Collecting Coins - A Tradition Continues

Collecting Coins
A Tradition Continues

For those of you that read my essays regularly, you will know that I have wrestled with why having two grandsons at my age and after dancing with death a couple of time is so intriguing to me. However, that is the entire reason. Part of it is that I am reliving my childhood. Bud Oakford LINK use to go around handing out brand new pennies to the kids in the Oakford family. When I got a brand new shinny penny, I was delighted. That was nearly 70-years ago. When I saw Bud a couple years ago not long before he died, he was still giving out money to family and friends. However, now it was brand new one-dollar bills. This is a picture of Bud and me as he is showing me the chocolate coating machine that I used over 60-years ago. If you look closely, you can see the one-dollar bills in my pocket. One was addressed and signed by Bud for Jack and the other one was for me.

Description: Bud showing me the old coating machine

Therefore, it was not long after receiving the shiny pennies that I took up collecting pennies. Over the next several years, it morphed into collecting all the minted US coins. Back in those days, the coins were placed into blue folders. Today, the folder are more artsy, especially after I added some extra pictures on the coins on the front of their folders.

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A couple of weeks ago, Jack and Owen got the folders above and a roll of pennies. Thus began their collecting pennies. The following picture is Owen busy filling in the pennies...without regard to the matching the penny with the date on the folder.

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Owen is three. He understands that the folders are to hold the pennies; he just needs a bit more time to understand connecting the date of the penny to the date in the folder.

Now, Jack is five. Those two additional years allows him to get into the collecting with both earnestness and determination.

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Jack is using a magnifying glass and his headband flashlight to read the dates on some very old pennies. Owen watches Jack and decides that he needs to use his headband flashlight.

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The following week:

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The following week:

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In keeping up with one of my mentors, Bud, I hope that I will be able over the next couple of years to give away $100 bills to my kids, grandchildren, and friend here and abroad. Pennies impress only Jack and Owen.