Indian Head Pennies and Buffalo Nickles

Yesterday, while walking across a large parking lot to our car, one of the people with me stopped to pick up a coin. I asked if it was a penny and they said no, it was a nickle. As a joke, I asked if it was a Buffalo Nickle. It wasn't.

As a child, both Indian Head pennies and Buffalo nickles were were so plentiful, we never considered collecting them. The only thing I thought of collecting was autographs. The little autograph books were inexpensive and every school child had one. Mine was filled with signatures of family and school friends. Obviously, I gave little care to protecting and saving them because I seemed to get new ones frequently.

I did have a small collection of handkerchiefs; presents from family and school chums. I prized the ones grandmother A sent me in the mail. During the great depression, fancy handkerchiefs with lace edging and embroidered flowers, pinned to cardboard backing and tied with ribbons, were offered for sale at Christmas time.

Aside from the collection of salt and pepper shakers of a neighbor, the only other collection I knew about was the stuffed birds in the high school biology room. There were no song birds in the collection. They had no identifying labels and were of varying sizes. They were a mystery except for the pheasant and ducks which were familiar to me. The stuffed birds sat next to each other on a shelf that continued around all four walls of the room. They were never discussed in class, neither did our teacher know much about them. They were just there.

I once attended a lecture about the contribution collectors make to society. The reasons people collect range from complex to to the simple fact that it's an enjoyable hobby. I, myself do not have the 'collector gene', but appreciate the work of those that do have it.

Collections of everything and anything can be found in the most unlikely places. I once came across a collection of egg shells in Bloomington, California. There were thousands, each labeled and nesting in a padded box of its own. There used to be an exquisite collection of diamonds in every color on display at the Los Angeles County Museum.

Some of the many types of collections are coin, stamps, shells, rocks, baseball cards and chess sets. The churches of Europe collect bones, supposedly of Biblical persons and Saints which I saw when touring the churches there.  If seeing them paves one's way into heaven, perhaps those pearly gates will open for me.

Gem Collection
Natural History Museum Los Angeles County