>As the winner of the last newsletter’s challenge for the word search, Greg Hill presents his most cherished coin.

>I have very simple tastes in collecting, mostly it is what I can find available. I live in rural Kansas, not many resources here. I enjoy going to local small town auctions any buying small lots of coins that no one else wants, and try to identify them. I also buy lots on eBay, then sell the duplicates. I grew up in the Boston area, there were more resources in the area, and I became fascinated when young with stamps, coins, and paper money as artifacts of history and geography. My collection is small, but interesting to me. Among my favourites are a very worn George II farthing that my grandfather picked up when he was in Europe in WWI, some Tsarist paper money that I enjoyed showing to my grandmother (she was born there, maybe you didn't know that the name Hill is Ukrainian!), and a coin from Nagorno-Karabakh with a portrait of the Orthodox saint I was named after.

>My most treasured coin is pictured below, probably most WINS members would not be interested in collecting it, just a common date Wheat penny I would grade as VG at best, and scratched as well. What I like about it is the mysterious way I got it. I always pay for things with paper money, then put the coins I get in change in a dish to look at later. A few years after my wife died, on the anniversary of one of our special days, I went grocery shopping, the bill came to some dollars and 50 cents. I got 2 quarters in change, took a quick look at them, they were both state quarters, and put them in my pocket. When I got home, I was amazed to find that I had 3 coins in my pocket - the 2 state quarters, and a Wheat penny made the year that my wife was born. I stopped to think about it, I am sure that there were no coins in my pocket when I left the house, and sure that I only got the 2 quarters at the store. How this penny arrived is a mystery. Sentimental old fool that I am, I put it in a coin holder, and put it near my wife's picture.