Currency of the Heart: A Year of Investing, Death, Work, and Coins

Cheap Thrills - Speaks in Madness

...................................................................... CheapThrills hatever collectors may or may not know about coins, the Mint has learned a lot about them. On average, our customers have purchased coins for longer than ten years. To a man, they are men: women don’t collect coins. They are Caucasian: African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians don’t collect coins, although Asians buy gold coins and Hispanics silver coins as bullion investments. Or to tally the ledger, people who regularly and repeatedly buy coins are white, male, military veterans age sixty or older who often have a college education and earn at least $60,000 yearly. In dealing with coin collectors, however, I’ve learned facts beyond the database. For instance, chiropractors seem to collect coins, as do osteopaths to a lesser extent. Per capita, Montana and Wyoming have more coin collectors than other states. Many, many coin collectors are named after someone else — that is, they are Someone Else, Jr., a characteristic they share with most Fortune 500 executives I’ve worked for. Coin collectors often write letters by hand in #2 pencil and not uncommonly in red or green ink. They frequently correspond using postcards or 3-5 ⁄8” ⫻ 6-1 ⁄2” envelopes. If coin collectors encounter a phrase, they adopt it like a mantra. Coin World published a story about the Mint’s annual report that ended “Collectors who want to obtain a free copy of the 46-page glossy, illustrated , report should write. . . .” I received a hundred requests — pencil, green ink, bantam envelopes and all — saying, “I want to obtain a free copy of the 46-page glossy, illustrated, report.” Coin collectors tend to live in small towns, including small towns in populous states, and they often receive coins through post office boxes. I grew up in a small town, and I know small towns have street addresses and postmen who will deliver coins to your mailbox. Until today, the riddle of the PO boxes perplexed me. W With PO boxes you can’t find a customer’s phone number after his letter appears in the press. Also, where customers claim to live when writing the editor isn’t necessarily where they live when ordering coins, so the Mint’s customer files aren’t helpful. Therefore, I frequently wind up phoning postmasters in tiny, far-away places to ask if they know John Thompson — to make up a name — and a street address that can yield a phone number. “Well, I’ll be. The U.S. Mint you say? Calling from Washington, DC.” “Yep.” When was the last time I said “Yep”? “Are you looking for John Thompson, Sr., or John Thompson, Jr.?” “I don’t know.” “You might be looking for Johnny Thompson.” “Is that John Thompson, Jr.?” “Nope. Johnny is Little Jack’s boy.” Big Jack, Little Jack, and Johnny — I grew up in a small town, so I’m following this. “Well, Mr. Postmaster, I’ll bet Little Jack and Johnny have the same phone number, so unless you have more John Thompsons for me, all I need is two street names for the operator.” “You only need one! Big Jack kicked the bucket awhile back! Little Jack and Johnny live on Elm.” I’d been on the phone twenty minutes and didn’t know if I’d found the John Thompson who wrote an angry letter to the editor. I called the operator for the number, dialed, and a woman answered. I identi- fied myself and asked if Mr. Thompson may have written to Coin World about his problem order. There was a long, long pause before she began speaking in a low, slow, angry voice. “You mean he still buys coins from you people? He said he cut that out. How much did he spend?” “This particular order is about $60.” “Sixty dollars! This particular order? There were others?” “Mrs. Thompson, I bet you’re going to tell your husband I called. Let me leave my number . . .” So today I found John Thompson, letter writer, and discovered why coin collectors might rent PO boxes. Sometimes I love this job. 57 ...................................................................... StairwaytoSuccess or several years I’ve been taking German on Thursday nights, and I don’t know why. This wouldn’t be a high-percentage return on my time in any case, and to my continual surprise and occasional embarrassment, I’m no longer very adept at German . I studied it as an undergraduate because...