When is a coin find not a coin find?

Searching change for collectible coins is catching.

I'm glad it is true.

It does not always occur in the way we collectors understand it.

I made a run down to my mother’s house over the weekend.

My last visit a couple of weeks ago resulted in my writing about the lack of 2017-dated coins in my change.

It was junk mail to my mother that contained a 2017-D nickel that I wrote about in my May 30 blog.

She had noticed my reaction to the nickel.

I did not realize how much so.

Apparently, she wants to continue to be helpful.

I was handed a cent on this trip.

She said I might be interested in it.

I looked.

It was a 1973-D.

I asked her why she thought I should see it.

Was it because it was copper?

She hadn’t saved anything else dated before 1982, so that turned out not to be it.

She did not remember the changed composition.

Did she think the date was significant?

I asked if 1973 meant anything to her.

It didn’t.

The coin was brown.

It was definitely a circulated example.

It was not a bright shiny new reddish color that would catch the eye.

She became impatient.

Did I want it, or didn’t I?

If I didn’t, I could give it back.

I paused like a deer in headlines.

Here I was, stumped.

I finally gave it back.

She was surprised I did not keep it.

On my return home I kept trying to think of what I might have missed.

Nothing came to mind.

However, I can report that since my last column about circulation finds I have received a 2017-D dime in change.

It was my first.

The fact that the dime beat any 2017-dated cents into my hands is a surprise, but that is part of the appeal of checking change.

Things are predictable until they aren’t.

What are you finding?

Buzz blogger Dave Harper has twice won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog and is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."

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