Hubby and I are amuter numismatic's. My Dad started me on collecting coins when I was a kid though it only lasted for a handful of years. My interest was renewed (and hubbie's awakened) a few years ago, sometime after the state quarters were issued. His co-worker had been collecting them and had a duplicate set he gave us.
Our washer had just died and since we had a laundrymat on the corner I was pretty frequently getting $10 in quarters, which led to scouring for state quarter's we needed, and the snowball began to roll. We now buy (infrequently) what coins we can afford (and get them as gift's).
Being that we use our debit cards 99% of the time, we don't collect much change. We started to fill a water bottle almost 3 yrs. ago and it still is only about 1/4 inch deep. As much as I love the nostalga and history of our coinage, I see it dying a very quiet death given the ease of having a "credit" card that is linked directly to our checking account's and debited instantly as if we had taken out and recieved that physical cash out of our accounts.
I don't really have an opinion on pennies, I guess because I see the demise of all paper and metal money happening in the near future. My BIL however is practically launching a campain to do away with all coin's smaller than a quarter.
