My Business : WEbsite under construction

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 I specialize in selling United States Mint legal tender coins and medallions that feature prominent Black American or commemorate an event in Black American History with some of my coins being over 70 years old. Coins and medallions are early and modern Commemorate coins with an limited mintage made of silver and gold and bronze. My quarters are made of nickle clad and silver.

My job with the federal government allows me to travel all over the United States. One particular assignment in the nineties took me to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. I had just bought an old house that happen to be filled with antique furniture and I immediately fell in love with old things. This was the days before computers so I spent alot of time buying books on antiques and frequent antique stores. 

While on assignment in Virginia, I came across and antique store and was just browsing around when I came across a display that had these usual paper money. They were US currency and they looked like our paper money today but larger. A lot larger! I asked the clerk were the 5 dollar bill and the 10 dollar bill was real. She said yes and explained to me that around the turn of the century (the last century) our paper money was huge. (If you every heard of the term horse blanket as slang for money that's where the term came from.) I promptly bought them and some smaller red seal 5 dollar bills.

Excited with my purchase, once my assignment was over, I stopped to spend the night with my parents before going back home. I was showing my father who was 19 years older than my mother the huge 5 and 10 dollar bills I bought. He said the last time he saw bills that big he was 6 years old. As I was thinking about the value of my unusual purchase my father proceeded to tell me the story of the Booker T Washington Commemorative Silver Half Dollar.

My father was a young soldier stationed oversea during World War II in 1947 when a young white officer that just arrived from The States came up to him and said, " Look Sgt. They have colored people on coins back home." My father looked at the coin featuring Booker T Washington and said, " Wow, that's nice." The officer told my, " Sgt when I see you again, I'll give you the coin." My father never say the officer nor the coin every again.

I'm  looking at my father and I'm saying "Oh wow." But on the inside I'm saying " What the heck is he talking about?" I'm now walking away from my father thinking about nothing but looking up the value of my paper money.

A few weeks pass after I got back home when I finally get a coin magazine to find out the value of my paper money. As I flip thru the magazine looking for the paper money value, I came across an article about the Booker T Washington Commemorative Silver Half Dollar. I was floored. Daddy was right. There was indeed a coin out there that featured a black person! So now, I'm on a mission to find this coin.

One day at work I find myself parked next to a Coin Store in Queens and I decided to go in and ask about the Booker T Washington Commemorative Silver Half Dollar.  The coin dealer told me he didn't have it but he had the George Washington Carver Commemorative Silver Half Dollar. I'm thinking "What? There's 2 coins?" The gentleman showed me the George Washington Carver Commemorative Silver Half Dollar and I was floored. He stated thar he gets the Booker T Washington Commemorative Silver Half Dollar in all the time when someone comes in to sell a deceased relative coin collection. He told me to come back in a few weeks and he should have them in. I quickly bought the George Washington Carver Commemorative Silver Half Dollars and vow to come back to get the Booker T Washington Commemorative Silver Half Dollar. 

A few weeks, I stopped by again and sure enough he had the coin. That was the beginning of my love affair with these coins. I returned to this coin store and other over the years to purchase these coins exclusively. I also subscribed to coin magazines and started going to coin shows in the area listed in the back of these magazines. I started giving these coins out as gifts and the recipients would come back and ask for more. Thus my business was born. Christmas of that year, I gifted my father with the Booker T Washington Commemorative Silver Half Dollar and the George Washington Carver Commemorative Silver Half Dollar and told him as he smiled, " See Daddy, I do listen to you when you talk."

On a side note, my large horse blanket notes that started all of this, weren't really worth nowhere near as much as I paid for them, but to me they are worth 100x more than what I paid and I still have them.

My father saw combat duty in WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, spent 30 in the army and is currently buried at Arlington Cementary and I made sure I included these coins in his casket. RIP Sgt.

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