It's been another rough day...I need a coin escape!

Hello everyone. It's been a while since I've had the time to put my thoughts to virtual paper here at the Collector's Society. After a rough day, I figured I'd take a break and try to escape into the world of coins for a while before heading home from the office.

My birthday was earlier this month, and when my wife asked what I wanted as a gift, I immediately replied, "How about a nice half cent?" After determining that I was serious (now, come on, who would kid around about a half cent?), she said OK, and an 1849 large date half cent has a new home in my collection.

It's very scary, as someone who is self-employed, to be watching the economic melt-down that's been going on. I have no employer-funded retirement plan or other benefits because I am my own employer. Whatever I save is what I've got (especially since Social Security may not be solvent by the time I retire--assuming I can ever afford to retire). I've always been a saver, putting away money for a rainy day. The problem is I should have been putting away gold bullion under the mattress (talk about a "firm" mattress!) rather than putting it in mutual funds and the like.

The only good news is that my coins have held their value a heck of a lot better than the "investments" in my retirement accounts. The funny thing is I never thought of my collection as a hard asset. That's changing now as the economic world is rapidly evolving into a dark and scary place. I've read about the fellow collectors who have made the difficult decisions to sell off prized coins to feed their families. I hope by the time my kids are ready for college that it won't come to that, but at least my coins are an asset that I can enjoy while knowing I can sell them if it becomes necessary.

When I look at my new half cent, I wonder who has held it in their hands; what stories it could tell if it could speak; and how much history it has survived over the last 160 years....The people who made this coin--who mined the copper ore, refined the metal, made the planchet, created the design and minted the coin--are all long dead. But the coin they made has survived for me to look at and enjoy the beauty of LIBERTY and all it represents. Things could always be worse....