Bowers discovered that 484,000 had been minted and became inspired to find one himself. This mint mark jumped the value from a few cents up to the $10 he had paid. Bowers would soon discover that the reason for the high value was that beneath the date, there was a tiny "S" signifying it had been made in San Francisco. He carefully explained that it was a Lincoln cent made in the first year of issue, 1909, with the initials of the designer, Victor David Brenner, V.D.B., on the reverse. Rusbar presented a small green-covered album of Lincoln cents, pointed to one of the first openings, and showed that he had paid $10 for that particular coin. After a session with rocks and minerals, Rusbar asked Bowers if he collected coins, to which he replied in the negative. Rusbar, a local tax collector, had a collection of rocks and minerals, and Bowers visited him. He graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1960, and was given the Alumni Achievement Award by that institution's College of Business Administration in a ceremony in 1976. From such experiences, Bowers learned the power of the written word and how it can spur one to a great enthusiasm for acquisition. According to Bowers, Ditmars, who was curator of reptiles at the New York Zoological Garden ( Bronx Zoo), had a way of making just about anything sound fascinating. Ditmars' Reptiles of North America from his mother as a Christmas gift in 1952. During this time Bowers became interested in the written word. Īs a 13-year-old high school student, Bowers's interests included reptiles, scouting, short-wave radio, Strombecker kit models of World War II airplanes, and rocks and minerals. In 1948, his family moved to Forty Fort, Pennsylvania (about an hour away from Honesdale). In 1945–46, his next exposure to numismatics was a friend’s home in which a dozen or more Indian Head cents were embedded face-up in a concrete walk near the front door. This would be his first exposure to numismatics. Garratt gave him his first "rare" coin, a well worn 1893 Columbian half dollar. His maternal grandfather, Chester Garratt, an attorney by profession, was a hobbyist and researcher in many areas. Early life īowers was born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, in 1938. He has been involved in the selling of rare coins since 1953 when he was a teenager. Beginning in 1952, Bowers’s contributions to numismatics have continued uninterrupted and unabated to the present day. Quentin David Bowers (born October 21, 1938) is an American numismatist, author, and columnist.
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