$23.88

My mother and father handed something down to my husband and me this week.   It was something they’d had in the attic for many years and decided it was time to either give it to us or find it a new home.   My husband and I gladly accepted because it’s a unique thing in a way.

They gave us books of coins.   A small coin collection from a total number of coins perspective.   When my parents got married one of them (I’m not sure which) decided to collect pennies, nickels and dimes.  They got books that listed the various versions of each Lincoln penny from a certain year range and when they’d find one they didn’t have in their change, they’d press it into the cardboard slot.

None of the coins are mint and a lot of them aren’t in great shape, but what I found interesting was the information listed right below the slot on how many of that coin was minted in a given year.   A lot of the books are mostly full, some are complete and a few are mostly empty.

They stopped collecting when I was still living at home I think, but I remember the books around and my father putting a coin in from time to time.   Before my mother gave them to us yesterday she did a count of the face value of the whole collection which came to a staggering $23.88.    The market value of the collection is not likely to be much, but it’s not the value in dollars that’s important to me, it’s that it’s a collection that my parents worked on together, now over fifty years old as they’ve been married for fifty-four years.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was having a dinner conversation last week with his cousin, Kyle.  I didn’t hear it at the time but after dinner Kyle told me my son had explained to him how he was fifty percent robot and fifty percent alien.   Then, to be sure his heritage was clearly understood, he told Kyle, “aliens are part goat.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter came in from playing with friends outside for dinner tonight.    She was eating dinner rather quietly and then said a phrase we don’t use so it made me laugh when she said to me, “Madison had some serious attitude today.”