Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Coin-foo
Faux moral outrage over a slug of metal
One of my favorite coins is the Standing Liberty Quarter, which enjoyed a run from 1916 to 1930, only to be supplanted by the ever popular Washington Quarter. Here’s the Standing Liberty:
As a kid, I possessed a low grade Standing Liberty, one so worn I could only make out Liberty’s silhouette and the general outlines of the obverse. To me, it looked like Liberty was hitchhiking out on Main Street, or perhaps trying to pull tricks. Imagine my surprise when I finally saw a high grade 1917 Standing Liberty and realized she was showing a wee bit of boob.
With a jeweler’s loupe, you can make out the vaguest hint of nipple. Her breast looks well suckled, certainly not one of the pert silicone boobs we’ve come to expect in the last 40 years. She’s undeniably 100% woman (which is more than I can say for a lot of Liberties over the years — check out Barber’s Liberty, for example). And she was too much women for some Americans of the time.
Religious leaders had a Holy Cow, calling the coin “filthy” and “obscene” and whipping their flocks into a frenzy. Heaven help us all if little Jimmy got hold of both a quarter and a jeweler’s loupe. Organized protests of the immoral bit of metal forced Congress to commission a change in the, um, change. Designer Hermon A. MacNeil obliged.
Not shown: Liberty's chastity belt
He gave Miss Liberty a chain mail shift.
Hmm . . . sexier legs, too. That dog.
I’d buy lots and lots of these if I could, but they’re fairly expensive in the higher grades. Guess I’ll stick to my Jefferson nickels.
D.
Collectors
I’ve been bottom-feeding on eBay, snapping up modern-date proof coins for a fraction of their book value. It’s a sleazy job but someone has to do it. I don’t know whether a high grade proof quarter from the mid-90s will ever appreciate in value, but if I buy it at 25% book, I’m unlikely to lose money.
It’s a curious thing, what some folks collect. Yesterday, I asked a young disabled patient what he did with his time. He told me that he trades, restores, and customizes Hot Wheels. I described to him the one Hot Wheel I remember from my childhood: something Mod Squad-inspired, a metallic green sports car with a glass (plastic, actually)-topped cabin and an exposed engine on the hood. Instantly he knew which one I was describing, and even named it.
Blew me away. I never would have been able to recover that name, but the moment he said it, I knew he was right. Meet the Beatnik Bandit.
In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been so surprised by his quick recognition. It’s a distinctive car, after all, and 1968 was the first year of issue for Hot Wheels. Not knowing the Beatnik Bandit would be like a coin collector not knowing the Booby Head Coronet Large Cent.
And here I thought I knew what a booby was.
Some people are collectors, some aren’t. I wish I had saved all my various collections because they’d have had considerable value by now. My 1975 Topps Manny Mota card must be worth —
$2.49? And not even a single bidder? Maybe my baseball cards wouldn’t be worth a fortune.
My collection of Orange Crush bottle caps surely must be worth . . . $0.99? And no bidders.
I’ll stick to coins.
D.
I knew it had to happen eventually.
My coins have gained in value, and some have beat the inflation rate. That’s assuming I would ever sell the damned things, or could get a competitive price for them. I never intended them as an investment, except perhaps one of those “let’s leave some cool things for the grandkiddies when we die” kind of investment. But, still, it’s nice to know my purchases weren’t entirely foolhardy.
Coins are beautiful.
My fascination began at around age 8, when my dad’s mother gave me some old coins (some American, some international) she’d been saving in her safe deposit box. The coolest of the cool were the large cents my dad had acquired while cleaning out the basement of some museum in Boston. Acquired, not stole, since he was told he could keep anything interesting he found in the basement.
Or at least that’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.
He found a whole jar of Indian Head pennies, which somehow disappeared. Perhaps his brother took them? No one knows. (Not quite as heartbreaking as the mysterious disappearance of my father-in-law’s centuries-old samurai sword, but still . . . And besides, that sword would have ended up with Karen’s brother, so it’s not like she, the youngest daughter, would ever have had a shot at it.)
Those large cents are nearly worthless, since I think the best of the lot is in Very Good or perhaps Fine condition. But it sparked an interest. For a long time when I was little, I would get rolls of pennies, nickels, and sometimes dimes from the bank, and pore over them looking for “finds.” In those days it was common to find wheat ear pennies (but never an Indian Head cent), and you could even occasionally find a buffalo nickel or Mercury dime in circulation. Rare, like once-a-year kind of rare, but always exciting.
The first thing we did when we got married was, we bought a pet snake. And one of the first things we did when I started earning a real paycheck (paltry though it was), was to buy a few coins. I didn’t have much money to put into coins, so it’s not like I shelled out a lot of cash.
Jake does not share my fascination. I showed him the coins when he was very young and impressionable, except I don’t think he was ever impressionable. He didn’t care for them. I showed him the coins tonight, and he looked at them for all of about two minutes. Or less.
I’m not sure why I fell out of the hobby. I think it’s because I got swindled by a couple of dealers and sold coins for much more than they were worth. As hobbies go, this one punishes the ignorant most severely. If I do get back into it, this time I’m going to do my research, and not simply buy coins ‘cuz they’re pretty.
D.