one $10 batch ---> 10
Batches with zero wheats ---> 3 (out of 100, pretty good! )

Distribution
1950-58 ---> 235
1940-49 ---> 132
1930-39 ---> 13
1920-29 ---> 6
Pre-1920 ---> 9
Dateless ---> 1

Dates found (69 of 140, almost half the series)
1941-1958 ---> all except 43PDS, 52P, 54P
Pre-1941 ---> 14P, 16P, 17P, 17S, 19P, 19S, 20P, 21P, 25P, 26P, 28P, 30P, 30S, 35P, 35D, 36P, 37P, 38P, 38D, 39P, 39S, 40P, 40S
Highest mintage no-show (non-steel) ---> 1918P (288 mil)
Lowest mintage repeater ---> 1917S (32 mil)

Frequency
50's ---> 1958D (36)
40's ---> 1945P (15)
Pre-40's ---> 1936P (3)

Canadian
Total ---> 218 (1940, 1951, 1956, 1957, 1962-1995)

Miscellanous
Indian Cent ---> 1898

Proof ---> 1990S

1st 1996 cent ---> Feb 15th, batch #15 (D mint)

Counterstamped Cents ---> Lincoln/Florida (1975P), Lincoln/Kennedy (1974D, 1979D), Lincoln/Kansas (1991P), Lincoln/USA/Liberty Bell (1975D)

Denver Mint Set Insert token

Foreign ---> Panama, one centesimi 1968, 1975, 1978, 1987; Jamaica, five cents 1969

One milestone that seems very odd to me is this-

Just this weekend I found a 1943-S steel cent in a roll of pennies. It was the first steel cent I've found in the wild in decades. That is surprising to me because they made well over a billion of them (over 3 for every person in the US, and lots of them are NOT coin collectors), they're not valuable, they never were melted down in mass (after all, who would melt steel?).

Contrast that with war nickels, where I've found perhaps 20-30 over the same period of time. So I've found much more of the item that is more worthwhile to save/hoard.

Go figure.

Recyclersteve wrote:One milestone that seems very odd to me is this-

Just this weekend I found a 1943-S steel cent in a roll of pennies. It was the first steel cent I've found in the wild in decades. That is surprising to me because they made well over a billion of them (over 3 for every person in the US, and lots of them are NOT coin collectors), they're not valuable, they never were melted down in mass (after all, who would melt steel?).

Contrast that with war nickels, where I've found perhaps 20-30 over the same period of time. So I've found much more of the item that is more worthwhile to save/hoard.

Go figure.

According to Alan Herbert's Coin Clinic:

The Mint began the withdrawal [of 1943 cents from circulation] in 1945. In 20 years they retrieved 160 million, or about 14.9% of the steel cents in circulation. Some 900,000,000 are still out there. Apparently the recovered coins were turned over to private smelters to be melted down. One instance of this was reported in 1959 when the Philadelphia Mint disposed of 1,250,000 of the steelies by giving them to a company which melted them down for the steel content. Using the weight of 2.7 grams, it figures out to 168 cents to the pound, or 7,440.5 pounds. The official word was they were not being withdrawn and it wasn't until nearly 15% were removed from circulation that it was admitted. The coverup apparently was a futile attempt to inhibit "hoarding" of the coins. The coins were removed from bulk quantities of cents as they passed through the Federal Reserve Banks.

Maybe we should all fess up and admit how many we're "hoarding". I've got about 120.

Coindood, years ago my wife once heard me say something about 1943 steel cents and she replied "oh I collect those!" I then asked how many she had, to which she replied TWO (just two!). I then decided to buy her a roll.

Recyclersteve wrote:Coindood, years ago my wife once heard me say something about 1943 steel cents and she replied "oh I collect those!" I then asked how many she had, to which she replied TWO (just two!). I then decided to buy her a roll.

Two is the bare minimum to classify as a collection I believe. Just like steelies, she sounds like a keeper Steve.

coindood wrote:THE APRIL HOARD

On Dec 12, 1996, I walked into my fave casino like any other day. Went to my bank of penny machines and saw the intriguing sight of a young woman feeding pennies into a slot machine from a rather large ziplock bag. When someone is using a container other than the casino's own cups, it usually means they brought in their own coins to dump. So I sat down next to her and casually noticed all the pennies were rather brown and worn, and my heart skipped a beat. I struck up a conversation: "Those look pretty old" and she was friendly and said "Yeah, they were my grandfather's" and my heart skipped another beat. She looked to have about $3-4 left in the bag so I offered $5 for it, telling her I was a coin collector. She readily agreed and said something that haunts me to this day - "I wish I had met you sooner, I've shoveled a bunch of these into this place." After I recovered from that, I thanked April (after we introed ourselves) I took the bag of coins out to my car and went back in to play the machine she had vacated. That night, I tallied the single biggest haul of early wheaties I could ever hope to find in the wild.

09VDB - 6
09P - 2
10P - 5
10S - 4
11P - 6
11D - 1
12P - 2
12D - 3
12S - 1
13P - 6
13D - 4
13S - 2
14P - 5
14S - 1
15P - 1
15D - 2
16P - 10
16D - 3
16S - 1
17P - 8
17D - 2
17S - 7
18P - 13
18D - 5
18S - 6
19P - 13
19D - 7
19S - 7
20P - 8
20D - 8
20S - 7
21P - 6
21S - 9
22D - 1
23P - 3
23S - 6
24P - 10
24S - 7
25P - 10
25D - 2
25S - 5
26P - 8
26D - 4
26S - 4
27P - 11
27D - 1
27S - 8
28P - 9
28D - 7
28S - 11
29P - 9
29D - 1
29S - 14
30P - 6
30D - 7
30S - 6
31D - 1
32P - 1
32D - 2
33P - 1
33D - 4
34P - 9
34D - 1
35 - 1
38 - 1

...and nine more post-1940. Conditions were AG-F mostly, but a few VFs were sprinkled in. Every pre-1935 date/MM was present except 09S, 09SVDB, 11S, 14D, 15S, 22Plain, 24D, 31P, & 31S. Over the next several weeks I'd still pull an occasional early teen, but never in the numbers I got that night.

OMG!! What an incredible story!

We were having a discussion on another thread about the frequency of 1950 nickels. While going thru my old records I discovered another series of lists that provide some persepctive on the most difficult nickels to find.

In 1987 I began a typical search (my first) to see if I could complete a Jeff nickel series from circulation, and after completing it I compiled the top 10 toughest dates to find, based on when I found them, #1 being the toughest. Here are the results from that first search:

1. 1939-D
2. 1950-D
3. 1943-D
4. 1942-P (Silver)
5. 1944-D
6. 1938-S
7. 1945-S
8. 1951-S
9. 1955
10. 1950

Time went by, and in 1997 I decided to do another "survey", sort of a 10-year anniversary of the first one. Interesting thing is, it took three years to complete. Here are those results:

1. 1950-D
2. 1938-D
3. 1942-P (silver)
4. 1942-S
5. 1939-S
6. 1945-D
7. 1955
8. 1944-P
9. 1944-D
10. 1951-S

For some reason I started the next survery a year early in 2006 (was probably itching to see the results). Only thing is, as of this date, it's still incomplete, with the 1939-D & 1950-D vying for the top spot.

1. ???
2. ???
3. 1943-D
4. 1938-D
5. 1938-S
6. 1945-D
7. 1939-S
8. 1942-S
9. 1955
10. 1951-S

Lots of fun stats to glean from the results.

The oddest factoid? The only dates that appear in all three lists are in the 50s: 1950-D, 1951-S & 1955.

The absolute champ is the 50-D, placing either 1st or 2nd each time. The 39-D was in 11th place in 1997.

coindood wrote:THE APRIL HOARD

On Dec 12, 1996, I walked into my fave casino like any other day. Went to my bank of penny machines and saw the intriguing sight of a young woman feeding pennies into a slot machine from a rather large ziplock bag. When someone is using a container other than the casino's own cups, it usually means they brought in their own coins to dump. So I sat down next to her and casually noticed all the pennies were rather brown and worn, and my heart skipped a beat. I struck up a conversation: "Those look pretty old" and she was friendly and said "Yeah, they were my grandfather's" and my heart skipped another beat. She looked to have about $3-4 left in the bag so I offered $5 for it, telling her I was a coin collector. She readily agreed and said something that haunts me to this day - "I wish I had met you sooner, I've shoveled a bunch of these into this place." After I recovered from that, I thanked April (after we introed ourselves) I took the bag of coins out to my car and went back in to play the machine she had vacated. That night, I tallied the single biggest haul of early wheaties I could ever hope to find in the wild.

09VDB - 6
09P - 2
10P - 5
10S - 4
11P - 6
11D - 1
12P - 2
12D - 3
12S - 1
13P - 6
13D - 4
13S - 2
14P - 5
14S - 1
15P - 1
15D - 2
16P - 10
16D - 3
16S - 1
17P - 8
17D - 2
17S - 7
18P - 13
18D - 5
18S - 6
19P - 13
19D - 7
19S - 7
20P - 8
20D - 8
20S - 7
21P - 6
21S - 9
22D - 1
23P - 3
23S - 6
24P - 10
24S - 7
25P - 10
25D - 2
25S - 5
26P - 8
26D - 4
26S - 4
27P - 11
27D - 1
27S - 8
28P - 9
28D - 7
28S - 11
29P - 9
29D - 1
29S - 14
30P - 6
30D - 7
30S - 6
31D - 1
32P - 1
32D - 2
33P - 1
33D - 4
34P - 9
34D - 1
35 - 1
38 - 1

...and nine more post-1940. Conditions were AG-F mostly, but a few VFs were sprinkled in. Every pre-1935 date/MM was present except 09S, 09SVDB, 11S, 14D, 15S, 22Plain, 24D, 31P, & 31S. Over the next several weeks I'd still pull an occasional early teen, but never in the numbers I got that night.

Wow- what a story. Forgot all about this thread, so I bookmarked it.

A few more milestones for me:

Ca. 1978-79: Buying a blank planchet cent for $5, but it was different (thicker) than the others I've seen as it was minted between 1856-1864 (the copper nickel ones). I got it certified by PCGS around 10 years ago and was told it was the very first one they've slabbed. Also, someone offered me $2,000 for it- sorry, but I'm holding out for a lot more than just $2k.

January 5, 1980: It was a Saturday. I had already sold some silver a bit earlier as the price was going through the roof. This time I decided I needed to dig deeper and pulled out even silver dollars to be sold. I sold all I could except for really good dates. I convinced my brother to do the same. The dealer actually refused to buy from us and pointed to the 20-30 bags he had sitting around because they wouldn't fit in his safes. After I reminded him that I used to clean his toilets (true story), he relented and said "Ok, but you two boys are the last that I am buying from." I took the proceeds and bought five new suits with all the accessories. My average cost on that silver was around $3 an ounce or so.

May, 2004: Went to a local bank on a Friday afternoon and struck up a conversation with a teller about coins. She said she had a bunch of old halves. I asked to take a look and they were almost all 40% silver halves. I ended up getting 461 silver halves.

July, 2007: I finally decided that I better set aside some silver (even if it is just a single coin) on a monthly basis. With the exception of perhaps 2-3 months, I've added to the stack every single month since then.

1/20/13: Joining the RC community at 3:59am. Why was I up so early?

This is a GREAT topic for a thread.