Who collects coins? Why do they collect coins? When do you have a Collection? What coins are important and which ones are not so important? Well, I submit that each and every one of these questions would be answered differently by the multitude of different hobbyist across the world.

The cub scout in Peoria's main thrust might be to complete that Mercury dime date and mint mark set, while the Professor of History in Amsterdam might not even own a coin, but receives his enjoyment from the hobby by study of some facet of numismatics, and a grandmother in Quezon City, Philippines might get her pleasure from collecting coins with cats on the coin. But all these people and many more whom enjoy this hobby want to know the story about the coin they hold in their hand, the coins history and the history of mankind at the time of the coins minting. We sometimes get sidetracked when we start worrying about a coins condition or its perceived value. A coin can be a piece of art or it can be starkly practical, it can be oddly shaped or of unusual denomination, many things make a particular coin interesting, but it always comes back to a coins history and that is what excites our imaginations and fuels our wonder.

Experts say that modern man is no more than one hundred thousand years old. The known history of man is not much more than five thousand years and for most of those years he has used coins. Things made of paper soon fade away. Wooden tools rot and fall apart. But coins, especially those stamped out of precious metals, carry a message to us down through the centuries telling us that five thousand years ago Mmn was really not all that different than now. A medium of exchange is uniquely Human, no other species, living or extinct, would be able to garner the trust to trade a large amount of food for a shiny piece of metal. As mankind progresses into new millenniums I am sure minting of coin for commerce will end, but that will only make the coins of history that much more precious.