TIFTON — The Tiftarea Coin Club’s annual show will be held from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. Oct. 23-25 at the Georgia Agrirama’s Conference Center. There is no admission and no parking fee for the event.

Bob Holifield, one of the club’s members and an avid coin collector, said he doesn’t collect coins for their value but more for their rarity and beauty. When he tells the stories about how he acquired his extensive collection, it is more like a history lesson, a field trip or a search for hidden treasure.

“I’m retired and I don’t work and it’s better than going to a bar,” Holifield said. “I spend days talking to farmers about the coins and currency they have.”

Holifield said one Alapaha farmer contacted him and wanted him to appraise some coins he had. When Holifield arrived, the farmer got on his tractor and drove to a field. He then began moving around the field until he had the spot and dug up six one-gallon cans of silver dollars. Another man in Perry told his grown son and daughter to get a shovel and dig in a particular spot in a field and they retrieved part of their inheritance — an Igloo ice chest full of silver quarters he had buried there years before.

“An Enigma guy wanted to me to look at his silver dollars,” Holifield said. “He opened a door to a room and he had six sacks full of silver dollars, $2,000 worth in each bag. I offered to appraise them but he said ‘Nope. I don’t want to sell them,’” said Holifield.

He then continued, “In over 30 years of going around the world in the Army, I had collected a lot of coins. I have collected more in 10 years around Brookfield than I did in 30 years in the army, mostly from farmers.”

Holifield said that when he was a young boy, his father gave him a 1926 Peace Dollar and told him to put it in his pocket and not to spend it. Holifield said that he ran away from home when he was 12 and considering parting with it for food at a store because he was hungry. He pulled the coin out of his pocket to pay for the food and the store owner told him to put the coin back into his pocket and then asked Holifield if he needed a job instead.

Holifield kept the coin until his wallet, with the coin inside, was stolen while he was in basic training at Fort Bliss, Texas in 1953.

“The wallet was stolen the day before I shipped out,” Holifield.

Holifield said he wondered about the coin for years and didn’t have the nicest thoughts about whoever stole it. Then in 2000, he walked into Ham’s Pawn Shop in Tifton. He said he spotted a jug of 100 silver dollars for sale and bought it. Once home with the loot, he spotted one with scratches and slid it to the side.

“Later, I looked at the coin and it had my initials ‘RLH’ on the back,” Holifield said. “When I realized it was my coin, I cried.”

Holifield said he had his father’s and son’s initials engraved on the coin and presented it to his son. He said he told his son to put it in his pocket and never take it out, but the son thought so much of it, he has it on display.

In 1997, Holifield’s son was working at a convenience store in California when a “wino” came in offering his son a card of pennies for a bottle of wine. The back of the card advertised a company in Los Angeles that stated that if the owner filled all of the penny slots on the card, the company would send the person $3.50.

“The card didn’t have all the pennies, but my son knew I collected so he bought the guy a $1.99 bottle of wine for the guy and gave me the card with the pennies,” Holifield said. “I put it on the top shelf of my closet.”

In 1996, Holifield was moving from California to Georgia and decided the best way to transport the pennies was to take them off of the card and roll them in a coin tube. What he found was a 1909S VDB penny. He had it appraised in Atlanta and it’s currently selling for $1,400, Holifield said.

Holifield said the club expected 30-35 vendors to be at the annual show.

“All of them will buy, sell or trade with you,” Holifield said. “American or foreign currency, they’ll appraise it and might offer to buy it.”

Anyone interested in vending their collections at the show or anyone interested in joining the Tiftarea Coin Club may call Holifield at 533-9125.



To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.