RCC/My Early Years in Coin Collecting…

My Early Years in Coin Collecting…

by Alex Armstrong

As a young child I remember looking through a small gold French jewelry box that had been magnificently crafted by some artist long ago. In this wondrous box were treasures and memories of some past life. There was a pair of ivory binoculars about 3/4" tall in which when viewed through, there was a magnified glass etching of Notre Dame. The view had been the same for the last 150 years! There was also a very small red-gold pocket watch. I always wanted to see it run, as it was stuck on twenty till eight. As I sifted through the old gem studded jewelry in the box, I would eventually find 2 gold coins. I always liked finding them again and again since they settled in different locations in the bottom of this box. My mother said that her mother brought them over from France during the First World War. I remember one was a 20 Franc, of Napoleon III, gold coin dated 1857 and the other was a 10 Franc Ceres Head gold coin dated 1851. I would then wonder what it would be like during those times. These older coins were fascinating. Such are the thoughts of a young person. I was eventually given that 10-Franc piece.

My father was then transferred to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1964. I had my first encounter with a coin shop there in 1966, called "Coins & Guns." I had wanted to find out more about my gold coin, so my mother took me to the shop. The dealer there explained that he would have to check a book to find out about the gold piece. He first pulled out a dark green book. He could not find the coin in that book. He said that the coin was more recent and that the green book described older coins. I kept an eye on that book! He then pulled out a brown book with 2 Globes on it. He found the coin almost immediately. I was amazed at his methodical way of finding it so quickly. He said the coin cataloged for about $7.50. I told him I did not want to sell the coin. I asked to see the older green book, and the dealer let me look at it for a while. I was amazed at the photographs of such old coins! The dealer then interrupted me and said: "I'll tell you what, I will trade you both the green and brown books for the Gold Piece, plus give you an older coin!" My mother said it was up to me.

I traded the dealer for the books, and received a nice Austrian 1754 XVII Kreuzer. I eventually traded that plus a little cash for an 8 Reales that had 2 Globes on it. I had paid the price to gain knowledge.

Those times in New Mexico were great. The mountains, sky and desert are breathtaking. I had begun to collect older "Spanish Colonial" coins that were being brought up from Mexico and being sold to this dealer. I remember the dealer telling my dad that these people would then go to "Old Town" and get drunk off the proceeds! This dealer had many Spanish Colonial Gold and Silver Coins. He was buying only high-grade pieces. On, one particular visit, as I was rambling through his junk notebooks, I came upon 2 interesting coins. Both coins had 5 mountains on them, and a tree on the back! I thought they were beautiful. One was a large 8 real piece dated 1826, and the other was a smaller silver 1 real in high grade dated 1828! I did not have the money that day to buy them, but I remembered them and later looked them up in the green book. I had become seriously ill in 1967 and did not return to the coin shop.

Our family had moved back to North Carolina in 1968, and I became interested in collecting again. I bought mainly Spanish colonial from local shops. Sometime in 1971, I was asked to go to an estate sale with one of my mother’s friends. She drove her MG somewhere north of Raleigh, NC. When we got there, all I saw was lots of furniture, jewelry and coins! I rushed over to the table, and to my surprise, lots of Spanish colonial including colonial gold in notebooks! I had never seen so many since Albuquerque! There were absolutely no US coins! At the very back of the pages of one of the notebooks, I found those neat looking coins with mountains and trees. I bought 2 nice small pieces both dated 1824. The man that sold them to me had red hair, was larger than my dad, but very jovial. He said that he had gotten the coins while he was in South America!

I did not seriously start collecting coins again until my senior year in high school. I had other hobbies like building large telescopes, photography and girls to contend with. Since that time, I have put together complete date sets of each denomination of Spanish Colonial Silver from 1767-1825 for Bolivia and Peru. I was close on Mexico, and Guatemala. The gold was unfortunately out of my reach! I had seen the market skyrocket and could no longer afford all the types to complete my sets. I had been buying up all the Sun and Mountain pieces as I found them, and found that I could almost complete the collection within a lifetime! Therefore, in 1987, I switched collecting interests, and traded my Spanish Colonial coins for Central American Republic coins, but that’s another story in itself I’ll save for some future date.

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