Coins in the Pockets

As a kid, I did the most collecting from 1973 - 1976. The four previous years, I bought cards, but not a bunch. But by 1973, Topps had stopped placing inserts into packs of cards. It was just cards and the gum. I do remember getting a couple of the inserts from the earlier years like the 1969 Deckle Edge cards 1970 booklets and scratch offs.

And today's feature too, the 1971 coins. In fact, I definitely remember having a Don Kessinger coin. It wasn't with my cards, but I dug around some other junk boxes in the house and found it!

It looks like it's seen better days.

Topps put out a set of 153 coins in 1971 and even included a checklist in the base set. The list includes seven Cubs. I didn't really think much about adding the set to my collection until I saw an auction that had a lot of six of the seven. Being able to get a bunch at once is a good thing, so I set my sniper. Apparently there wasn't too much interest because I won the lot at a price of less than a dollar each.

They aren't in mint condition, and the centering isn't perfect, but they look pretty good for being 40 years old. Here are the six from the single lot:

The seventh Cub was Fergie Jenkins. I poked around ebay and found a good one at a good price, and with that, the set is complete.

Once I had the coins, I needed to figure out a way to store them. Here's what I came up with:

They are in a 20 pocket tobacco card sheet. I spaced them out because when they were in pockets next to each other, the sheet started to pucker up.

For now I added the sheet to the back of the 1971 set in my '70s Topps binder. My only concern is that the coins may leave a circular impression on the cards. If that happens, I'll have to move them. But for now, they look nice right where they are.