Love Life
09-20-2012, 09:42 PM
I have been a collector of wheat pennies since I got my first one from my Grandfather many years agao.
He had had the penny since his childhood and had been given it by his father. The penny was dated 1920. The stories he told me of that penny's travels just amazed my young mind. I could picture myself riding a train across country, being a door to door salesman, working at a sawmill, maybe spending a little time in a speak easy. My imagination was unlimited.
Ever since that day I have collected them. I wanted to know their story, and many times you could find me conducting inventory on my collection of treasure, and just imagining what these interesting coins had seen in their day.
At first I sought them out at yard sales, flea markets, and when the internet became viable along with the auction website the sky was the limit (along with my underage, under the table small jobs money).
I logged them in by date into a log book I created. Over the years I quit actively seeking them. I would search through all my change, pick them up from shows if I saw them, and that was really about it.
According to my logbook the last wheat penny I added to my collection was at a shell station in Alabama on 20090804.
Fast forward and guess what I got today? There in the change handed back to me at the store was a prize. A wheat penny just waiting for the next leg of it's journey. The date on the penny is 1920. Over three years between wheat pennies, and the excitement I felt was the same as it was whenever I came across one as a kiddo.
I wonder where this penny has been during the last 92 years?
No real point to this story, but I just wanted to share a positive thing from the day.
He had had the penny since his childhood and had been given it by his father. The penny was dated 1920. The stories he told me of that penny's travels just amazed my young mind. I could picture myself riding a train across country, being a door to door salesman, working at a sawmill, maybe spending a little time in a speak easy. My imagination was unlimited.
Ever since that day I have collected them. I wanted to know their story, and many times you could find me conducting inventory on my collection of treasure, and just imagining what these interesting coins had seen in their day.
At first I sought them out at yard sales, flea markets, and when the internet became viable along with the auction website the sky was the limit (along with my underage, under the table small jobs money).
I logged them in by date into a log book I created. Over the years I quit actively seeking them. I would search through all my change, pick them up from shows if I saw them, and that was really about it.
According to my logbook the last wheat penny I added to my collection was at a shell station in Alabama on 20090804.
Fast forward and guess what I got today? There in the change handed back to me at the store was a prize. A wheat penny just waiting for the next leg of it's journey. The date on the penny is 1920. Over three years between wheat pennies, and the excitement I felt was the same as it was whenever I came across one as a kiddo.
I wonder where this penny has been during the last 92 years?
No real point to this story, but I just wanted to share a positive thing from the day.