I find the topic interesting as it gives really good stories about how we got started into the hobby of kings. For those who are members on other forums they may have already read this story, as I like to tell it, but anyway it's a good one IMO...
My grand father, born 1894, has been lucky enough to be involved in the whole WWI. He eventually found three coins, Romans he told me, digging a trench at Verdun battle. After the end of the war, being in a train, back home with two other poilus he decided to give them one coin each and keep the last one. Here it is, a sestertius of Commodus :
click image to enlarge Minted in Rome, AD 192
L AEL AVREL CO---MM AVG P FEL, Laureate head of Commodus right
HERCVLI ROMANO AVG, Hercules facing, head left, holding club and lion's skin, resting on trophy. SC in field
21,01 gr
Ref : RCV #5752, Cohen #203
It is the very first Roman coin I have ever possessed, as he gave it to me when I was 18 and the only one in the family to collect coins. It's of course the real start of my addiction for ancient coins.
Potator"
I can also add this about that coin :
The following commentary is taken from the description of a similar example (in far much better condition) in the NAC auction 54, # 477 :
Few Roman coins excite as much commentary as those of Commodus, which show him possessed of Hercules. Not only do they present an extraordinary image, but they offer incontrovertible support to the literary record. The reports of Commodus’ megalomania and infatuation with Hercules are so alarming and fanciful that if the numismatic record was not there to confirm, modern historians would almost certainly regard the literary record as an absurd version of affairs, much in the way reports of Tiberius’ depraved behaviour on Capri are considered to be callous exaggerations. Faced with such rich and diverse evidence, there can be no question that late in his life Commodus believed that Hercules was his divine patron. Indeed, he worshipped the demigod so intensely that he renamed the month of September after him, and he eventually came to believe himself to be an incarnation of the mythological hero. By tradition, Hercules had fashioned his knotted club from a wild olive tree that he tore from the soil of Mount Helicon and subsequently used to kill the lion of Cithaeron when he was only 18 years old. Probably the most familiar account of his bow and arrows was his shooting of the Stymphalian birds while fulfilling his sixth labour. The reverse inscription HERCVLI ROMANO AVG (‘to the August Roman Hercules’) makes the coin all the more interesting, especially when put into context with those of contemporary coins inscribed HERCVLI COMMODO AVG, which amounts to a dedication ‘to Hercules Commodus Augustus’.
I started my journey of collecting with a 2001 year of the volunteers 10 cent coin (Canada) when I was 4 (I collected everything "not ordinary"). Then my father bought a bunch of Chinese bills and cash coins (along with a Manchukuo 5 fen) for 10% of what it's worth now (compared to 2004) which got me into bills and older coins. I got my first silver coins when I was 12 (my first silver coin was a Morgan dollar), which got me into everything I have now!
:D wonderful story @Potator_II
Edit: (Below) Translation from English to French.
Edit: (Dessous) Traduction d'Anglais à Français
Je ne suis pas un collecteur des monnais anciens, mais...
Je début mon "voyage" de numismatique quand j'ai trouvé un piéce de 10 sous (L'année des voluntaires) du Canada quand j'ai 4 ans. Aprés, mon papa a acheté beaucoup des billets Chinois et des "cash" pieces, avec un piece de 5 sous de Manchukuo (c 10% de la prix maintenant comparer a 2004), les billets et pieces anciens peux initier moi au le monde de collectionaires. Finalement, quand j'ai 12 ans, j'ai acheté mon prémiere pieces d'argent, ça peux influence mon style de collection maintenant.
Ton histoire est trés merveilleux! @Potator_II
University is time consuming, cherish your free time!
I can't say it was one particular coin, but a small collection given to many years (about 36 years) that belonged to my grandfather. Among the small collection was as I recall in them days a very large coin with very little detail left on it but I could make the date out of 1797. I decided I would go to the library (no alternatives at the time) and look this coin up. Anyway it was a 1797 George III penny and at that time there wasn't many about and they had a very good value then, close to £100 in vg condition, now the same coin today can be had for a lot less as many have been unearthed since then. The rest of the coins could be identified pretty easily. This was my starting point to which I made very slow progress in improving my collection until more recent years. I now invest most of my spare cash & a lot of time sorting, collecting and of course swapping coins with other members. My best times are going to flee markets and car boot sales looking and rummaging around for those hard to find coins ( although most can now be had via the internet ), I still prefer to find them myself and one day will invest in a quality metal detector, and who knows I may just find a pot of gold.
When I was a kid I found a 1900 British penny on the site of a demolished building. That kicked off my love for collecting things. I collected coins for a while, gave up and found a love for postage stamps in my teens, then I got bored with stamps and rediscovered my love for coins again a couple of years ago.
It took me a while to take collecting seriously. Polish commemorative/circulation coins and banknotes were somewhere at the very start
I believe I started somewhere around age 6 or 7 and it was banknotes first. I accidentally crumpled and tore the white/yellowish watermark section of this banknote...
I thought if I cut it off straight, no one would notice. Dad was not pleased.
Then, around the same time, I remember asking grandma to help me make these banknotes look new and crisp with the iron...
I didn't try that again, after seeing the discoloration, fading and smelling the stench of hot paper and ink.
These were the most common circulation coins at that time...
After these, came a series with Kings and I had several of those, too.
Getting to the point, by age 10, I fully understood the importance of collecting and preserving my collection. Dad had already given me what was left of his collection. Needless to say, most of the silver and valuables had been sold from it, for various needs and reasons. Having the remains of his collection, mixed with my more trivial treasures, they were now sitting in a binder with holders and pages, just like most of them still sit today. One of the oldest coins from that binder, that is still with me today, is this one...
This would be the most remembered coin from my beginnings, simply because it seemed to be the largest, heaviest, oldest and most unique coin in the entire collection. For some reason, I just knew I did not want to part with it and I didn't even know what was written on it.
Nothing in particular - my granda gave me some shillings, 6d, 3d, pennies and halfs when I was about 5 (1995) and it went from there until I was about 10. Then I used to look at 'em occasionally until 14 when they went in the loft and were forgotten about until 2012 when I rediscovered my love for them, and decided where to focus my favourite coin I have (apart from my coins from my granda which the 1964 Japan Olympic 100 yen is the best).
I have the 1994 D-day 50p In XF/UNC as I took it out of circulation myself !
Somehow this coin https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces4623.html ended up in my hands when I was 8 or 9 years old (of course, it's still in my collection), and I was fascinated by the magic words "pure silver" on its edge. After that, a numismatics bacterium infected me irreversibly. Moreover, I've found that this disease can be spread genetically, for I have daughter with the same signs and symptoms.
I got them after my first holiday outside Europe, in Ireland. I think it was 2000, I was about three years old when I got them. I don't remember much, but I think it was a great time. :)
The coin I started collecting with, was an old Roman coin. Although it is a metal detector find, it has a pretty neat relief, very fine to read. Got it from a dealer in Roman coins and that started my collection.
Quote: Lotus07I think it was 2000, I was about three years old when I got them.
Good lord that makes me feel old. 2000 I had finished the first two years of an information technology degree and the first two years of a bachelor of arts.
This was my first coin https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces3034.html a Panama 1/4 balboa I received it back in a pop machine as change and just couldn't imagine how it got there. Ever since then I just was on a mission to get every coin I could.
When I was ten, my father gave me a small assorted handful of interesting coins he had found in his pocket change over the years. I remember that this batch included:
1919 and 1920 USA 1cent
1987 Bahamas 1cent
1988 Bermuda 10cents
1949 Germany 5pfennig
1982 Cayman Islands 10cents
1940 and 1950 Canada 1cent
1951 Canada 25cents
1963 Canada 10cents
If this counts, my first coin was given to me (not literally) when I was born.
20 golden Franks 1927
The value may be one thing, but the story behind this specific coin is amazing.
Want coins banknotes and antiques for a fair price or for trade? http://coinsnnotes.tk is your solution! Also lets trade! My coins are better than VG! Associated with coinsnnotesUK.
I started by picking out the Canadian commemorative quarters that were circulating. My parents basically kept every interesting coin they ever say, and coins from their vacation, so when they gave some to me I just became fascinated. From then on I searched through their old drawers and found countless silver Canadian coins, old nickels and pennies, and a jar of US wheat pennies.
Awesome viking ship that one. My father worked as a tour guide at the local penguin colony after he quit teaching and there were plenty of overseas tourists there so he quite often bought home foreign coins.
When my Dad threw this on top of coins that I was counting (for his shop takings) I guess it was an early fascination and a start of a small collection...which only got bigger lately.
When I was a kid, I once found a German post-I WW iron 5 pfennig in our garden. It was in a good condition for an iron coin (it has some corrosion, but overall it oxidised dark). I have some hazy memories of bartering the coin for something else, but eventually it came back to me and now I've got it in my collection.
Well, I remember getting some old Hong Kong coins from some relatives there (I'm British, BTW). They were just so.....exotic, you could say, that I started collecting other coins from different provinces of the British Empire. Eventually I expanded into US and French coins (gotta love that hot girl on the 1906 Indochina .900 Silver coin), and Russian banknotes.
I remember when I started collecting coins about 10 years back. It started when my grandfather gave me a Buffalo nickel he had left over that he found in an old coin box. It was so worn that the date no longer exists! I got kind of excited, as I never really cared about coins, unless they could buy me something. So, I looked through my grandpa's pennies and found about 8 wheat heads. So, my grandma gave me a Dutch East Indies gulden from 1942 that her uncle brought back for her from WWII ( He was a brigadier general in the U.S. Army). I went home that day and looked through my mom's piggy bank. I found about seven silver dimes and 2 silver quarters ( I had no idea they were silver, I just kept them because they were from the 50's). I found about 14 wheat heads there and even a 1909 penny (not a VDB, unfortunately). Also, I found George VI Canadian pennies in there from the late 40's-early 50's. I even found a wadded up 1937 Canadian Dollar! So, in literally one day I amassed a small collection of not-too-rare coins, but it was still pretty cool. The next day I bought a bag of world coins for $5. In there there were 2 south African George VI coins, 1 Queen Victoria half penny, a few pre-1910 Mexican coins, a few Bolivian 1970's coins, and 5 coins from Europe. These were especially cool as all of them were pre-WWI.
My collecting days also started out with buffalo nickels and wheat pennies. Not sure if it was parents or grandparents, but I thought it was still cool enough to keep adding coins.
"What we are is not as important as what we aren't"
Well, my first coins as far as I can remember were a few Lincoln Memorial pennies, plain and simple. I don't remember the years or anything else about them and not sure if they are still in my collection or are long gone and replaced with better grades. It was in the mid or late 70's in the USSR, in the midst of "Cold War" and "The Iron Curtain" so actually having them was quite special. Especially considering that they were given to me by a relative who was visiting from States. Yes, a relative from States visiting USSR in the late 70's! Honestly I'm not sure how that became a reality considering that he was born is States to my grandmother's step-brother who left Latvia before WWII. Anyways, I was about 5-6 years old at the time.
These coins didn't really start my collection though. It was some 6-7 years later when I was about 12 and started organizing what I could find around the house. In addition to those pennies, I also found a few coins from Czechoslovakia that my dad's friend gave me after his trip there, also in late 70's, and a few "poltinnik" coins (just like scceda) and German 5 Mark silver coin from WWII in one of the drawers. I wasn't really able to keep them except one "poltinnik" because of the same reasons torontokuba mentioned: "most of the silver and valuables had been sold [...] for various needs and reasons". I also started looking in my change (well, my parents' change) for Soviet Union's pre-1961 coins. And when my mom one day in I think 1987-1988 found a wallet with pretty much full set of Latvian pre-WWII coins (including 5 Lats I still have) that's what turned me into a serious collector.
I started with a bag of Wheaties and buffalo nickels my father gave me. My first silver coin was a Philippines 1944 d twenty centavos I found in a Army trunk that is now where my coins are stored.
Quote: Lotus07I think it was 2000, I was about three years old when I got them.
Good lord that makes me feel old. 2000 I had finished the first two years of an information technology degree and the first two years of a bachelor of arts.
In 2000 I was a coupla years over 50.
If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything
Quote: Lotus07So I actually collect coins for 13 years, as I'm turning 16 in a few months.
That means I have spend 81.25% of my life on coin collecting!
Awesome!!
If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything
I was given a small box of coins by my grandfather when I was a child under 10. This was one of the coins he had kept from the war when he was in Italy… N#2278
I paid about $10 for this EF 1929 UK halfcrown and liked it so much, I got back into the hobby serious again. I started the run of British Halfcrowns and from there it just snowballed.
I had collected coins as a child and got very serious by the age of 18, but had my collection stolen at 24 and was put off coins for nearly 20 years. However I was buying and selling them for profit, but not really keeping them (Even change ones got sold eventually). But 2019 aged 42, saw me in a safer financial condition and I was getting bored with stamps (I had built up massive collections of several countries but reached the stage where I need just the 5 or 6 ultra rare stamps for each).
So first it was British Halfcrowns, then NZ coins, British Florins, then world silver, shillings, sixpences, Australia, all British silver, Canada, USA and several other countries. By 2023 with a major cash injection from my late partner's estate came the gold and banknote collections.
So its like my collection starting with a single hut and becoming a Tokyo size metropolis.
I still have the halfcrown too, its worth $40 now for condition and the price of silver has doubled since 2019.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
My mum received this one in her change from Woolworths a long time ago. Somewhere between 1997 (issue year) and early 2002 (I was definitely collecting when the Euro replaced the French Franc in circulation; remember watching that news on TV).
At the time, I only really wanted the coin because it was “bonus” pocket money but I never saw something I wanted at 50p or less which I thought looked cooler than the coin. So I kept it (and still have it).
After that, my mum & grandma would give me any “unusual” 50ps (what we'd rightly call commemoratives) they received, or sometimes coins from IoM, Jersey, Guernsey etc which do occasionally get mixed in. Sometimes, I had to do extra chores to earn them but I didn't really complain.
In hindsight, I can see they were teaching me the value of money by working for it, plus encouraging me to save up to buy “big” money like £2 commemoratives! Plus, I did (very amateurly) research them too & was often found reading unusual articles which were tangibly related to coins, which is a useful skill to have.
Also learned how not to display them… I used to print out a mini-fact file with a picture on the left. When I received the coin, I would blu-tack it onto the page. 😬
Looked good, but as I later found out, left some rather nasty blob-shaped marks on the Queen's head. Probably still have a few examples in my spares collection, but replaced with better copies since for my proper collection.
This was my first banknote. I swapped it from a school friend before we went on a school trip (he was worried that a shop wouldn't accept it; I wanted a cool banknote). Plus, I'm Scottish myself (although I live Northern England, and have done most of my life) & recognised good old Rabbie Burns.
Still have it, tatty as it may be.
It was definitely in secondary school (I can even remember the classroom I swapped in; physics, and the trip itself down to York). Must have been around 2006.
And here I am, 25+ years later with a dammed good collection of UK coins & notes largely drawn from circulation. Post-decimal coins are near-complete. Post-decimal notes, I'm missing two Bank of England notes, about half the Scottish issues & most of the Northern Ireland issues.
Realised I'm probably going to have to buy or swap for them now, don't think circulation is going to work much more. 😕
From 1945 to 1975 my father travelled extensively both East and West, accumulating a shoe box of pocket change from these travels as well as a couple of ancient pieces that came from his father.
I saw these coins mainly as a means to learn geography and history and was fascinated by interesting shapes of Iraqi and Egyptian coins.
The box followed me through 40 years of moving from place to place, until I got finally blessed by retiring and - at the same time - locked-in by the “end of mankind” virus in 2020.
Started sorting, studying and concentrating on a couple of topics that interested me. Swaps, purchases, gifts… and the collection grew from the original 900 pieces to more than 4000.
Being still quite young - barely 73 😝 - I'm looking forward to filling huge gaps still existing in my collection.
Started in 1955 with Lincoln cents in a little blue Whitman folder. You could still find all the good ones in your change. There were also Indian heads Buffalo nickels mercury dimes standing liberty quarters and even walking liberty halves
If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything
After that, a numismatics bacterium infected me irreversibly. Moreover, I've found that this disease can be spread genetically, for I have daughter with the same signs and symptoms. 
