Q. David Bowers

The first coin Bowers ever ordered through the mail was an Indian cent, an 1859 Proof at a price of $11 from the Copley Coin Company run by Maurice Gould and Frank Washburn in Boston.

Garratt gave him his first "rare" coin, a well worn 1893 Columbian half dollar.

This would be his first exposure to numismatics.

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.

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.

This mint mark jumped the value from a few cents up to the $10 he had paid.

Bowers discovered that 484,000 had been minted and became inspired to find one himself.

Rusbar would give Bowers a couple of blue Whitman coin folders and a few mintmarked Lincoln cents to get started.

Inspired with the idea of making money by selling coins, rather than cutting grass, Bowers traded a $10 bill for 1,000 mixed Lincoln cents.

Bowers's goal was to find the 1909-S VDB, 1914-D, and 1931-S pieces.

From finding Lincoln cents in circulation, Bowers moved towards other series, including Mercury dimes and Standing Liberty quarters.

Seeking to gain more knowledge, Bowers discovered the Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine, a monthly journal put out by brothers Lee and Cliff Hewitt in Illinois.

The dozens of pages were filled with stories and tales about coins and coin collecting, but advertisements offering things for sale were a catalyst in stimulating Bowers's affinity for coins.

His enthusiasm for the Numismatist Scrapbook Magazine also resulted in an accumulation of back copies dating to 1935, and a file of several decades of The Numismatist.

A local insurance agent, George P. Williams, would take Bowers under his wing.

Together, they would attend meetings of the Wilkes-Barre Coin Club held in the YMCA.

Quentin David Bowers (born October 21, 1938) is an American numismatist, author, and columnist.

Bowers was born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, in 1938.

His maternal grandfather, Chester Garratt, an attorney by profession, was a hobbyist and researcher in many areas.

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.

In 1948, his family moved to Forty Fort, Pennsylvania (about an hour away from Honesdale).

As 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.

During this time Bowers became interested in the written word.

Beginning in 1952, Bowers’s contributions to numismatics have continued uninterrupted and unabated to the present day.

He received Raymond L. Ditmars' Reptiles of North America from his mother as a Christmas gift in 1952.

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.

From such experiences, Bowers learned the power of the written word and how it can spur one to a great enthusiasm for acquisition.

He has been involved in the selling of rare coins since 1953 when he was a teenager.

Bowers became a vest-pocket dealer in 1953, when he was not quite 15 years of age.

He had begun collecting coins just a few months earlier, and he found he had an aptitude for buying and selling them advantageously.

Bowers would start running advertisements in the classified section of the local paper seeking coins.

As his growing dealership prospered, so would his capital.

He would buy coins locally from the public and from other collectors and then sell them at the coin club and to collectors he met there.

In the early years, becoming a dealer had its challenges as there were no guides to use as a reference.

One of the risks included the authenticity of a coin, while another point of tension was condition.

As there were no published standards, what one person called Gem Uncirculated could be what another might call About Uncirculated.

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.

Robert L. Rusbar, a local tax collector, had a collection of rocks and minerals, and Bowers visited him.

After a session with rocks and minerals, Rusbar asked Bowers if he collected coins, to which he replied in the negative.

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.