Like most boys who get involved in coin collecting, my collection started out as an accumulation of Lincoln Cents. They were readily available, and the fact that there had recently been a design change (“Wheaties” were still common, and the Lincoln Memorial Cents were making their way into circulation) made “pennies” interesting. My father carried a Peace Dollar with him everywhere he went, and the simple design burned itself into my mind as an exemplar of beautiful coinage. But it wasn’t until I began work on the Coin Collecting Merit Badge in Boy Scouts that I encountered my first Walking Liberty Half Dollar.
I’d seen pictures of the Walking Liberty Half Dollar in my Blue Book, but it just didn’t seem “manly” enough to me to care about a coin featuring (in my words) “some lady in a dress.” Besides that, I didn’t care for the Eagle on the reverse of the coin. It seemed over-sized, and out of proportion to the rest of the coin. But I was required to have one to complete my “Twentieth Century Type Set,” so I went to a
I spoke to a man who went to the big concerts to collect beer and pop cans in the parking areas. He said he makes over $100 in a few hours (plus the time to take them to the store). Collecting “returnables” can be an unpleasant way to make money, but an old guy in town here tells me he pays the rent doing this.
