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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;afantiques, post: 174215, member: 25&quot;]I started collecting in the 1950s aged about 12. It was not long after silver 3d bits and farthings (1/4 pennies) more or less stopped circulating. The 3d bit had been replaced by a bronze coin for almost 20 years but silver 3d turned up pretty often.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;d take maybe a couple of shillings pocket money and go round all the local shops in my small town asking if they had any farthings or silver 3d bits in their tills. Any they had I would buy at face value, so for a shilling I could accumulate 48 farthings or 4 3d. After I got near to complete sets back to late Victorian times, I&#039;d just keep on searching and upgrade any I already had, as better examples came along. Neither coin had ever been much used, so it was not all that hard to assemble what now I&#039;d&nbsp; call very fine to extremly fine sets. Since the surplus farthings and 3d bits simply got recycled as money, the total cost was about 2 shillings for about 100 years of farthings, rather more for the 3d&#039;s but I&#039;d get given some by people to help out. </p><p>It was quite a healthy hobby as it meant a fair amount of cycling to find unplundered shops. A bonus was the odd foreign coins that the shopkeepers would give me for nothing to get rid of them. Some shopkeepers would give me the coins I wanted for nothing as well. Maybe they thought I was a sweet kid or something. Or they just took pity on me. Who knows?</p><p><br /></p><p>I have no idea now what happened to the coins I accumulated, probably sold them later to buy an old gun or a motorbike or something, but the lust to accumulate stuff never went away, even if at times I had to sell off my stuff to lighten the load for moving on. </p><p><br /></p><p>Nowadays I try to confine my purchases to silver, (for my Hoard) coins and banknotes. All small stuff that&#039;s easily salable when I&#039;m dead.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, it all has to come in at a reasonable price, no point going mad even if I can afford it. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/smilies/smile.png" class="mceSmilie" alt=":)" unselectable="on" /> I&#039;s no fun that way, it&#039;s just going shopping.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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