Time to look again at favorite coins

I had a conversation the other day with a friend who has come back to coins after a long period between childhood and middle age.

He is having the time of his life.

He told me all about having purchased a 1909-S VDB cent.

What a hobby milestone that is.

I can appreciate it.

It is one of those things I still hope to do.

My friend is three years younger than I am.

So in that sense, he beat me to it.

He has been collecting Lincoln cents now on a concerted basis for a year or two.

His want list has become very short.

No surprise there, is there?

Our last conversation was to ask if I was going to a local show.

He was planning to go on safari to begin scouting out 1922 plain cents.

Unfortunately, I had a conflict on that date.

I will have to join him at another show.

I expect the experience will be worthwhile.

He is seeing coins through new eyes because of his long separation from them.

We longtime collectors can benefit from a dose of that kind of enthusiasm.

Interestingly, with his return to numismatics, he has taken up Washington quarters as well.

But only up to 1998.

He does not want to mess with the state series or America the Beautiful.

His desire is only for classic Washington quarters.

It is also not a desire for silver.

If that were the case he would have cut the set off at 1964.

Is this the signal that we have all been waiting for to pile back into a series that has been fast asleep for many years?

I hope so.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog for the third time in 2017 . He is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."

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