Finding a small numismatic treasure in pocket change is where the real thrill of collecting is found....or is it the story it would tell if it could....

I found a 1917 Lincoln Cent in pocket change today and I have to confess my first thoughts were...dang!!....I wish I could tell without a glass if it was one of those fabled Double Die cents of the same year , unlikely as that might be !! However my thoughts quickly changed as I considered this particular coin's journey and the 93 years it took to reach my pocket . Did my grandfather , or even his father at one time have this coin in his pocket ? Had this coin ever been held my anyone famous ? A President ....a Senator ....

a Governor ? Did a destitute person in the Great Depression of the 1930's look down on this lone penny and consider what it would buy only to wish they had several more like it ?

Had a small child saved it for weeks with the intention of taking it to the General Store to buy a handful of hard candy at a time when a penny could really purchase something meaningful?

Maybe it had simply sat quietly for the most part undisturbed for years in an ash tray on the dresser of an eldery woman's home until her death when it was placed back into circulation by family .

You see ...any one of these scenerios is conceivable ...and as the truth IS as they say stranger than fiction ....so the story this penny could speak would take many many days to tell if it could ever be told .

I truly wonder where this little penny traveled and how many hands and lives it touched

The one story it does tell loud and clear....is that as coin collectors part of the absolute magic of collecting is holding in our own hands a small piece of history whose existance superceded our own ...whose story is unique and diverse.....one we can wonder about and speculate on forever .