About three years ago my mother-in-law told me that in the basement of her parents home in Minnesota was rolls of old coins her father had collected.

Her father passed away nearly 30 years ago and no one knew what was down there. Well about a year or so ago she went back to Minnesota to visit and when she returned to San Diego she had brought her Dad?s coins with her. She put these rolls into the safety deposit box and let them sit. Well about six months ago I finally convinced her to let me accompany her to the bank and take a look at what was there. Never could I have imagined what I would see. There was rolls of Morgan?s, a few Trade Dollars, rolls of Franklin Halves, Kennedy Halves, several hundred dollars of rolled Mercury dimes, and a couple of hundred rolls of pennies and an assortment of other coins. In all the face value alone was in the area of $3500.00. How the hell she carried all these back from Minnesota still stumps me. Well so far I have gone through and cataloged the Morgan?s, Franklin, and Kennedy Halves. I?m currently working my way through the Mercs.

Not being a dime guy I?m mainly just checking for key dates and organizing them by date and mint. If anyone has any advice on the Mercury dimes, please drop me a line.

Being that I have a thing for Morgan?s, I selected 4 of these and had NGC grade them and label them as Bertini Collection. I then took these 4 coins and gave one to my mother-in-law, and one to each of my two brother-in-laws. The wife and I have the last one and it is listed in my Morgan registry, even though it is only a AU-58 and I do have a higher graded one. My wife was to young to have known her grandfather and her brothers only vaguely remember him, so giving them those coins was a small way for them to be able to have something that had belonged to their grandfather and it gave me a way to further connect with their family. My mother-in-law still cries when she looks at that coin with her father?s name on it.

With all the talk of making money off of things like the Reverse of 2007, I just wanted to share this story to maybe remind people why they got into collecting. I know I got into coins as a way to connect with a different time and to build something I can someday pass on to my kids and grandkids. By passing on something I mean an appreciation of something with a story to tell. Whenever I buy a Morgan I wonder about where it has been and what stories it could tell.

Well once again this is my two cents.

Terry