Not quite what I daydreamed of

When I was a kid working on filling my two Whitman Lincoln cent albums, I searched through cents every chance I got.

I dreamed of someday finding a 1909-S VDB like a customer on my paper route had done.

I drooled thinking about the possibility of finding a 1914-D. If I could only get a ’14-D.

Naturally, there were other coins that I dreamed about finding, but never did.

I didn’t even find a 1909 VDB in change.

By the middle 1960s, cents in circulation had been pretty well picked over and those that remained were almost always Memorial cents because even back then there were many hobbyists who were saving their Wheat-Back cents just on general principle.

These memories came back to me in a flash last week after I had paid my bill for lunch at the Crystal Cafe.

After I left a tip, I was down to the last seven cents change from a $10 bill.

But I faithfully looked at the two cents and the nickel to see what I might have.

Then it hit me.

I laughed out loud.

After more than 50 years I had at last gotten a ’14-D Lincoln cent in change.

It was a 2014-D, of course, but that was enough to amuse me.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper is winner of the 2014 Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog and is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."