Low on Funds? Find Treasure in Your pocket

As you’re looking for a job it’s easy to daydream about fantastic situations like winning the lottery or finding buried treasure. While I can’t give you any advice on how to pick the lucky numbers I can suggest becoming a pocket treasure hunter for fun and inexpensive way to bank some extra bucks. Coin collecting is as easy as looking down before you plop your money into the vending machine but it develops skills job hunters can use.

Attention to detail is a requirement in almost every job position listing you come across. You can refine your eye by training it to spot certain coins or imperfections that make them valuable. Noticing a double casted date could make a penny worth thousands of dollars. Specifically if you can find a 1969-S Lincoln Cent with a Doubled Die Obverse you can expect it to fetch around $35,000 dollars. More likely though you can find a 1995 Doubled Die Obverse Lincoln Cent in circulation and cash it in for $20-$50.

Patience is also a virtue learned in coin collecting. I remember stumbling across oodles of wheat pennies and buffalo nickels as a child but it’s not so common of an occurrence anymore. While I spent some on candy and toys I managed to save a few and still pluck the ones I see out of the piles of change that pass through my hands. At the moment they aren’t worth so much but I’m sure by keeping them safe in my piggy bank I’ll see a better return in my later years. This is also true of older coins particularly silver dollars and half dollars that were minted from real silver. As the market price for the metal rises so does the value of the coin despite the wear and tear it might be showing.

Getting involved with people who appreciate money will only help your chances to make money. Negotiation and networking are great attributes learned in coin collecting that can be transferred to the work place as well. Learning where you can buy and sell coins and haggling for the best deals can be better training than business school when it comes to interpersonal communications. Talk to people at shops, join online forums and get out and treasure hunt at the banks and flea markets.

There are a variety of resources available at the library and online if you think that coin collecting sounds like a hobby you would like to pursue. Start small and one day you could score big.


By Heather Fairchild - Heather is a multimedia developer with experience in web, film, photography and animation as well as traditional fine arts like painting and sculpting. In addition to writing for ArmedServicesJobsBlog.com, she is co-founder of design and promotion company. Heather’s spare time consists of making puppets, teaching Sunday School, building Legos and doing science experiments with her children.