USA Coin Album: Hobby Nostalgia

The year 2015 marked my golden anniversary in the coin hobby, so I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic of late. Of course, it may be that I’m nostalgic all the time, as my main collecting area for years has been items relating to the history of the hobby since the 1930s. That was the decade in which coin collecting broke free of its confinement to well off gentlemen of some means and became an “everyman” pursuit. The introduction of coin boards and folders priced at just 25 cents made searching through pocket change and bank rolls an activity for persons of all ages and either gender. Filling all the openings was more of a game than a scholarly pursuit, and thousands of Americans joined in the fun.

This activity grew rapidly during the 1950s and reached its apex in the years 1960-64. This was a period when many department and variety stores maintained coin and stamp departments. These were concession operations, the material for sale being supplied by large wholesalers such as the Friedberg Brothers, Robert and Jack, who did business under the name Coin & Currency Institute, Inc. Still recognizable today as the publisher of widely used books on U. S. paper money and gold coins of the world, C&CI formerly produced an extremely successful line of coin albums titled Library of Coins, as well as their little brothers for beginners, Treasury of Coins. These albums were offered in its chain of franchises, and they did much to stimulate coin purchases by persons buying the scarce issues that could no longer be found in circulation. I'll soon be publishing a book that catalogs all of the coin albums published by C&CI and includes a history of the company and its owners.

Among the many relics from the peak years of the coin hobby to be found in my own collection is a nifty gadget called SCAN-O-MATIC. This is a lighted magnifier into which one can drop a quantity of cents through a vertical tube in the same manner planchets used to be fed to the coin press. Sliding the side handle back and forth causes the lowest cent in the tube to pass under the magnifying lens to reveal one side. Sliding the handle again flips it over to again pass under the magnifier with the other side up. One more slide of the handle drops that cent out the bottom and brings the next one into place. By using this device collectors could go through an entire roll of cents in a couple minutes to check for better dates, varieties and upgrades.

As a young child excitedly perusing all the offerings at the coin/stamp departments in San Francisco’s The Emporium or nearby F. W. Woolworth, I lusted for a SCAN-O-MATIC of my own. Unfortunately, I was not to own one at the time, as this device sold for a whopping $12.95 in the 1960s, quite a sum then. What money I had was better spent on actual coins. That childhood itch has since been scratched with a vengeance, as I now own eight examples of the SCAN-O-MATIC, which hasn’t been produced since the early 1970s. My collection includes various colors of the plastic body, as well as all of the packaging and accessory combinations known to me. I don’t have much occasion to use them, as I’m no longing looking through rolls of cents, but they do still work. I even keep one in my office as a reminder of my own history in the hobby, and it’s drawn some amusing smiles from the young graders who were born long after its time.

A similarly fun gadget in my collection is the ROTAGRADER. Another plastic wonder, it looks a little like a film cartridge from those cheap instamatic cameras popular in the 1970s. A roll of paper inside the cartridge is printed with photos of popular coin types in various grades. Turning the knurled wheels on either end of the ROTAGRADER moves this paper around two spools so that the desired image and grade come into view. Of course, this tool was useful solely for circulated coins, but such pieces were the main thrust of the hobby during its peak years in the early 1960s. Collecting coins from circulation and filling folders was all the rage, and dealers’ ads still included long listings of inexpensive, low grade coins, something one just doesn’t see anymore.

These are only two items in my very large collection of tools and holders relating to the hobby of coin collecting, but they illustrate the ingenuity that once existed in a time long before coin certification and encapsulation. While my actual coin collection was extremely modest then, it was a cherished possession that I sought to enjoy on as many levels as possible. Though I lacked both of these gadgets when I could have used them the most, they now turn up occasionally from online sellers, so I can recreate some of that early excitement. In this respect I suppose I’m no different from the graying car lover who’s finally able to buy that vintage muscle car he yearned for in high school. It seems we all have an old itch to scratch…

David W. Lange's column, “USA Coin Album,” appears monthly in The Numismatist, the official publication of the American Numismatic Association.