Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2004 5:51 PM
Subject: WINS: Starting something new (a little long)

I was on my way to Amarillo, Texas (pop. 190,000) today to visit a tourist trap that I knew had an Elongated Cent machine. I needed to do that because I had arranged to make a few trades and I wanted to take care of business in a somewhat timely fashion. I do enjoy trading all types of coins, tokens and medals when I can and talking to aficionados from all over the globe as much as collecting the coins themselves or maybe I even enjoy the talking a little more. I am sure that is a sign of impending old age :-)

This wasn't a weekend that I was just overwhelmed with extra money (I can't seem to remember a weekend when I was) but I thought I need to get this done. So $10 worth of gas in the wife's car (I used to make it there and back on $5 not all that long ago) and $10 worth of quarters for the cent smashing machine (three different designs) and with a roll of Wheat back, Steel and Canadian Cents I was on my way! I got to thinking that I might just be able to swing by one of the local coin shops as I left town for a peek at the junk box :-) If my wife had been with me I am quite sure she would have slapped me and brought me to my senses :-)

Well, nothing in the junk box of interest but.................(well there was but nothing I had to have)

Let's go back in time a few months.....

Last fall I ordered 6 different Dansco Albums (I had a little extra money at that time but that is not a regular thing). One or two for me but most were to be traded to a few of my regular overseas traders that had expressed an interest in owning some nice albums for their coins. I received the box with the Albums and foolishly put it in a corner by my desk unopened. I left it there several months as the trades didn't materialize as quickly as I anticipated (they did eventually) and I had no need of any of them for myself as I was feverishly working on other areas of interest at that time.

Well when I eventually opened that box of albums, instead of the Ike Album I was expecting for me, there was a Silver Dollar Date set Album 1878-. I must have got the order number wrong, they were right next to each other. It is a Dollar year run from 1878 to the present, including year holes for the Ikes and SBA but no GD. To late to return them but as I studied it, I began to think, that is a nice looking album!

Even though I have owned a lot of Morgan and Peace dollars in my life, I never have collected any. Most that I bought were traded shortly after I acquired them but I thought that I might just undertake the challenge of collecting them someday. After all a date set is doable on a modest budget isn't it? I don't really need a date mint mark combination like all my other sets! Which I couldn't afford to do anyway. I don't need Unc or AU or even EF! Any decent looking coin in this album will look nice!

Now as all true coin collectors instinctively know, it is a mortal sin to own an Album with no coins in it! And Raimen noodles next week for my lunch is acceptable, right? So I asked to see some of his Morgans. Not the individual coins, (too expensive) not the ones in the $25 box and not the ones in the $15 box and not the ones in the $12 box but I asked to see the ones in the $9 box.

I found an 1880-o that had some gunk on it and bought it! The rest were holed or slugs or Peace dollars of common date and poor condition. My album now has ONE coin it and my immortal soul is saved! Most would call it a problem coin but for me, in this set with my criteria for the group, it is not a problem. A little Acetone may fix it right up or not. Makes no difference to me, it is in there to stay.

Here it is. MS-67 it ain't, but for nine dollars,..........it works for me.

Dale