A journey through a century of pocket change, from Chicago to Saigon.
More than 350 coins and tokens that Kent has kept safe for decades: two dozen Morgan and Peace silver dollars, a hundred and one silver half dollars, an album of a hundred and eight Washington quarters, American silver from before the Civil War, souvenirs of two World's Fairs, a blue Whitman folder of fifty-one Jefferson nickels, and small change carried home from a dozen countries.
The oldest piece was made in 1834, when Andrew Jackson was president. The newest is a quarter from 1984.
Tap the coin to turn it over. This is the 1860 three-cent silver piece, the smallest silver coin America ever made.
Four of the six trays, laid out on the kitchen table.
The 1860 three-cent silver piece, nicknamed the "trime," is only 14 mm across and weighs less than a gram. It is easy to mistake for a button.
Congress created it in 1851 so people could buy a three-cent postage stamp with a single coin. Only about 287,000 were struck in 1860, which makes this a scarcer date. It is worth roughly $40 to $100 today.
Before 1857 a penny was a big copper coin the size of a half dollar. The 1858 Flying Eagle cent was its replacement, made of copper and nickel, which is why it looks pale and feels thick.
The alloy was so hard it kept breaking the Mint's dies, and the design lasted only two years before the Indian Head cent took over. This is the single most valuable coin in the collection, worth about $50 to $100.
Chicago's Columbian Exposition marked 400 years since Columbus. The half dollar was the very first U.S. commemorative coin and the first to show a real person. The fair sold them for a dollar each, and Kent has three: one dated 1892 and two dated 1893. Each is worth about $25 to $40 today.
The oval penny was squeezed through a rolling press at the fair. Chicago 1893 is where that souvenir idea began, and these first elongated cents are collected in their own right. A good one is worth $30 to $100, so the Chicago group together comes to roughly $100 to $200.
Sixty-nine years after Chicago, the Century 21 Exposition put Seattle on the map and left the city its Space Needle. Fair organizers sold these bronze dollars as souvenir currency, and businesses across Washington state honored them until the fair closed on October 21, 1962.
Two World's Fairs in one collection, a lifetime apart. The Seattle dollar is worth about $5 to $15.
The 1932 quarter was struck for the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth and was meant to be a one-year commemorative. It proved so popular it never left, and Washington is still on the quarter today.
1932 was a Depression year and only 5.4 million were made in Philadelphia, a small number for a quarter. The mint mark sits just below the wreath; no mark means Philadelphia, while a tiny D or S would make it a rare coin worth over $100. As a Philadelphia coin it is worth about $12 to $18, most of that the silver in it. Kent has a second 1932, also from Philadelphia, in the quarter album further down the page.
The horseshoe-and-clover piece is a celluloid good luck charm from the early 1900s, the kind a store gave away with a purchase.
The penny in a metal ring is an advertising token: "Smoke The Only Pebble, the best 5¢ cigar in town. Wm. Sunlin, Elgin, Ill." Local tokens like this are collected today for the town history as much as the coin. The charm is worth a few dollars, the encased cent $10 to $25.
Twenty-four of them: seventeen Morgans and seven Peace dollars, each with three-quarters of an ounce of silver.
George T. Morgan, the same engraver who designed the ship side of Kent's Columbian halves, put his Liberty on the silver dollar in 1878. Western silver mines were producing more metal than anyone could use, and Congress ordered the Mint to turn it into dollars by the hundreds of millions. Most sat in Treasury vaults for decades, which is why so many survive.
Kent's run from 1879 to 1921, the final year of the design, and several carry the O of the New Orleans mint. A worn one is worth about $50 to $60, nearly all of it silver; the bright ones, like the 1885 and 1886, closer to $60 to $90.
Struck to mark the end of the First World War, the Peace dollar was designed by Anthony de Francisci, who modeled Liberty on his wife Teresa. It was the last silver dollar made for everyday use in the United States.
Kent's seven span 1922 to 1927, with a couple that have taken on a warm gold tone from decades in a drawer. Each is worth about $50 to $55.
Liberty on the left, the eagle on the right. Four of the Morgans show a small O above the word DOLLAR, the mark of the New Orleans mint.
Philadelphia struck only 110,000 silver dollars in 1894, one of the smallest numbers in the whole Morgan series. Turn the coin over and look just above the word DOLLAR. If the space is empty, it is a Philadelphia coin worth $700 or more even with this much wear. An O there means New Orleans, roughly $50 to $100; an S means San Francisco, roughly $100 to $250.
After 1935 no dollar coins were made for thirty-six years. The Eisenhower dollar of 1971 brought the big coin back, now in copper-nickel rather than silver, with an eagle landing on the moon to honor Apollo 11. For the nation's 200th birthday the back was changed to the Liberty Bell.
Too heavy to be popular, they were replaced by the small Susan B. Anthony dollar in 1979. Kent's two are worth a dollar or two each, but they close the story that the Morgans began.
A hundred and one silver halves from 1929 to 1964, more than a third of an ounce of silver in every one and thirty-six ounces all together.
Adolph Weinman's Liberty strides toward the sunrise with the flag over her shoulder and an armful of laurel and oak. Many people call it the most beautiful coin America ever made, and the Mint brought the design back in 1986 for its silver bullion coin. Kent has twenty, from 1929 to 1947.
The 1929 is the one to notice. Philadelphia struck no half dollars that year, so it came from Denver or San Francisco, and either way it is the scarcest coin in the tray. The rest are 1930s and wartime dates that passed through a great many hands. The 1929 is worth about $40 to $60, the others $25 to $35 each.
Mint director Nellie Tayloe Ross admired Benjamin Franklin and put him on the half dollar in 1948. The back shows the Liberty Bell with its crack. The little eagle beside it was added late in the design because the law says a half dollar must carry one, and the engravers kept it as small as they could.
Kent has forty-six, from 1950 to 1963, the everyday half dollars of the 1950s and early 1960s. They are worth about $24 to $30 apiece, a little over the silver in them.
Congress put John F. Kennedy on the half dollar within weeks of his death, and the first ones reached banks in March 1964. People lined up for them and took them home as keepsakes, and the half dollar has never really circulated since.
1964 was also the last year the coin was made of 90 percent silver. Kent has thirty-five of them, most still bright. Each is worth about $23 to $25, the price of its silver.
Oldest first. Where the tiny mint letter could be read from the photograph, it is noted.
Forty-six of the same face is a lot to look at, so here is one coin for each year with how many Kent has. Two more have dates too worn or blurred to read in the photographs.
Kennedys at the left of each tray, Walking Liberties and Franklins mixed as they came out of the drawer.
A hundred and eight Washington quarters from 1932 to 1984, filled in one hole at a time. Eighty-one of them are silver.
The Washington quarter was made for the two-hundredth anniversary of George Washington's birth in 1932, and it was supposed to be a one-year souvenir. John Flanagan's portrait, taken from a bust Houdon modeled from life in 1785, proved so popular that the Mint kept it. After a pause in 1933 the coin came back for good, and it is the design most Americans have carried in their pockets for the better part of a century.
The album has 120 holes and Kent has filled 108 of them, from the first year to a 1984. Like the nickel folder, these were found in change rather than bought, and most are well worn, with the date and LIBERTY clear but little of the hair detail left.
Look at the top row of the first page. The second and third holes, marked 1932-D and 1932-S, are the only empty ones among the silver dates. The coins that seem to sit in them are really the two 1944s on the page behind, showing through the clear sleeve.
Those two are the coins every quarter collector hunted for. Denver struck only 436,800 quarters in 1932 and San Francisco 408,000, against more than five million in Philadelphia, and either one is worth $100 to $150 today even well worn. Kent's 1932 is the Philadelphia coin, worth about $15 to $25. It is still the one that started the whole album.
Most of the silver quarters are common dates worth their weight in silver, about $12 to $15 each. A handful from the 1930s came out of Denver and San Francisco in smaller numbers and bring a little more, even this worn. The best of them is the 1936-D.
Every quarter through 1964 is ninety percent silver, a little under a fifth of an ounce apiece. Kent's eighty-one silver quarters hold fourteen and a half ounces all together, about $950 worth, and that is where nearly all of the album's value lies. From 1965 on the quarter is copper and nickel over a copper core, and the twenty-seven later coins are worth face value, including the two Bicentennial quarters with Jack Ahr's drummer on the back.
The green tinge on some of the coins is a film left by the soft plastic sleeves that albums of this age were made with. It is common, it does no harm to the silver value, and a dealer can remove it. If the album is ever reorganized, newer holders would stop it from spreading.
Dates and mints are printed under each row. Where a hole is empty, the coin behind it on the next page shows through, so trust the label rather than the coin.
Coins that bought a newspaper, a loaf of bread or a cigar.
Before the nickel we know today, five cents came as a tiny silver half dime. Nickels arrived in 1866, and for years both circulated side by side. The five shown here are worth about $70 to $150 together.
Fifty-one Jefferson nickels from 1939 to 1961, pressed one at a time into a Whitman blue book.
Whitman has sold these blue folders since 1940. Every hole is labeled with a date and mint, and the number printed under it tells how many were made, so even a child could see which coins were worth waiting for. Kent has filled fifty-one of the sixty-five holes in this one, starting with a 1939 and ending with a 1961 from Denver.
The fourteen empty holes tell a story too. They are the scarce ones that seldom turned up in a handful of change: all three of the first-year 1938 coins, the 1939-D, and the 1950-D, the key to the whole series, with only 2.6 million made.
From late 1942 to 1945 the metal nickel was needed for armor plate, so the Mint made the five-cent piece from copper, silver and manganese instead. To tell the two kinds apart, a large mint mark was placed above Monticello on the back, and for the first time on any American coin Philadelphia used a P.
Kent has nine of the eleven wartime nickels. Together they hold about half an ounce of silver, which is where most of the folder's value lies: the whole folder comes to about $40 to $50. The alloy also tarnishes to a darker, slightly greenish gray, which is why these nine look different from their neighbors on the page.
Dates run left to right, with the mintage under each hole. The purple felt shows through wherever a coin is still missing.
How coins from ten countries ended up in an American coin jar.
Five countries, five monarchs, all within a few years of each other. Immigrants brought these over in their pockets. The Belgian coin is one of the first in Europe made of copper-nickel instead of silver, the same idea as the Flying Eagle cent. They are worth about $3 to $15 each.
The cash coins with square holes were strung on cords by the hundred. The dragon coppers date from the last years of the Qing dynasty, and the 1904 Philippine centavo was struck by the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia for the American colonial government. Most are worth $2 to $10; the three silver pieces, from Indochina, China and the Straits Settlements, $15 to $60 each.
Mexican silver and copper circulated freely in the American Southwest through the 1800s. The Australian round 50 cent was made only in 1966; it was replaced with a twelve-sided coin because the silver in it was worth more than 50 cents. That coin holds about $20 of silver today; the others here are worth $2 to $25 each.
Not quite coins, but worth a second look. The gold piece has a thin gold skin over a darker metal core: it may be an old gilded copy of a small gold coin, or a genuine coin that was turned into jewelry and backed with solder. A jeweler's scale would tell the story. The token and the charm are worth a few dollars each. The gold piece is the wild card: a few dollars if it is gilt, a good deal more if there is real gold underneath.
An honest estimate, in today's collector market.
The 24 silver dollars
About $50 each in silver alone, more for the bright ones
The 101 silver half dollars
Thirty-six ounces of silver, about $23 a coin
The quarter album
Fourteen and a half ounces of silver in the 81 silver ones, about $12 a coin
The 1894 Morgan, if it has no mint mark
Otherwise $50 to $250
The whole collection
Roughly, if every piece were sold
| The 24 Morgan and Peace silver dollars | $1,400 to $2,000 |
| The 101 silver half dollars | $2,400 to $2,700 |
| The 108 Washington quarters in the album | $1,000 to $1,300 |
| Coins from around the world | $150 to $300 |
| The Chicago 1893 souvenirs | $100 to $200 |
| The other American coins of the 1800s | $100 to $200 |
| The Flying Eagle cent and the three-cent silver | $90 to $200 |
| Quarters, Eisenhower dollars, tokens and charms | $50 to $100 |
| The nickel folder | $40 to $50 |
| Everything together | $5,300 to $7,000 |
The half dollars are the largest part of the total, then the silver dollars, then the quarter album, and in each case nearly all of it is the silver in the coins. Outside the silver dollars and halves, the standouts are the 1858 Flying Eagle cent ($50 to $100) and the Chicago 1893 group (about $150). The nickel folder adds about $40 to $50, nearly all of it the silver in the nine wartime coins. Most other pieces are worth $2 to $30 each, and the smaller silver coins are worth at least their metal. Three things could still change the picture: the mint mark on the 1894 dollar, the mint mark on the loose 1932 quarter in the tray, and the small gold-colored piece.
These are collector prices for coins sold one at a time. A dealer buying the whole lot would pay less, closer to the value of the silver alone, which comes to about $4,700.
The real value is the story: a family's travels and a century of history, one coin at a time.