My daughters new collection

[RGT]

My seven year old daughter is a "Daddy's Girl" and as such seems to enjoy helping me look at coins. She has been collecting "squashed pennys" for a couple of years now and picks them up whenever we go on a trip.

 

I have a Lincoln cent collection that was in a Coinmaster album. The slides that held the coins were PVC free, but the pages themselves weren't. I bought an Intercept Shield album and am in the slow process of moving the coins, making sure there is no PVC haze on each one.

 

I was in this process a couple of weeks ago when my daughter came to see what I was up to. I was explaining it to her and she wanted to put one of the coins in the new album. It's not an easy task, but I let her try. The set is XF-AU and I let her try one of the steel cents that didn't look like it had much to loose. She couldn't get the coin in the hole. I was explaining to her how I used to collect in the old blue folders when I remembered that I had one stashed away to let her look at. When I went to get it I found one that I had forgotten about. It was the Lincoln cent 1941-1974.

 

The next thing I knew she was wanting to put coins in it. She had three wheats that she had been given at the ANA show in Atlanta. I had bought a roll of wheats a while back that I was using for the sqashed penny collection and a few others that I had laying around that were pulled from change over the years. We managed to put 20 or so wheats in the book. Then we started sorting through other change looking for the memorials. She still has quite a few holes to fill there too. She seems proud of her new collection and is eager to find more coins to sort through with me.

 

In the process of sorting through some cents I came across an odd looking one. It's a 1990 so it doesn't fit in her set, but I pulled it out and tucked it in a flip. The obverse picture is a bit overexposed, but it shows the detail well enough. Any ideas how this happened?

 

[Bruceswar]

Very cool story. Another collector to join us. As for the penny severe die errosion?

[TomB]

That's a wonderful story about you and your daughter. As for the coin, I would guess that it was struck through substantial grease.

[Narmuriel]

Randy, If your daughter wants some wheat cents to kick start her collection with, I have a few pounds she is welcome to. Most are G or VG, though there are some that approach AU.

[Bruceswar]

I will 2nd that! I totally forgot I have a bag of wheat cents from Bu to G 4... many early dates as well. ... I think this would make for a great givaway... as a matter of fact when I return I will do just that... Have a givaway. I hope you will try the contest.

[chinook]

Great story and very cool Lincoln.

[Hoot]

Fabulous story! I'll second the idea of substantial grease to create such an error - a rather extreme example.

 

Hoot

[James_OldeTowne]

It looks like the obverse die was filled with grease, or possibly had a thin sheet of some kind of foil adhering to it when the coin was struck. VERY cool, and an excellent story as well .

 

James

[RGT]

Thanks for the comments. I had considered grease, but the surfaces looked more like a very weak strike. I guess it may be hard to tell the difference, but grease would explain why the reverse is strong.

 

As I sorted coins with my daughter we would usually have multiples of some dates, particularly the memorials. I let her look at them and decide which one she likes best. Then I tell her which one I like best and explain why. Often she will pick one that has a little more high point rub or is even cleaned, because the coin looks "shinier". I can see how newbies end up buying a lot of cleaned and polished coins. Hopefully she will continue in the hobby and I will be able to keep her from most of those pitfalls.

 

She has told me in the past that she really likes proofs, because they are shiny. When she was born (1999) I started buying proof sets, one for me and one for her, both silver and clad. It was just luck that it happened to be the first year of the state quarter series. I told her that I bought the sets for her but they weren't hers to do whatever she wanted to yet. She seemed ok with that, as long as she can look at them.