I started collecting when I was 11, & have been collecting off & on for 30 years. I grew up in a small town here in N.C. My first exposure to collecting was at a coin show in my home town. I purchased an Indian head cent and from there I started getting my parents change & searching it. I had mostly old wheat backs & a few silver dimes. As my hunger grew for more information, so did my collection. A trip to Raleigh N.C. in that first year opened up what now has become a life long hobby.

Summer was the best time for me. My parents would take vacation in Atlantic Beach, N.C. I became good friends with one of the workers at the small motel we stayed at, he was a collector as well. He was the one who introduced me to Proof sets. As a kid I was in awe of the shinny coins & had to have some of my own. A letter to the mint soon returned a catalog full of things I had previously never seen. I ordered my first Proof set that year, the price was $11.00.

As the years passed & I became a teenager my interest turned to cars & girls. My collecting took a back seat for awhile. But as I entered the workforce they would soon take the forefront again. I was making my own money & could afford to buy more coins. Then, as now, my main interest was Proof sets. I did a lot of reading & looking, but never had any real direction in my collection. A break in at my home saw my collection that I had spent more than 10 years building disappear. I never saw any of it again & gave up on the hobby.

At the age of 21 I moved to the coast where I worked in the same motel where I once spent countless summers as a boy. I worked nights & it was most times quiet. Coin collecting had become a distant memory. One night while doing the flip through channels thing, I ran across a TV show called Shop At Home. They were doing a segment called The Coin Vault. Once again collecting had come into my life. It would be a few years later & I would once again re-enter the hobby that kept me so fascinated as a youngster. In 1999 I would change hotels & in 2000 I would get my first computer.

In 2002, early one Saturday morning, while watching the Coin Vault, a guest came down for an early cup of coffee. We chatted about this & that, then he asked if I was a collector as he had noticed I was watching a coin show. I told him I was but had not been active for years. Before he left he gave me a link to WINS & as they say the rest is history.

My collecting has come full circle. I have made lots of great friends on WINS. They have helped my collection grow to a size I never thought it would. I have bought, as well as won, a lot of coins form my fellow members. I have had my collecting interest expanded into more than just coins from the U.S. World coins, FAO, tokens & a few other things. Thanks to the members of WINS, my knowledge grows each day. I still consider myself a new collector in the respect that I have much to learn as well as catch up on. I very much enjoy the auctions & the trivia that is sent out by the members and as a member I never miss a chance to talk to someone about WINS and how great a place it is.

In closing I want to thank all the people that work so hard to make WINS what it is. Without them, we as a whole would not have the chance to learn & grow as collectors & human beings.