26 JANUARY 2023 WorldWide Drilling Resource® The Un-Comfort Zone II by Robert Evans Wilson, Jr. My Lucky Dime - The pride of my coin collection was stolen. I have a lucky dime. Well, that’s what I call it. I’ve had it for 50 years; at least this time around. You see, I had it before, and then I didn’t. It’s not a lucky dime like the one owned by Donald Duck’s uncle Scrooge McDuck. It’s not the first dime I earned, and it doesn’t bring me good luck . . . not that I’ve noticed, but it’s lucky nevertheless. It was simply the prized specimen of my childhood coin collection. An Expensive Hobby for a Kid - I started collecting coins when I was ten years old. My collection began with one of those blue cardboard penny books where you press pennies into holes marked by year and mint mark. Collecting pennies was all I could afford when I started the hobby. Back then, my primary source of income was finding refillable soda bottles along busy roadsides and redeeming them for the two cent deposit. I would save until I had a dollar, then I’d go to the bank and buy two rolls of pennies. Then I’d pick through them and put any "finds" my collection lacked into my blue book. Occasionally, my mother would show me a few coins she had saved over the years. Mostly it was silver dollars, and half dollar coins. However, she had this one really old Barber dime I greatly admired. I asked her if I could have it for my collection, but she said, “No.” She explained the dime was special, and I wasn’t mature enough to own it. I knew what she was referring to because on my eighth birthday a friend of hers gave me a silver dollar as a gift. I didn’t understand that I was supposed to keep it for its extrinsic value, and I immediately rushed to the store and spent it. My mother and her friend were appalled, and I was severely scolded. Over the next two years, my coin collection expanded immensely. I astutely added to it by swapping with my friends, and with dealers at coin shows. I filled my penny books, and then moved on to nickel, dime, and quarter books. Plus, I added many unusual curiosities like three-cent pieces, large copper pennies from the 1700s, and commemorative coins. By the time I was 12 years old, my mother became convinced my hobby was stalwart enough and she gave me the coveted dime. It immediately became the pride of my collection. It was in near uncirculated condition, and it was rare; rare enough in 1969 to be worth $50. I polished it carefully until it gleamed and put it in its own hard plastic case to preserve its luster and numismatic value. Our House was Burglarized - I continued to add to my collection over the next two years. Then one afternoon I came home from school to alarming news. My mother said, "Our house was burglarized today; they only took one thing, unfortunately it was yours." We’d lived in our new house for two years, and my mother was not accustomed to locking the doors when she went out. Our old house was in a subdivision that was safe enough to leave it unlocked. Lamentably, our new house was situated near a low-income neighborhood with a lot of illegal drug activity. Wilson Cont’d on page 28.
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