By Maribeth Keane and Brad Quinn — I started collecting coins at age 11 when I earned a Boy Scout Coin Collecting Merit Badge. I collected cents, nickels, and dimes, placing them in the blue Whitman folders. Like most other boys in the late ’60s, I got interested in girls and cars, and then I went to college. I had been married for a few years before I dusted off my Whitman folders and tried to fill in the remaining holes, like the 1909-S V.D.B. cent, the 1914-D cent, and the 1955 Double Die cent. After completing my Lincoln...

U.S. Pattern Coins Tell the Stories Behind Our Currency

By Maribeth Keane and Jessica Lewis — I started collecting coins when I was five years old, and I started dealing when I was 13 or 14. Most kids start with coins of circulation—I had albums for Jefferson nickels, Lincoln pennies and Roosevelt dimes. I started with Morgan and Peace dollars pretty early. I came close to finishing a set of Peace dollars, I was one coin away. That’s the closest I ever got to completing a collection of anything in my life. But I quickly moved into all kinds of other coins from around the world. I...