Tony Littlejohn began collecting coins during his childhood in the early 1960s, amid the final throes of circulating 90% silver coinage in the United States. “I told my mother that we should keep all coins with silver in them as they would someday be rare,” Littlejohn recalls. “She didn’t believe me, so I started removing silver from circulation, primarily Mercury Dimes, Standing Liberty Quarters, and Walking Liberty Halves as the newer coins seemed more common,” says the collector who searched for numismatic treasures in his school lunch money. Vintage Lincoln Cents, Buffalo Nickels, and other novelties were thrown into the budding collector’s growing hoard of silver coins, which he eventually threw into a strongbox and tucked away in a closet – forgotten for years.
Some 15 years passed. Littlejohn graduated college, became an engineer with a major petrochemical company, and built a family – nary a spark alight for numismatics all that time. That changed in 1985, when he took a youth group on a trip to Colorado and decided to take the kids on a tour of the Denver Mint. “The tour ended in the Mint’s store, and I looked at the proof sets for sale. I decided to get one for each of my daughters from their birth years: 1981 and 1983. They did not have the 1981 set at the Mint, and they directed me to go to a coin shop to get them.” Upon returning home, he paid his local coin shop a visit.
“As I looked around the shop, the proprietor asked about my interest in coins and suggested that I might be interested in collecting again.” Indeed he was, leaving the shop with a type set album and a numismatic love rekindled. He was soon on his way to tackling a type set as well as runs of Buffalo Nickels and Barber Half Dollars before building an incredible collection of Standing Liberty Quarters. “I was very low key and under the radar in purchasing my Standing Liberty Quarters from various sources,” remarks Littlejohn, whose Standing Liberty Quarters set – a basic run consisting of 37 coins – achieved top status on the PCGS Set Registry in 2017; it ranked all-time finest in 2020. “I have continued to upgrade my set since then and have acquired some real beauties to add to my collection.”
It was around that time that PCGS previously interviewed Littlejohn, when he was upgrading other sets and had already expanded into Eisenhower Dollars and Susan B. Anthony Dollars. “However, my primary focus was on the coins I loved most: the Standing Liberty Quarter.” One of his favorite acquisitions is also one of his more recent ones: a 1916 pattern catalogued as J-1796A/1988. “I am still a Standing Liberty Quarter collector and enjoy the ‘one-of-a-kinds.’ I acquired another Standing Liberty Quarter pattern: the 1916 J-1796A/1988, PCGS spec number 62287.” He goes on to say, “This coin represents the earliest form of Hermon MacNeil’s Standing Liberty Quarter design struck in coin form at the Mint and is the only one in private hands. Littlejohn adds, “Three are known to exist – two of which are permanently housed in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian.”
It’s one of the many coins among Littlejohn’s 81 PCGS Registry Sets. “I continually look for upgrade additions to my top sets, the Standing Liberty Quarter and Susan B. Anthony Dollar sets.” He also recently completed a magnificent Booker T. Washington Half Dollar set that took him three years to complete. Two of Littlejohn’s main numismatic goals still lay before him: upgrading his completed Everyman Standing Liberty Quarter and 12-piece Everyman Gold Type Sets, to have every coin with a top grade of PCGS AU58+. “The competition is fierce for the elusive AU58+ coins in these two sets.”
It’s the challenge of competing with top-level numismatists that has helped shape Littlejohn’s approach to the hobby. One of the main hurdles has been sourcing and consolidating the information he needs to track down the coins he wants to obtain for this collection. “The large number of auction companies as well as the progression of coins being sold on social media makes finding the coin you are looking for in a timely fashion more difficult – especially when combined with the growing number of young numismatists having quality coins for sale, many of which you can only acquire at coin shows.”
But it is in the oft-frustrating pursuit of coins that Littlejohn also finds his joy. “Enjoy the collection process which I call ‘The Hunt.’ Searching for the coins to complete your collection is as much or more fun than finding them in some cases. Have a wide enough net that you minimize missed opportunities and spend the extra it takes to obtain ‘quality.’” Ultimately though, what makes numismatics enjoyable for Littlejohn aren’t necessarily the coins in his collection but the folks he meets along the way. “If you see me at a coin show, say ‘Hi!’ Because, for me, the relationships – the people – are what drive the fun. You may have shows where you don’t buy a single coin, but there are always the people, dealers, and collectors that make the journey fun.”