Show a Numismatic Item with Meaning to You

[leeg]

I'm so jazzed up that I made the commitment for my book to be done this year that I'd like all to post a numismatic item with meaning to you. And explain the meaning.

 

 

My mother got this for me many, many moon's ago:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mr. Smith Guesser]

This is an 1883 Liberty Head nickel (no CENTS) that my mom bought at a flea market as a little girl sometime in the 1960s:

 

[Lastufka Collection]

1981 Gold National Anthem Canadian Commemorative. My dad used to buy US and Canadian gold throughout the 70s and 80s. He gave me this coin about five years ago. The first time he'd given me anything from his personal coin collection. I sent it in to NGC for grading (something I almost never do as I usually buy pre-slabbed coins). It was the piece that inspired my Symphony Set.

 

 

[SkyMan]

Fun stuff everyone!

 

I thought I'd go with an offshoot of your 1957 set. As mentioned that was the year of Sputnik.

 

Probably the most famous of all space flown coins are the 100 dimes (two rolls) taken aboard Liberty Bell 7 by Gus Grissom in 1961. It was the second space flight ever by an American, and the third space flight in history. I own one of these dimes. FWIW, all of the ones that I have seen are 1961-D dimes. Unfortunately there was a mishap at the end of the flight and the craft sank. You can see a scene in the movie, "The Right Stuff", that shows the actor playing Grissom talking about taking the coins aboard the spacecraft, and then them falling out of his spacesuit at the end of the mission.

 

In 1965 Grissom flew the first Gemini mission, Gemini 3 (officially GT-3, Gemini-Titan 3. Titan was the name of the launch rocket). While Gemini spacecraft were not named, the unofficial name was the "Molly Brown". Due to the events at the end of the Liberty Bell 7 flight, Grissom only brought a few coins with him on the Gemini 3 flight. Of those coins, only one was a dime. After the flight, when Grissom was relaxing with his Co-Pilot John Young and with the Chief Technician (the so-called Pad Fuhrer) Guenter Wendt, Grissom was using a knife to inscribe GT-3 on the dime. Young mentioned that he ought to give the dime to Wendt, and Grissom did so. Many years later I purchased this coin. So, I have the only complete set of Grissom flown dimes in existence, along with a good story about 3 of the most famous Americans of the early US space program. Here's the coin.

 

 

[Lastufka Collection]

SkyMan, awesome story and great coin. That's got be cool to hold, knowing its history.

[leeg]

Nice stuff all.

 

(thumbs u

[Treashunt]

Great piece.

Great story

[ldhair]

Back in my early days of collecting I had this thing about clashed die coins. Most were easy to figure out. Over time I found several Flying Eagle cents that I could not understand. Never thought the clash could have came from a second denomination. Over time, some great folks in the hobby figured it out.

This coin started me collecting clashed die coins.

[messydesk]

 

This was the first half dime I ever saw, probably when I was about 9 or 10. My grandmother had an old leather pouch (which I now have) that had a bunch of old coins in it, including this one. She gave it to me for Christmas one year.

[PennyGuy]

My Dad saw an item in a Hershey employee newsletter about this medal being available, so I wrote a letter to the then President of the company asking if I could obtain one. Some weeks later this arrived.

 

[dimefreak]

Congrats on the book Lee. This is a pretty cool piece of mine. A circulated 1955 Roosevelt that was holed and attached to a golf bag with the tag. It tells the story of two friends having fun on the golf course and this was the trophy for the man that shot the longest drive of the day. Got this from a forum member that lived across the pond in England 3 years ago