Ron Dayton writes:

Ginger Rapsus writes:

Richard Gaetano of Pittsburgh writes:

Ed Krivoniak of Pittsburgh writes:

The store sits at the corner of Second Avenue and Grape Street in Gallipolis and was founded in 1976 between three partners who begancollecting coins while in college. Tom Tope said this was between 1964 to 1986. The original three partners were Tope, Marc Sarrett and JamesMagnussen.

Eventually, the three colleagues would buy a large collection of coins around $10,000 and felt they needed to open a shop because, as collectors,they couldn't "digest" all of those items. The three started in a building which used to be a broom factory located near what is now the GalliaAcademy Middle School on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Tope and his colleagues could write books with the wealth of knowledge they hold in the history of coins. Tope shared a story about MaybelleMcIntyre, the wife of New York newspaper columnist Oscar Odd McIntyre.

"Morgan dollars are the number one collectible coin," Tope said. "They were made between 1878 to 1921. It's a nice big, fat silver coin."

Tope said that oftentimes the coins were given out as gifts and birthday presents.

"(Maybelle McIntyre) called me one afternoon and said, 'Tom, what are you paying for silver dollars?'" Tope said. "I said $4 a piece. She said,'Well, I've been putting them in a handbag and taking them to New York City and getting $2 a piece.'"

Tope met with Mrs. McIntyre to discuss the coins.

"She brought 900 coins stacked," Tope said. "I said, 'Mrs. McIntyre. I just thought you had 20 or 30 of them.' She said she would come backtomorrow. She kept bringing them down. I told her, 'Mrs. McIntyre, that coin is worth $700. This one is a $5 one and this is a $50 one.' When we weredone, she had 1,800 (coins). She had bought five bags back in the (Great Depression) and said she had been giving them out to a kid that had (mowed)their yard or to an (employee) at Christmas time."

Overall, Tope said Maybelle had handed out maybe 3,200 of the coins. Mrs. McIntyre at the time did not know the true worth of the coins as theirvalue had increased with time. Mrs. McIntyre died in 1985. She lived to be 101.

"I think we wrote her a check for $18,000 that day," said Tope.

To read the complete article, see:
Making head or tails of coin history(http://mydailytribune.com/news/10150/making-head-or-tails-of-coin-history)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
BEBEE BUYS A BANK BUILDING: COIN SHOPS IN AMERICA(www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n40a19.html)