coins can become a family heirloom

Good morning and welcome to another Terrific Tuesday! As I review the numbers of readers on on my blog, it seems you want to read about coins instead of precious metals. So, going forward I'll include spot prices and links to any important articles while I write about coins and we'll see how that works.Feedback is welcome. So let’s refill our cups and pull up a chair. Steely Dan greets me this morning with their 1972 hit, Dirty Work.

Gold closed last Friday at $1,223.20 and is currently down $3.30 at $1,219.90.

Silver closed last Friday at $15.47 and is currently down $0.03 at $15.44.

Platinum closed last Friday at $828 and is currently up $2.00 at $830.

Palladium closed last Friday at $919 and is currently up $4.00 at $923.

With the metals experiencing the "Dog Days of Summer" and barely getting any activity, let’s now look at how a single coin, note, or a complete collection can become a family heirloom and treasured for generations to come. I think it’s easiest to explain by telling my story.

In 2001, my father was terminally ill and laying in a hospital bed unsure of when his time would be up, so he told me to go to the house and exactly where I would find a box that he had put away years before. He told me to bring it to him – unopened, and he would tell me a story. I did as he asked and was unprepared for what unfolded.

He proceeded to open the box and show me a 1795 half cent. The coin had been passed down, from father to son since our family had come to America. Dad shared how his father had instructed him to go back to his home and retrieve this coin and then proceeded to pass it on to him. The coin apparently was part of the payment my ancestors had received when they took their first crop to market. You see, when my family came to America from Scotland they had purchased 100 acres of prime farm land in the Oil City, Pennsylvania area and it had grown over the many generations. My grandfather was actually the first in our American family history to leave the homestead, and he ventured out to become a salesman for the Fuller Brush Company. I remember as a child opening my Christmas presents and one of them would be a plastic comb. Wow, how I wish I still had one of those. Unfortunately, I don’t have much hair to use it on, but it’s the memory, right? Dad had followed suit as a salesman, and I had followed him.

I will tell you that by 2001 I had owned a few of these early half cents and many in better condition than this one, but none as valuable. Dad died not long after sharing this with me. No doubt that his desire was to insure the coin would continue down the generations as it has for over two hundred years. I'm doing my part! Today, my son and grandson are aware of the coin, its story and history, and it no doubt will continue to make it a family heirloom that it is rooting our future generations to our past. I know this sounds like a cliche, but just think about a tree. It's roots and branches. Both are important to the plant. It doesn't survive without both.

I meet many folks my age and older that have coins that were given to them by their fathers, grandfathers, or even great-grandfathers, but sadly they bring them in to sell because their children don’t have any interest in coins. With the advent of credit cards, and now the debit card, fewer and fewer people use coins for their daily transactions and even fewer collect. Coins are so yesterday! On top of that, most of us have now moved multiple times and live hundreds if not thousands of miles from our origins. Not that moving is bad. Shoot, websites like Ancestry-dot-com are making a killing by telling you "Your Past is Waiting To Inspire You." So how can you help preserve your family history and create heirlooms to pass on to your children? The best way is to find those items that have been passed down. If you don't have heirlooms to share, but have a silver dollar your grandfather gave you for that awesome report card, or a gold $2.50 from your great-aunt that she saved in 1927, or some dimes you collected as a paperboy in the 1960's, now is the time to start that history. Next, find photos, letters, and any other memorabilia that connects the past to the present. Combine these things and include the story as you know it, and this is what will bring it all alive.

If part of this history is coins or currency, find a reputable dealer that will help you preserve the money properly. Most plastic cases produced before the 1990's were made from petroleum and will leach oil over time damaging the coins and the paper holders tarnish coins due to the acid in the paper. Currency (which is an acid-free linen-type paper) stored in regular hard-bound books (a favorite way to hide money) will deteriorate because of a book's acid paper (except for most family Bibles which are acid-free paper), so care must be taken for the long haul. If you don't have a dealer that you can talk to, get our number from our website and call us.

I hope that my story helps you and your children consider the importance of their family’s history, where they come from, and where they potentially can go. AtlantaCoin can help you properly preserve your coins and currency so that they can be safely and effectively passed down. Contact us or stop in and visit us at David Douglas Diamonds and Jewelry in East Marietta. We are here to help!

Well, I’ll let that be it for today. Go out there and make a difference! See ya later!

*Disclaimer: Precious Metal Musings™ is written for entertainment and news purposes only and should not be used in making purchases and/or sales of precious metals.