Higgy
Bronze Member
- #1
Thread Owner
So a few months ago, my elderly mother became unable to care for herself properly, and I invited her to come live with me and my wife. Integrating her into our family meant integration of all of her possessions as well, most of which were leftover from the recent passing of my father. So needless to say she had a lot of stuff!
We sold off much of it, and gave away a lot. She kept most of the truly valuable and the sentimental keepsakes and whatnot.
My father was a saver, and every spare coin he ever got was plunked into a 5-gallon water jug. When the jug got full over the years, he'd sort and roll them. Do I have to say that I've been messing around with the idea of trying my luck at coin-roll hunting? I'll get to that, but needless to say, there were quite a lot of cash just in coin rolls and spare change. There were a great many books of coins, all dates. There were sets of commemorative coins, and blah blah blah - bunchof different clad stuff. Nothing fancy. Amongst the sets of coins was a small envelope in my mother's writing, "1944 lead penny." I paid it all very little attention, stowing them away in my gun safe. I moved on to the chore of settling my mom into her new home.
So for a few weeks, I've had a resurgence of interest in treasure hunting, metal detecting, coins and so forth. This site has been amazing for that, because when I was into THing before (mid-to-late '90s), we had no internet and any means of treasure hunting knowledge was gained from reading books and magazines. So here I am last night, sitting on the couch with my missus and watching America's Got Talent, when I thought of what I've read in the Coin Roll Hunting forum here on Tnet. I sprang to my feet and grabbed some coins from that water jug and started sorting them into separate plastic containers, looking for key dates and silvers. I found a couple Wheaties, but not much else. I gave up and went to bed when the show was over.
As I lay in bed, a though struck me. What about that steel cent? I was curious. I went into the den and fired up my pc. I downloaded a list of dates with their associated values. As I scanned down the list, my face almost froze off as I saw how much a 1944 steel wheat cent is worth. I just about crapped my pants.
The wife is now yelling at me to come to bed, and I told her about it. She seemed somewhat excited - well, as excited as she ever gets about MY stuff, and we settled down. As I lay drifting off to sleep, my head was full of ideas on what I would do with my newfound wealth. I was going to buy a magic gold spiral, and a Minelab Excalibur, some new scuba gear, and lots of other goodies.
So this morning I got up and took that coin out of the safe. I grabbed my camera to take some pics to post here. I was going to brag. I was going GLOAT. I was going to gloat hard. So I grabbed the camera, and prepped a good spot to take a pic and pulled the steel cent from the envelope and set in in place. Looking through the viewfinder, I looked at the date, which was 1943. What the hell?
Damn my mother's failing eyesight! Damn me for taking things for granted! Damn me eyes!
Talk about deflation. Not even a double-dose of Viagra would work after that boner. Oh well, another day in the life I guess. Looks like I'm saving the real luck for finding gold or something better?
We sold off much of it, and gave away a lot. She kept most of the truly valuable and the sentimental keepsakes and whatnot.
My father was a saver, and every spare coin he ever got was plunked into a 5-gallon water jug. When the jug got full over the years, he'd sort and roll them. Do I have to say that I've been messing around with the idea of trying my luck at coin-roll hunting? I'll get to that, but needless to say, there were quite a lot of cash just in coin rolls and spare change. There were a great many books of coins, all dates. There were sets of commemorative coins, and blah blah blah - bunchof different clad stuff. Nothing fancy. Amongst the sets of coins was a small envelope in my mother's writing, "1944 lead penny." I paid it all very little attention, stowing them away in my gun safe. I moved on to the chore of settling my mom into her new home.
So for a few weeks, I've had a resurgence of interest in treasure hunting, metal detecting, coins and so forth. This site has been amazing for that, because when I was into THing before (mid-to-late '90s), we had no internet and any means of treasure hunting knowledge was gained from reading books and magazines. So here I am last night, sitting on the couch with my missus and watching America's Got Talent, when I thought of what I've read in the Coin Roll Hunting forum here on Tnet. I sprang to my feet and grabbed some coins from that water jug and started sorting them into separate plastic containers, looking for key dates and silvers. I found a couple Wheaties, but not much else. I gave up and went to bed when the show was over.
As I lay in bed, a though struck me. What about that steel cent? I was curious. I went into the den and fired up my pc. I downloaded a list of dates with their associated values. As I scanned down the list, my face almost froze off as I saw how much a 1944 steel wheat cent is worth. I just about crapped my pants.
The wife is now yelling at me to come to bed, and I told her about it. She seemed somewhat excited - well, as excited as she ever gets about MY stuff, and we settled down. As I lay drifting off to sleep, my head was full of ideas on what I would do with my newfound wealth. I was going to buy a magic gold spiral, and a Minelab Excalibur, some new scuba gear, and lots of other goodies.
So this morning I got up and took that coin out of the safe. I grabbed my camera to take some pics to post here. I was going to brag. I was going GLOAT. I was going to gloat hard. So I grabbed the camera, and prepped a good spot to take a pic and pulled the steel cent from the envelope and set in in place. Looking through the viewfinder, I looked at the date, which was 1943. What the hell?
Damn my mother's failing eyesight! Damn me for taking things for granted! Damn me eyes!
Talk about deflation. Not even a double-dose of Viagra would work after that boner. Oh well, another day in the life I guess. Looks like I'm saving the real luck for finding gold or something better?
