I Dont Believe This? CRH

[gonepecan]

I Don't Believe This? CRH

My Dad was an avid amateur coin collector. He owned a grocery store all his life and made many weekly trips to the bank. He would bring cloth bags of coins home from the bank for us kids to go through them. Of course we had to re-roll everything but as soon as that was done he would bring another bag full home for us to look through. We looked for anything - pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and halves. I am now 54 years old so I guess I started CRH in about 1960. Until I ran across the article in this magazine I never realized there was such a thing as CRH. To us that was always the way to collect coins. We didn't even collect the silver ones at that time - there was no distinction then except for the war nickels. We mainly sought Indian Head pennies, V Nickels, Buffalo Nickels, Barber Dimes, and Walking Liberty Half Dollars. I once found 6 full rolls of all Indian Head Pennies. V Nickels and Barber Dimes were plentiful. I still have a full set of Franklin Halves along with the Rabbit toothed 1954 D (I think that date is right). Several sets of Jefferson Nickels and Mercury dimes all found by me as a kid CRH. I also have a few sets of Lincoln pennies minus the 1909 S-VDB and the 1914D - I never did find any of those.I stopped coin collecting in about 1970 but my Dad didn't. He died quite a few years ago and he left rolls and rolls of mainly silver content coins to me. He also collected the steel war pennies which you never see any more although I don't think they are worth much.
CRH seems to be much more of a pain in the butt now but I bet it is worth it still. Obviously as older people die they leave coins around and the younger generation don't know their value and spend them at face value which puts them back into circulation after many years of sitting in a cabinet or closet.

Back in 1963 when I was 9 years old I spent the Summer in England with my relatives. My Aunt just happened to work in a bank and she would bring bags of coins home for me to search through. You would not believe the old coins they still had in circulation back then. Many of the coins were minted in the 1880's and 90's but it was easy to find many from the 1820's through 1860's. I still have all of them.

 

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[jrf30]

Re: I Don't Believe This? CRH

Truly amazing. Coins form the 1860s. And V nickels, barber dimes. QUite the interesting story. Thanks for sharing.

I'm not much younger than you are, and wish I had that type of experience with this. My dad gave me some coins once in a while, but not often, and he was more into first day stamps from teh PO than coins. They aren't worth antyhing today. LOL.

But i'm trying to get some coins now, from CRH. And sotries like yours are great to read!

:-)

 

[DrDetector]

Re: I Don't Believe This? CRH

My father was like you, searched coins back in the early 60s. He was born in 1952 and had put together quite a set of Lincolns, Vs, Mercs, Walkers and Franklins. Dad grew up in Montana until about 1962 and they still used silver dollars frequently back then rather than paper dollars (especially according to my grandmother who was born in Pittsburgh and wasn't accustomed to the silver dollar coin). He had put together quite an impressive set of some of the Morgans he pulled from circulation in the early 1960s as a kid.

Also, my grandfather (from my mother's side) saved older coins like a lot of people did. He was born in 1918 (and is still alive and well) on Long Island. He told me that coins back when they were all silver had numerous designs circulating and the older ones really didn't disappear until after WWII and the upswing of the economy.

According to him, most people simply couldn't afford to save money only for the reason of collecting it through the depression era. He specifically mentioned that seated and barber design coins were very common into the early 1940s. He also said gold coins were used a lot until they were made illegal to own and had to be returned (I'm not sure on the specifics but I think it was in 1933). One thing I found amazing was that he said on a few occasions he remembered seeing $50 gold coins. I did some research and there actually were $50 gold coins made but they weren't issued by the U.S. mint. Private minting accounted for them. They must have changed hands just like genuine U.S. coins since there was $50 worth of gold in them.

So next time you see a barber dime that's so worn you can hardly recognize it, realize that thing was probably changing hands until the 1940s or 1950s until it was retired by a collector or finally stashed away in a drawer and forgotten about.