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What’s in the Easter Basket? Lot’s of money and lots of candy.

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Revenant

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My wife hit upon the idea of putting coins / spare change in some of the eggs for the Easter egg hunt we set up for Benjamin late in the day on Easter Sunday. We had dinner with her parents and then did an egg hunt just for him in the back yard around 6:30 or so. Shandy came up with the idea of letting him have money in some of his eggs completely on her own. It was her idea. I had nothing to do with it – I swear! Some of the eggs hand your standard fair – jelly beans, chocolate kisses, Reese’s peanut butter cups – and some of them had quarters, nickels and dimes.

Ben was quite excited to have the money in some of his eggs. As he started emptying them, I got him 2 zip-lock sandwich bags = one for the coins and one for the candy. I’ll admit that I wasn’t totally thrilled about him touching the coins and the candy together / one after another while stuffing his face. Pocket change isn’t terribly clean / sanitary, but I guess the germs will be good for him in the long run.

He didn’t even get half way through opening the many, many eggs they left for him to find before he got bored and went back to playing. When the family asked what was in his basket it went a bit like this:

“What was in your Easter basket?”

“EGGS!”

“Okay… What was in the eggs?”

“Lots of money!! … and lots of candy.”

Seriously – he said money first. Like he was more excited about the coins than the candy.

Interesting… This has potential.

We’ll have to empty the rest of them later. He’ll be hopped up on sugar for days. The coins will go into the puppy.

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I've been doing this for a few years with my kids and the neighborhood kids that stop by for the egg hunt as well.  Nothing valuable, of course, but I love to fill them with the coins they don't get to see everyday.  All the dollar coins going back to Ike's work well, partial date buffalo's, half dollars, etc...

My daughter basically rolls her eyes at them now and my son may make a comment about it being "nothing special" but that's understandable with how much they know of coins thus far.  I do it more to see the neighbor kids running around asking "oh wow! what is this?!?" :grin:

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3 hours ago, CRAWTOMATIC said:

All the dollar coins going back to Ike's work well, partial date buffalo's, half dollars, etc...

I have some old buffalo nickels that may go that way one of these days but I think my son is still a bit too young for that to work.

I'm going to try to have them do albums but I'm not sure what a good age for that will be yet.

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My son is 8 now and my daughter 11.  As we know, little boys are inclined to collect anything and everything.  Bottle caps, rocks, comics, broken glass, coins, etc...  I'd say he started with his first album right around 6 years old.  Late last year he stopped fiddling with the album so much and is now onto the "oldest coin he can buy" kick - which happens to be an 18somethunsomethun large cent he got for $20 or so.  The nice part is he can recite dates for series runs and facts about the early copper that I just haven't bothered to learn yet.  It's a really proud dad kinda thing.

My daughter on the other hand, she tolerates the coin shows well, has a binder with some items in it but she's really not into them.  Can't win 'em all.

Not sure your son's age but the ANA's Coins for A's program is a blessing for school age kids to get free coins for doing well in school.  If you're in Texas, the Texas Numismatics Association also has a program as well.  So they get to double-down on free coins in the mail every couple of months (6 grading periods a year).

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Well.....I don't celebrate Easter myself (I know, big shock ;)) but I really think that Shandy hit on a great idea by giving Ben some sort of coins in his Easter basket.  And it is encouraging that he was so excited about it!  You seem to really be working on instilling a love of coins in your son, and it does seem to be taking with him......it's a good sign when money comes before candy with someone as young as Ben!  As far as an album goes, I myself got into collecting for the first time at age 8 and I started with a Whitman folder for Canadian Small Cents (I still have the coins, though the folder has been replaced a couple of times).  I think Crawtomatic's suggestion of 6 could be right on the money for Ben's first album.  What to start him with is a whole other question, but he'll probably let you know what a good first album set for him will be in his own way....I'd say that discovery will come further down the road but it's pretty exciting to think about! 

~Tom

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I'm totally disabled. I asked my wife to buy those plastic eggs. Then I put a note and what kind of coin was in it. Wheats, English tokens Kennedy halfs walking liberty. On and on. We did fifty of them. Well I never expected the feedback I got some for the kids some from the parents. I had my wife make sure there was a ten year old in the house if not have the parents do it. Now I know what I have started. I enjoyed more than the kids. One yelled out hey dad I think I found a penny but it has an Indian head on it. That's priceless I wish I heard it. But being nose go in its not that easy. So try something with the kids and parents. You don't have to go to a school. Do it on your bloxk. Thanks. Mike

 

 

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