What's your favorite coin in your collection with a value of less than $100?

[lclugza]

I would appreciate a tale about it.

[TomB]

My 1932 Washington quarter.

 

I received this coin upon my maternal grandfather's death in the spring of 1990. He had saved the coin upon issue and had kept it with his belongings for 58 years. The piece has deep, deep woodgrain toning on both sides that looks like tobacco staining covering the entire surface. My grandfather and I were very close and I always viewed him as the patriarch of the family; upon his passing I could sense that that mantle had passed from him to me, bypassing the middle generation entirely. What was so amazing about this coin was that he saved it during the Great Depression and never spent it. At that time all my relatives were dirt poor, my grandfather did not have a regular job, my mother was an infant and no one had education or job training. Still, it meant enough to him to keep the coin. He never spoke about George Washington, but he obviously held him in high esteem.

 

This piece would likely either be bagged by a third-party certification service as environmentally damaged from its deep toning, or on the other extreme, go MS66 because it is spotless, without marks and completely original. It doesn't matter. It is raw and I will keep it.

 

I don't look at it and treasure it; I look at it and think about what it means and meant.