COLLECTOR OF COINS: SHORT STORY

July 01, 2024

COLLECTOR OF COINS: SHORT STORY

Some are so addicted to collecting coins, they will risk losing their home. That's dedication. For numerous years, humans have been collecting coins. Some of the first coin collectors were kings, queens, and emperors, and now centuries later some of the social elite and middle class have collected coins for a variety of reasons. For some people collecting is a gobby, some coin collectors collect looking for errors on coins, for some it's about composition, and other people look for a particular type of coin. A lot of collectors are looking for rare coins from particular countries or a specific subject, and there's alway the factor of collecting coins for the purpose of wealth. To what extreme will a person go when it comes to collecting coins?

Buth started collecting coins when he was a young boy. It was after he went to the store with his mom. Holding his moms hand as they walked through the parking lot of the grocery store, he suddenly stopped. His eyes didn't blink, he gasp when he spotted a shiny penny on the ground. His mom was forced to stop, she noticed the penny and told him, "See a penny pick it up...all the day you'll have good luck." His small hand reached down to pick it up. Mesmorized, he couldn't stop starring at the penny. The groved sides, the tiny etching, even the lines that created the silhouette, he felt like he had just found a precious treasure. Being the intelligent and aspiring person he was, he took coin collecting to another level.

Butch started to research the history of coins, it was the rare coins that spoke to him. He loved the detailing and historical significance. Over the years this passion turned from a hobby to a necessity. He wanted a promising path to victory and foreseen the prosperity of coins, especially rare coins from around the world. He was encouraged even more so to keep collecting once he started dating his soon to be wife. She encouraged him to never give up. She was constatly telling him, "Always follow your intuition and never give up." She was a brilliant school teacher and a beautiful woman. Once married, she was even supportive of her husbands hobby. She used his tenacity as an example to their children, teaching them to be determined and never give up.

Butch did get discouraged though. One day this brilliant engineer, this tenacious collector of coins, this loving husband and father, felt all these years were a waste of time. His wife was grading papers at the local high school and came up with an idea to lift her husbands spirit. She hurried home and started packing up her items from her sewing room. She emptied the room, making sure it was immaculate and then wrote on paper, "Always follow your intuition and never give up." She framed it and hung it above the door, in what would be a room dedicated to her husbands hobby. The kids herd their dad pull up the driveway and met him at the door. Grabbing his hands they pulled him to the room where his wife stood.

Looking around like a kid in a candy shop, he smiled from ear to ear, he was overcome with emotion. “What about your sewing room?” He turned to her, and the sign above the door caught his attention, “What’s this?” His oldest yelled, “Inspiration daddy.” She walked over to her husband, “ I never want you to give up, Remember to, “Always follow your intuition and never give up.” Their youngest, “Awe man, momma you alway say that, do you ever think you say it too much?” Butch and his wife laughed, “No never can never be too much,” she laughed.

Butch kept his office tidy and dust free, everything methodically in its place. His most valued tool, his magnifying glass, was perfectly placed and stood dustless, centered right in the middle of his desk. It had the highest quality lens. Arranged neatly and orderly he had tons of reference books systematically placed on a long shelf. He had all the top tools and back ups to every tool he needed. Everything from gloves used to handle the coins, coin tongs, soft towels, padded trays, coin tubes, display boxes, and albums. Everything had its place and he was very strict about putting them up precisely as they were. It was exhausting just to watch the man arrange his coin cases and binders. Binders and books full of information, detailed maps, all posed in order, like soldiers. The flip coin folders were polished down and were only handled with gloves. There were cleaning products for older and circulated tools, and everything stood at stance in his ultra bright room. Most importantly, he kept his wifes last written words, "Always follow your intuition and never give up." He cheerished that frame and kept it sparkling clean.

He was intending to find a period collection of coins that would let him pay off the house, buy his wife a new car, and put money aside for his kids to inherit. He was destined to get his hands on current or past rare coins for profit. “Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness.” That was his phrase he’d chant around the house. He made his kids repeat it over and over everyday. Neither of the kids understood what it meant. Both parents tried their best to guide their kids to wisdom and instill inspiration. When their mom was alive she’d quote Coco Chanel, “Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.” Quotes floated around in this coin collectors house. Both parents wanted their son and daughter to take risks and follow their dreams. Now it was up to Butch to make sure his kids had the money to follow their dreams and succeed.

Now a widowed parents with two young children, Butch struggled with taking on the role of being a single parent. He tried not to deal with the grief because he felt he really needed to concentrate on his children’s future. He wanted to have everything ready for their future, just in case something happened to him. He became yet more obsessed by finding these coins, especially one in particular. He’d continue to say to himself, “I have to be proactive. Time is of the essence.” He tried not to let his coin collecting divert him from his children. He would get up early to work on his coins then he’d make sure the kids were ready for school while he got ready for work. Butch started taking his lunch break at work to increase his time on his coins. One day they all came home, and there was a man standing in their driveway. Butch told the kids to go inside the house. They stared out the window and watched their father speak to the man. They watched as Butch got nervous. He’s hands started shaking, fidgeting with his clothes, and his eyes started to dart around, he refused to make eye contact with the man. It looked as if he was going to fall down as tears watered up in his eyes. He managed to shake the mans hand and hurried into the house.

Bypassing the kids he went straight into his office and fell to the floor, bursting out, "No...no...no," he screamed silently and then looked up to see his wife's sign above the door. He started talking to her as if she were in the room. "You always believed in me. You taught me to believe in myself. Now, I'm here and you're not. There's a new road I'm about to take. I don't know if I can do it though. Time is of the essence and I'm running out of time. I'm behind on everything! There's only one pay check coming in now and, and, and, time is of the essence." He pulled himself together and walked into the living room where the kids were. He called them over and sat in the middle of the two on the sofa. He spoke with a soft voice, "I'm gonna get right to the point. That man was here because we're on the way to losing our home. I don't want you guys to worry, I'm gonna take care of this. There's gonna be some changes, I'm going to need to get a second job. Don't worry, I can take care of everything as long as we all work together." The children sat silently, fear and tears in their eyes, needless to say, they were scared.

He made some calls, out of desperation, the kids could hear him say, "Please time is of the essence." He was begging people for work. It was tense for a few days. Inside the silence, their home felt cold, still, marked with a cloud of grey. The children were doing homework when Butch burst through the door, "I got it! I got it!" Joining together, "What daddy, what?" He took a deep breath, "I got another job! I'll be working part-time as a consultant." He seen the look of disappointment on there faces. "I also figured out a way we can spend more time together. We can go metal detecting and look for coins." He thought he had it figured out. It's here we have to ask, "Why not sell some items? Sell some of those valuable coins or downsize?" Butch choose to expose himself to a life with little sleep and spending even more money on coins. The extra money he made went to his hobby, he took the kids metal detecting, and during his lunch breaks he studied and ventured more into coin collecting. Butch kept saying he had a hunch and couldn't quit. He just got more and more eager and shut himself off from the world. Bills just kept pilling up and he went from showering to disheveled.

The day of awakening finally came. He had to take a second out on his home. He went to straight to his room and stared at his wifes photo on his side table. It hit him hard, he knew she was gone, he knew he let her down. "I just feel like I can't give up now, but I've made a mess of everything. You'd never accept me taking things this far. Worst of all I'm taking the kids down with me. I'm so ashamed of myself. It's all blowing up in my face." He reached for her picture and opened up the top drawer of the bedside table to put her picture away. While moving back a paper in the drawer he seen some coins. His wife picked up coins here and there over the years for him. He went through a roll of coins and his oversized jaw dropped. Snot nose and more tears started flowing down, "I don't understand how this is possible. Thank God...thank you God!" He held in his hand a 1969-S Lincoln Cent double die obverse. It was genuine. That had to be at least worth $25,000. However, when he saw a note from her reading, "Always follow your intuition and never give up." Under the note trapped in an air tight case where no air could hit it was a gold dinar. At the bottom of the drawer was a prized Islamic coin, a 723 Umayyad gold dinar valued from $3.7 million to $6 million. A rare incident? Sometimes it pays off to follow your gut, it can lead to luck.