MY COIN COLLECTING MEMORIES
By Francis B.
As a boarding school secondary school student I did not like geography and came to dislike history for the oft-repeated reasons from many of my contemporaries, "boring dates and names and wars " which did not connect enthusiastically in my adolescent brain.
Life begins at 40 they say, but for me the love of traveling began in my 20’s. I did doctoral work in history in my 40’s! An interest in coins developed naturally as I took home the old lira and franc coins (the smaller ones; college students could not afford to keep the higher denominations and the notes!). I was already curious about the different Irish and British coins, old complicated L S D, in itself interestingly based on the Roman coinage in Latin, Lira, Solidii and Denarii, Pounds Shillings(silver) and Pence. Although both countries had their own coins and notes, they were used interchangeably and were more accessible to us on the border between Northern and Southern Ireland. I worked in my uncle's shop as a hobby (and got free candy "sweets” and ice cream!) during my elementary school, and later on, my high school holidays.
Every coin enthusiast knows that the old Irish money featured animals and birds from that dominantly agricultural land, but the symbol on the obverse side of each coin was the harp. Ireland is the only country in the world which boasts a musical instrument on its coins.
When my father took early retirement from the Irish State police, he and my mother back to the Republic side of Ulster ( the northern province of Ireland). They went into a family business of which we all had a part every summer during my growing years, with my uncle (mother's brother, my namesake and godfather).
My father saved some interesting coins and stamps for me, and that mutual interest developed after I left Ireland for the US in 1964. The familiar Harp and the animals continued when Ireland and the UK joined the decimal system; the Harp is proudly featured on the obverse side of the Irish issue of the Euro coinage, which of course succeeded the move by Ireland and the UK to the decimal system. Ireland adopted the Euro as the new Millennium brought an exciting political and economic system to Europe, inevitably and eventually the Euro replaced the old coinage for those who formed the original European Union. Their number increases so the coin hobby has new outlets each year.
When I left Ireland in 1964 for the USA, my parents gave me a gold Sovereign featuring King George V, dated 1912 and the three Silver Crowns (popularly "dollars" when there were four to the Pound Sterling. The dates are 1882, 1892 and 1908 and featured Queen Victoria. The coins were those used in the simple marriage ritual, a symbolic exchange of earthly treasures which was part of the marriage rite in those days in Ireland (and is still an option there), celebrated in my mother's home parish church in Northern Ireland. My uncle gave me another Gold Sovereign as a parting gift also in 1964.
As I traveled to more countries before the Euro was introduced - and still have gone to countries where the Euro is still not adopted - my coin collection grew. When the Euro was introduced, I bought notes and coins from the old UK and Irish money, and some small bags of coins from several countries, because it brought back sentimental memories of my childhood and early travels.
The advent of the Euro stirred an interest in collecting official Euro sets from the Vatican and Ireland and a full set of the Euros from the original nations. Since then I began on E-Bay where I still find some interesting coins.
I was introduced happily to Euro Collections International through an internet search. Today they help me specialize mainly in coins with religious and historic themes as well as Fairy Tales. Always the child at heart!
My father saved a huge collection of the old Irish and British coins when the switch was made to the decimal and later the Euros coinage which he gave me years later. Occasionally when I’m on the floor re-organizing some coins I’ll find one of my four British farthings. Farthings are literally one quarter of a penny. They went out of use decades ago along with the halfpenny, both of course featured in a well-known folk rhyme which advocates putting a penny, or a ha'penny in the Old Man's Hat.
The US Mint began a series of special quarters in 1999 with five from each State, in the order in which they signed the Declaration of Independence, and later joined the Union featuring coins from the Denver and Philadelphia mints. That began immediately as a sub-category of my coin collection, several full sets of the coins to date take up quite a bit of space in a spare room, and it also includes a few sets of the original 13 Colonies.
Today my collection of coins ranges from Russia, to Belarus, to Latvia and feature cathedrals, monasteries and historic cities. This then goes on through Europe to Austria's Art Treasures gold set, fueled by my interest in the Humanities, then to Switzerland's Piz Bernina mountain, and the Lucerne Bridge, the Vatican's Swiss Guards 500th anniversary gold (2006) and Bulgaria's pre-Euro coins.
My imagination roams through France’s Jules Verne’s 20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Australia's Gallipoli. The lighthouse featured on the US Maine State quarter is a reminder of an ocean-side childhood in Ireland within hearing of the nearby fog horn from Inistrahull Lighthouse and the light searching the dark winter nights to save life and warn of danger in the North Atlantic.
I still love to travel. I teach the Humanities, which is enhanced by my love of history. I continue my interests and relive fond memories by recalling the many cities or countries featured on the coins as I review my shelves full of the sacred and the silly - the portraits of the Vatican's six Popes of my lifetime to date on Lira and Euro, to the whimsical Blanche Neige (Snow White) of France's series of the most popular fairy tales; the Euro pattern set from the Isle of Man where my parents honeymooned.
One could say I made peace with my adolescent dislike of geography and history and continue to hear my late sainted mother say to my father and me , "For God's sake what are you men looking at now!?"
The collection still grows. Another new Austrian monastery coin is on its way from ECI while two of the coveted Ireland Euro 2006 Proof sets are on their way soon with my brother who will return to spend the winter here. He and I will travel next summer to the land from whence Christopher Columbus sailed his three ships to the Americas in 1492, images of which from his commemorative set of coins produced by Spain are coming soon to this home in Florida. The tired trio will relax after that long journey alongside Spain's romantic Don Quixote, if he does not tilt them having given up on Windmills!
A serious Queen Victoria and golden King George V stand alone on the top shelf of special family photos and other souvenirs, that include the large bronze weights from the shop which I used to weigh loose tea and sugar. Alongside is a proud policeman's first stripes, a gift slipped quietly to me toward the end of his life, and a lovely photograph of both for their 50th wedding anniversary, where that wife and mother may still be wondering why the shelves are full of "stuff" but which I hope she understands today as their son roams the world in fact and in fantasy and waits for the special packages that bring new memories of places seen and yet to be visited!