A Damaged Coin of Great Value

[brandm24]

Most of us have a favorite coin or token in our collections, many times more than one. The reasons can include condition, eye appeal, a connection to a special person or event, or any number of other things. My special coin is posted here.

This 1806 US Half Cent has almost no value as a collectible numismatic item. Not only is it fairly common for its denomination, but these issues were never popular with American collectors...except me. As a matter of fact they became known derisively as the "little sisters". A black sheep in the family of the more popular Large Cents series. The nasty hole and attempt at another are the death knell to its appeal.

My late father was an avid collector in his younger days but by the mid 1970's had lost all interest. However, he did instill in me a love for coins and the history behind them. My passion to collect began in 1954 at the age of 6 and has continued unabated to this day 65 years later. This coin is the only one I still have from his collection that came my way in 1976. It reminds me of him and what he taught me growing up. How to be a good man and to respect and cherish family and...well, the list is long. So this is my remembrance of him.

I'd love to hear about your favorite coins or tokens and why they're special to you.

Bruce

[malj1]

My collecting started at the end of WW2 when my father returned home with a handful of coins and notes he had collected during the war. He had been part of a advance party of 23 soldiers and officers sent on HMS Bulldog to liberate Guernsey 8th May 1945. Their job was to arrest 10,000 German soldiers.  Quaking in their boots they landed and were greeted with cheering by both the islanders and the  German troops alike.

My father is second from right in the picture below.

Coincidentally my aunts friend, a returned sailor, gave a me a Guernsey token and I very soon started a collection of Channel Island coins, notes and tokens. The following year, 1946, the people who dad was billeted with in Guernsey for three months came to the UK bringing with them a liberation medal which was added to the collection.

[bgriff99]

Your coin reminds me of a similar one shown to me by the mother of a friend, where I used to play.   Around 1960.   A worn and holed half cent, common date maybe 1804.   An impressive thing to find stuck in an old desk drawer, but not much collector value.   I was the school coin collector kid already at age 6 or 7.    They tried to wish it to be some treasure.   I gave them a nominal dollar value "if it didn't have the hole", reluctant to say it was almost worthless.     I had the weird feeling they wanted me to make an offer.   Even as poorly oriented to importance of condition as I was then, that was not going in my collection.

   

[brandm24]

My collecting started at the end of WW2 when my father returned home with a handful of coins and notes he had collected during the war. He had been part of a advance party of 23 soldiers and officers sent on HMS Bulldog to liberate Guernsey 8th May 1945. Their job was to arrest 10,000 German soldiers.  Quaking in their boots they landed and were greeted with cheering by both the islanders and the  German troops alike.

My father is second from right in the picture below.

Coincidentally my aunts friend, a returned sailor, gave a me a Guernsey token and I very soon started a collection of Channel Island coins, notes and tokens. The following year, 1946, the people who dad was billeted with in Guernsey for three months came to the UK bringing with them a liberation medal which was added to the collection.

That's a great story, Mal. I can't even imagine how he felt being sent into a situation with odds being 23 to 10,000. Looks like the German soldiers were more than ready to give it up. Having the picture of your father really makes it special.

My father served in the US Navy during the war as a SeaBee constructing airstrips, barracks, temporary bridges and the like. Unfortunately, I don't have an pictures of him doing that, only stateside one's before he was discharged in 1945.

Bruce

[brandm24]

Your coin reminds me of a similar one shown to me by the mother of a friend, where I used to play.   Around 1960.   A worn and holed half cent, common date maybe 1804.   An impressive thing to find stuck in an old desk drawer, but not much collector value.   I was the school coin collector kid already at age 6 or 7.    They tried to wish it to be some treasure.   I gave them a nominal dollar value "if it didn't have the hole", reluctant to say it was almost worthless.     I had the weird feeling they wanted me to make an offer.   Even as poorly oriented to importance of condition as I was then, that was not going in my collection.

I was the coin collector kid too. Nobody could understand why I would collect money instead of spending it. Strange that all these years later my wife has the same perspective on coin collecting. I mean when it comes to coins or shoes, shoes always win. I'd rather walk around barefoot.

Bruce

[mrbadexample]

Coincidentally my aunts friend, a returned sailor, gave a me a Guernsey token and I very soon started a collection of Channel Island coins, notes and tokens. The following year, 1946, the people who dad was billeted with in Guernsey for three months came to the UK bringing with them a liberation medal which was added to the collection.

I've often wondered what sparked your interest in little islands that are very far from home.

Great pictures.

[Figleaf]

My father was 17 when the nazis invaded the Netherlands. A dangerous age. He got into trouble quickly and had to go into hiding, going from assistant to a bicycle repair man to farmhand to assistant trainer of a soccer team. A couple of decades ago I still repaired my bicycle and did massages as he taught me. In the end, my father was picked up and sent to the Russian front as a slave labourer. He survived, escaped even, but needed treatment for the rest of his life.

For mental rest, he collected stamps. He tried to get me hooked too. It didn't work. I got into coins instead. He supported me by giving me a coin I could not afford every year I was promoted in school. I had a 2½ gulden 1898 and a complete series of Dutch gold coins by type from 1840 onwards. Every one of those coins would have qualified for this thread. They were stolen in 2013.

Still, the story ends well. My daughter picked up my father's stamp collection and expanded it with her own interest: Japan - she speaks the language fairly well. Some of my coin collecting friends get her stamps. She has a nice collection of post-independence Indian stamps. Like me with coins, she prefers used stamps. She gets me Dutch tokens. She is not a favourite coin, of course, but she is a steady source of great joy.

Peter

[malj1]

That's a great story, Mal. I can't even imagine how he felt being sent into a situation with odds being 23 to 10,000. Looks like the German soldiers were more than ready to give it up. Having the picture of your father really makes it special.
Bruce

Not only pictures but videos on YouTube here is a short one showing my father, there are several now but sadly he was unaware of any of this.

[malj1]

My father was 17 when the nazis invaded the Netherlands. A dangerous age. ... I had a 2½ gulden 1892 and a complete series of Dutch gold coins by type from 1840 onwards. Every one of those coins would have qualified for this thread. They were stolen in 2013.
..Peter

It must have awful under Nazi occupation it doesn't bear thinking of the trials and tribulations your father would have experienced. Then to have your collection stolen some 70 years later adds another insult.