Day 6: Taking Up a Collection

I like finding old coins. I think that they're neat. There is so much history that comes attached to them. Of course, I'll never know that history. But it's interesting to speculate about it.

The ones that I like are the ones that are older than I am. I am always on the look out for coins that are from 1940 and earlier. They have been used for so many different purposes and traveled to so many different locations.

It would be so neat to track a penny back through time to find out where it has been and what it was used to purchase. There is a website that tracks paper money. It's called www.wheresgeorge.com. You may sometimes see dollar bills with the message "Track This Bill" stamped onto it. I used to be a member, but I haven't logged on to the site in years.

I only collect the coins that I find in the world. In a cash register, as loose change, off the ground, etc. I never go to coin collector shows. To me, found coins are worth more than bought coins.

I will sometimes keep other coins, as well. Every once in a while, I will find a foreign coin in the registers at work. I'm not talking about Canadian currency; I see those all the time. I've found coins from Jamaica, England and Ireland to name a few. There are also some souvenir coins that have no monetary value.

My collection probably isn't worth much more than how much money is there. But it's worth it to me. When I leave this mortal coil, I would have no objection to someone putting the coins back into circulation. That's my whole fascination with the coins. Their history. And when they rejoin circulation, their history will increase.