Just realized I've been looking at old coins all wrong my whole life

I was at a garage sale last Saturday and the guy running it started talking about a 1916 Mercury dime he found. He pointed out the little details like the wing lines and the rim condition, stuff I never even noticed before. Growing up I just looked at the date and moved on, never really saw the coin as a piece of history. It hit me that I've probably passed over hundreds of interesting coins just treating them like pocket change. Now I'm wondering how many cool stories I missed out on by not taking 30 seconds to actually look. Anybody else have a moment where someone showed them how to really see an artifact?

2 comments

2 Comments

charles_kelly436d ago

Yeah that garage sale guy did you a solid. I tell people all the time to start with a cheap magnifying glass and just look at the rim first, that tells you way more than the date ever will. Once you see how the wear patterns tell a story about how the coin was handled, you'll never look at change the same way again. I've got a 1943 steel penny I almost spent as a kid because it looked like a nickel to me, but the rim was sharp and clean so I held onto it. Little details like that are the difference between pocket change and a real conversation piece.

felix_lane995d ago

Wear patterns tell a story" - that's a good way to put it. How do you even start learning to read those patterns though, like is there a trick to telling the difference between normal handling wear and something that's been artificially worn down?

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