November
 2002 Issue
 By James C. Johnston Jr.
Photos by Steven Vater

 


    James C. Johnston Jr. was born in the historic Oliver Pond House in Franklin, Massachusetts where he has lived for 58 years. He holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in History and is the author of several books. He has also written more than 1,500 articles and monographs in The Numismatist, Linn’s Stamp News, The Regional Recorder, and other publications.
  
   Johnston was a teacher in the Franklin system for 34 years and has been associated with Johnston Antiques since 1962. He is a well known appraiser of antiques, books, fine arts, stamps, and coins. He is a founding member of the Massachusetts Suburban Antique Dealers Association, a member of the American Numismatic Association, and the American Philatelic Society. He has also been President of the Franklin Historical Society since 1985.

    Johnston is also a well known lecturer whose topics cover a wide range of social history, antiques, coins, stamps, and the fine arts, as well as, politics and political and military history.

November is a great month for coins, and I’ll be at the following shows. On November 3, 2002, I’ll be at the N.E.S.S. Coin and Stamp Show at the Holiday Inn in Dedham, Mass. The Holiday Inn is located at the junction of Routes 1 and 128 (Exit 15A). On November 10, I’ll be at Tom Lacey’s Greater Worcester Show in Auburn, Mass. at the Ramada Inn (off Exit 10 from the Mass. Turnpike). On November 15, 16 and 17, I shall be at the Bay State Coin Show at the Radisson Hotel at 200 Stuart Street, Park Square, Boston. I look forward to seeing you Journal readers at any or all of these shows. It’s been great meeting so many of you over the last year.

    You can also log onto my website at www.johnstonantiques.com 
for further updates.

 

 

So, Just What Do You Want To Collect Anyway?

          So what in the great world of coins do you want to collect? It’s a big question. No doubt about it.

          I find that most people want to collect sets of things. Americans tend to want things in complete sets. When I was a kid, the other kids got these folding blue Whitman coin albums. Whitman folders were very popular in the 1940’s and 1950’s when I began collecting.

          We would hit every parent’s, aunt’s, uncle’s, and grandparent’s penny jar. Of course you know that we don’t have pennies in the good old U.S. of A. We have “cents,” but I never heard of anyone referring to their “cent” jars. They were always called “penny jars.”

          Anyway that’s when we looked for our collectible cents to fill up those three sections of our “Penny Folders” with Lincoln cents. We thought that Lincoln cents would be easy to collect right out of circulating coins. Well, they weren’t. They were damn hard!

          Now don’t get me wrong. It was easier than it is today. You could actually find about ninety percent of the 1909-1953 Lincoln set in circulation in 1953, but there were those 1909’s, 1909 V.D.B.’s, 1914D, 1922 No date, and 1931S dated coins to worry about. Those coins were almost never culled from change. Once in a while some lucky kid would score a coup and actually find one of these rare or scarce pieces.

          Once in awhile, somebody would find a three-legged Buffalo nickel or a 1942 over 1 dime (this coin clearly shows the “2” in 1942 superimposed over the “1” in a 1941 date). It didn’t happen often.

          As time went on, we tried to fill up Whitman Folders with: Indian Head Cents, Liberty Nickels, Mercury Dimes, Standing Liberty and Washington Quarters. Now we were getting into some real money coins. Fifty cent coins were serious money to a kid and most folks in 1953. To collect fifty cent and silver dollar coins was beyond the reach of many of us.

          When I was sixteen, I bought my first coin from a real coin dealer. Up until this time, I culled pocket change, but I was ready to move on. There was a grand old man, whose name I can’t remember, who worked for a Framingham, Massachusetts coin dealer named Fuzzy Furbush. Fuzzy ran a shop in an arcade which seemed to me to be quite grand and the like of which I had never seen before. After all, I was a country boy from Franklin, Massachusetts, and we did not have tunnel-like arcades in Franklin back in the 1950’s.

       

My first serious coin purchase was this 1835 fifty cent piece which I bought for six dollars in the 1950’s.

This Rosa Americana Colonial coin was the start of my early collection.

George of Transylvania minted this silver crown of thaler in 1659. This cThe large cent collectors want every example listed in Sheldon’s book on large cents. This tends to keep them out of poolhalls and off the streets.oin is a popular item  for many reasons.

German coins, like this Hamburg Wedding thaler, are avidly sought by serious collectors of world coins. I bought this one with one of my first paychecks from a “real job.”

          Fuzzy sold stamps (which I have collected since 1949), and coins, as well as, sporting goods. It was a fascinating place. On that day, I had my entire personal fortune with me. I had about ten dollars!

          I was tired of collecting good, very good, fine, very fine, and extra fine coins out of circulation. I turned to the grandfatherly old man behind the counter and said, “I want to buy something old and nice.”

          He stroked his chin and looked over the stock. Then he selected a coin from the display case and handed it to me. “How about this one,” he said.

          I took it. It was an 1835 Bust Half-Dollar in extra-fine condition. My God! It was beautiful in my eyes. Nobody I ever knew had such a beautiful and early United States coin. “How much is it?” I asked trying to suppress my excitement.

          The old man smiled. “How about six dollars?”

          “Is it common?” I asked.

          “No coin over a hundred years old in that condition is common,” He replied.

          “O.K.” I replied as I began to count out the six somewhat crumpled one dollar bills. The prize was mine!

          I was the envy of all those pedestrian collectors with their blue cardboard folders of brown circulated cents. Their old pennies (cents) even smelled funny!

          I developed a new philosophy of collecting that very day. From that time onward, I resolved only to collect attractive and nice coins. I really no longer cared if I ever finished a set or run of coins I just wanted a great looking and interesting coin collection.

       

My father got two silver dollars every payday for more than 30 years. I began collecting my set out of his hoards which came from the local bank where they were available at face value.

This beautiful quarter, designed by Herman A. Mac Neil, was changed in 1917. Liberty’s exposed breasts were covered. Finishing off this set was a major ambition.

The Holy Roman Empire (800-1806) dominated the German States for about a thousand years. From the 1480’s to the early 1800’s thousands of varieties of thalers were minted. They are popular collector coins.

 

          I also resolved to collect attractive foreign coins. At that time, foreign coins were not widely popular in this country. Fuzzy had boxes of foreign coins. One box contained coins which cost ten cents each or three for a quarter. Another box contained coins for a quarter each or three for sixty-cents, and the last box, the super box, had coins which cost fifty cents each. This is where the real bargains were to be found.

          I used to go through those boxes whenever I could scrape together a few dollars. Some of the coins I culled out of these boxes now have a value of twenty to fifty dollars. Many of them were un-circulated European nineteenth century bronze and silver coins.

          When I culled my collection for stock when I began dealing in coins, I had thousands of beautiful specimens to display and sell. I still buy coins for stock as if I’m buying them for myself.

          I guess the moral of this little saga is collect what you like and what appeals to your eye and sense of adventure. In my whole fifty-year plus collecting life, I only displayed my coins once as an exhibit. The exhibit was for the Franklin Historical Society. I went to the bank and filled an entire small over-night case with coins that could have comprised a pirate treasure of 1750.

          There were half crowns struck from silver captured in a British naval raid on Lima, Peru. The word “Lima” appears under the truncation of George II’s head. There were pieces of eight, Thalers, and European and South American coins of all sorts of both silver and gold. I carefully piled them into a locked showcase in what looked like a random treasure. I took a long time to make it look like a “Random Pile.”

          Each coin was in its holder, but the effect was great. The thousand or so pieces of pre-1750 treasure made an impressive show which was a true representation of a real pirate treasure.

          So what do I collect? The same thing I deal in. Pretty, historic, and interesting coins. So what should you collect? The answer is anything you want.         

           

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