Summer magic through the eyes of youth

It has been a while since I posted a journal entry. My two youngest sons spent the summer (two months) with me so needless to say the summer has been wild. Both, unfortunately, have returned to my ex a 1000 miles away, literally. Now there is just silence in the house and my time is once again mine. Having very little disposable income during the summer months slows my collecting down but does not stop it. In fact, my youngest son and I were able to make serious dents in his albums and even find some treasures in that spare change.

My youngest son, the one that re-lit my collecting passion when he became enthralled with the grizzly bear on the reverse of the Alaska state quarter, poured over the state quarters I had been setting aside since last summer. I would have to say he has about 85% of the set complete. He also decided to take a run at Roosevelt dimes and Jefferson nickels. He has an excellent start on most of the post 1964 dimes and a nice start on the pre-1964 dimes from my extras. His collection of Jefferson nickels is roughly in the same shape. Fortunately, you can still find some older nickels in rolls. I think, however, he has another fancy other than just the state quarters. We went to the bank to get a few rolls this summer and I asked the teller if they had any Sacagawea Dollars which they did. His eyes twinkled at the gold color so we got a few for him. As luck would have it he got a 2009 P Pos. A and Pos. B. We got home and put the coins in 2x2 flips and he couldn?t take his eyes off of them. It was fun to watch. Of course, as always, he had 10 million questions about the coins. So I think, between now and his next visit I will be accumulating some dollar coins for him to go through.

My collecting has not been a total bust this summer either. I did manage to pick up a couple of PF 70 coins for my registry sets but mostly it was my finds in the pocket change and rolls that made the summer fun. Probably the best way is just to list them?

a) a few very nice 2009 and 2010 dimes

b) an absolutely beautiful, well struck, brilliant red 1964D

penny (too bad there is a small scratch on the reverse)

c) a very nice 1960D brown small date penny (which I did not

have)

d) a 2007 proof set for less than $20 (I sold the quarters on

eBay for about $10 and cracked the rest of the set for my

albums)

e) the find of the summer, was a solid roll of BU 1973 pennies.

You wouldn?t believe it but I got the roll of 1973 pennies from the local credit union. I gave the teller a dollar and asked for a couple of rolls of pennies. She pulled out a roll someone had obviously hand rolled and a shotgun roll in an old bank wrapper. I didn?t pay much attention since my son and I had intentions of going through the pennies at home so in my pocket the rolls went. I got home and started looking at the roll and realized what had got. It amazed me to think that this roll had survived in tact for more than 30 years.

Anyway, school is getting ready to start in a few weeks. It?s time I get back to working on my registry sets. I still have a number of pictures to add or update and several descriptions to complete. As I work on my collections alone this fall and winter I will be buoyed this summers memories of the enthusiasm of my youngest son and look forward to his next visit and some more collecting and looking at the world through the eyes of youth.