Friday, December 21, 2007

A Childhood Remembered For $17.50

In 1999, when Adam was 5, he and I were shopping at Osco's, a Chicago drugstore chain, and we saw an album for collecting the state quarters, which were just starting to come out. He's always loved coins, so I purchased the album.

Over the years, we've enjoyed collecting the state quarters. It's interesting to see what the states choose to represent themselves. Indiana has the Indy 500 on their quarter. Florida chooses to focus on its prominent role in space exploration as home of Cape Canaveral. Both Ohio and North Carolina claim to be the birthplace of flight-- the Wright Brothers lived in Ohio and built their airplane there, but chose to test their airplane in North Carolina. And somehow, we're missing Vermont, which came out in 2001.

Tonight, on the way to our traditional Chinese buffet, I was telling Adam stories of funny things he said and did when he was little. It was funny-- he didn't remember most of them. Many of them took place when he was 3 or 4, around the time we got the quarter album.

Next year the last of the quarters will come out. The last will be Alaska and Hawaii, which became states in 1959, just two years before I was born. Collecting the quarters will have brought my son from being in Kindergarten to beginning high school. I think I spent five bucks for the album, and will spend, in the end, another $12.50 for the quarters. I consider it money well spent.

Anybody have a Vermont quarter?

10 comments:

Distributorcap said...

i have been buying the quarters directly from the mint --- i have all of them, including vermont

the mint is considering another year for puerto rico, guam, and other territories -- not done yet......

i heard some states are hard to get.....i guess vermont is one of them. ebay would have one

SamuraiFrog said...

Damn it, I've been trying to get all of those, but I just take them out of my change. I need a LOT of them, too!

I do have an extra Vermont, as it turns out, if you want it.

Johnny Yen said...

Distributorcap-
Actually, they confirmed that just today-- they're adding six territories.

Samurai-
I may take you up on it!

Cap'n Ergo "XL+II" Jinglebollocks said...

::sigh:: we were doing the same thing ourselves, and then the stupid quarter folder (exactly like yours) vanished in a move from point A to point B.

Maybe we should start doing it all o'er again??

Some Guy said...

Megan got me something similar for my birthday, except for mine, I have to get the quarters from both the Denver and Philly Mints. I have a bunch of holes - no GA, KY, or MS. I think the doing state quarters thing was a great idea.

Joe said...

That is very cool. Much cooler than the collection of fired shell casings my kids grew up with.

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

So now you're using your blog to beg for money. Have you no shame sir? :)

SkylersDad said...

I will look through my change jar for Vermont!

SamuraiFrog said...

Hey, let me know. I can just send it over.

Johnny Yen said...

Hot Lemon-
Ours disappeared for a while. It ended up in our basement when we were doing renovations.

Chris-
Someone I work with is doing both mints. We kept it simple. Yes, it's been fun!

Bubs-
Yes, but it built character to collect shell casings!

Dr. Monkerstein-
None at all!

Skyler's Dad-
Thanks!

I actually end up with a lot of change because of my two waitering jobs. I'm surprised it hasn't turned up in the last couple of weeks. We actually had it, and it must have fallen out.

Samurai-
Thanks!