Over the weekend I remembered when my brothers and I were young, grammar school or middle school. We were out with Grandma and Grandpa for some reason or another, and Hidek asked them for a quarter for the machine that dispenses little toys or candy. They gave him one, but he asked for another one to spend because this one had his birth year on it and he didn’t want to spend it. (If you get a coin with your birth year on it, it’s good luck!)

Later (maybe a week or two) Grandma and Grandpa dropped by with a whole container full of coins that were minted in the years we were born. They said we had to separate them and we could have them. After we thanked them and got our coins, we didn’t know what to do with it all. The specialness was in randomly getting a coin with your birthyear, not collecting them and hoarding them. With all those “special” (to us) coins, they lost their fun.

(It was very sweet of my grandparents to do that, don’t get me wrong. Whenever they found something that we liked, they would tend to deluge us with it though. Too much grandparent love!)

I don’t know if we deposited them in our savings or if we turned them in for bills. But after I thought about those coins it dawned on me that as I get older, coins from my birthyear will become more and more rare. And I still want that specialness! I want that this coin is as old as I am feeling. So right then and there I decided to find coins with my birthyear and save them. I have a penny and a dime. Still need a quarter and a nickel. But no one better find these coins for me!