re: #169 HappyWarrior

I think another trick was getting em from all the places they were minted. Ha, I could be guilty of being called obsessive but I am not that obsessive. But yeah the Ripken card thing was funny. I felt like a kid all over again when I got his autograph a few years back at a book signing.

When you have a institution as conservative (design-wise) as the US mint used to be, collecting coins by place of manufacture (and metallic composition) is the only way to build up a decent sized collection. Until the started jazzing up the coin faces in the last decade, we went 35 years with the same half-dollar, 70 years with same quarter, 55 years with the same dime, 65 years with the same nickel, and 90 years with the same portrait of Lincoln on the penny. (Thank goodness for the state quarter program!)

BTW, I’ve heard Cal Ripkin is a great guy in person, did you get that impression when you met him?