My Priceless Coin Collection

Yesterday I had to run down to the pharmacy and pick up something. When I got back to the office and looked at my change, imagine my giddy excitement in finding I'd been given a bicentennial quarter.

As you know, or may not know, I collect things. Dust, mainly, and complaints. But I have other, more tangible collections.

Of course, you do all know I collect old Barbies, the dolls, the clothes, the cases, the cars, the paraphernalia, and on and on et cetera till you want to puke. This is what I call a "real" collection. Meaning it's filled with things some other someone might collect and enjoy and pay extortionate prices for they'd probably never get back if they tried to resell. In other words, at least one person out there besides myself, upon seeing it, might ooh and ahh.

Then I have my other collections. Like my old toys. My pull-string talking Mr Ed hand puppet that says things like "Ohhhhhhhh, Wilburrrrrr," only he doesn't say them very well because his talker is all but talked out. And my ultra-groovy Scooba Doo beatnik pull-string talking doll, who wears way too much eye makeup and says things like, "Like dig that crazy beat" and "Scoobydoo deedoo deedoo bopbop, ba doo doo dooby doo doo." Things like these fall into a different category: things I paid a good price for, though not wildly expensive, but probably wouldn't mean much to anyone but myself.

Of course I have my Sherman and Peabody collection. This is a hard one to categorize. It's not that I've sunk a lifetime's worth of money into it, although a couple of the pieces were more than chump change. It ranges anywhere from the original S & P, the ones I dress up and take places and make pictures of, to a larger version of them, which I call "glandular Sherman and Peabody," to another stuffed Peabody made by a different company, which is pretty much an embarrassment (he has poofy hair like a....like a....poodle!), to all kinds of fun and silly stuff. Let's see, coffee mugs, hand-held pinball game, S & P sunglasses, jewelry, coloring books, thimble. T-shirts, hats. I guess this would come under the heading, "precious cargo to me and Mr M, and possibly two or three other people in the world, and kitschy junk to everyone else who thinks we have way too much time on our hands and is probably right."

Oh, and I didn't even think about my Hard Rock Cafe guitar pins. I have those at work. A guitar from all over the place, branches I've been to, and branches my nice and generous friends have been to and have seen fit to send me a souvenir. I have them all, in a line, stuck on a corkboard by their pointy pins. I like my Hard Rock guitar collection, though it's not a huge one, but people who come into the office mostly just say, "Well, look at those. Do you play the guitar?" And I have to explain that no, I got them mainly by traveling, eating and drinking, and knowing the right people. I don't throw in that I'm trying to learn autoharp, but it's not working because I don't practice much.

I've actually toyed with the idea of finding a smallish map of the US and pinning my pins on their respective locations. I can't decide if that would be cool or really dumb, or if it would keep people from asking me if I play the guitar.

And then, there's my coin collection. *ominous chord*

I know nothing about coins, many would say I know nothing about money, specifically the value of a dollar. But I have a small collection I keep spirited away in the second floor of my little collectible house.

How did I come upon my coin collection? I collect what I like. I like bicentennial quarters. I like patriots in tri-cornered hats playing fifes and drums, which is what the reverse side of the quarter shows.

I like wheat pennies. Wheat pennies make me happy. They're pretty. And they take me back to the days of my youth, when I was five or six, and wheat pennies and regular pennies shared about a 50/50 split of penny population. I generally like that they're not shiny like today's pennies. That's right, they're old and dull. Like me.

So every time I happen to luck my way into a bicentennial quarter or a wheat penny, I ferret it away until I can get it home and stick it in my little house for safe keeping.

And then I have other coins, mostly coins I came into the same way: they were just given to me, either by a grandmother when I was little, or my mom, or just from change at a store.

The liberty dollar is from Mom, she gave it to me because it's 1934, the year after she was born. I have a bicentennial JFK half-dollar and Eisenhower silver dollar, Mamaw Grasso gave me one of those, but I don't remember which.

I also have 3 liberty dimes and 1 buffalo nickel that I actually scarfed from work. They were part of coinage rolls we got for change, and when I saw them, I took them. I mean, I replaced them with 3 regular dimes and a regular nickel, it's not like I stole them. I just liked them because they were silvery and worn and, well, cool. Oh, I also have a liberty half-dollar circa 1941 that I've no idea how I came into.

I have a couple of Susan B Anthony dollars and one of those new gold dollar coins. I really hate the fact that a dollar coin just can't seem to catch a break in this country. I like the idea of a dollar coin! But every time they bring one out, people just want to horde them away to collect and they die out of circulation.

I also have a 2 dollar bill that Mamaw Grasso got for me in Washington, DC the day they were re-issued after the long absence. I keep it with my coins.

And that's my coin collection. I was putting up my latest bicentennial quarter last night and got to thinking, "Wonder if this crap's worth anything?" So I started counting.

20 bicentennial quarters, 43 wheat pennies, 2 Susan B Anthonys, a gold dollar, 3 liberty dimes, buffalo nickel, and the rest. Including the two dollar bill.

My priceless coin collection could actually net me the tidy sum of $13.78.

Think I ought to get it insured?