Like many people I collected coins as a kid, saving the interesting ones I found in circulation, and filling in the Whitman albums for Lincoln Cents and Jefferson Nickels. I had one silver dollar that I had gotten at the local bank (yes, before the sixties you could actually go to the bank and get silver dollars).

The, as a teenager, I quit collecting. I eventually emptied my folders for spending money. My interest was renewed in the early seventies, but by that time you couldn't find much in circulation, so my interest waned again.

Then around 1984 I went to my first coin show. I remember buying a nickel 3-cent piece. I was hooked again. I proceeded to refill the Whitman folders, and discovered, to my delight, that the silver coins that had vanished from circulation in the sixties could be had at bullion prices from most dealers.

But I soon hit a brick wall. While I could readily afford the coins dating from 1940, the ones prior to 1940 were, for the most part, too expensive!

Then, in 1986, I happened to run across a book entitled Foreign Coins Struck at US Mints. I had discovered a whole new way to collect coins.