I’m an admittedly odd individual so it should surprise no one that I collect coins in my own idiosyncratic way. Money has been around since society needed a way buy things with a mutually agreed upon exchangeable item instead of a random, and possibly not desired, trade of product/service for a product/service. So money has been progressing as long as society has.
Before the time of paper and electronic money, coins were one of the predominate forms of currency in a variety of metals and designs. Some were more easily carried en mass and others were merely imprinted disks. In the study of history the information given by the coins found provide researchers with important dates, times, and events that can help identify the when and where of the site or to trace the reach and influence of certain cultures.
Each of these coins has their own story and to an extent personality just like people. So I collect some more modern coins, predominately wheat pennies and older silver quarters and some more foreign currency. While these are generally the cleaner ones that I keep, I do love and hold onto coins with more “Character” to then. Strange discolorations, odd patinas and oxidation, dates of interest all get pulled into a small collection of mine.
These coins have seen many adventures, a little worse for wear, but they have a lot of experience behind them. People can be like these coins. The odd ones, the different ones, and the interesting ones all seem to make their way to me, both coins and people. Some like the uniformity of things, I like the things that have a bit of a change of the baseline, because the only thing that should be standardize are shared tools and mass produced products.
People are not mass produced, even identical twins are different. To try and make them all absolutely the same is going against nature. The individual has many different facets that standardization chops off.
While these facets help their owner it does not mean that some are not broken beyond repair. What it does mean is that the individual needs to know those facets, which work, which don’t, which are broken, and which are sound. You need to know yourself, and this will help you determine which set of coins you belong to. If you’re weird you’ll find the weird ones, if not you’ll still find the ones like you.
Think about it.
Sincerely,
The Irreverent Gentleman
gentlemansuniversityofmanliness 