ted talk
Naturally, Ted Hake didn’t start out striving to be the Father of Pop-Culture Collecting, even though that’s clearly where he stands on the Mount Rushmore of Collectibles.
No, Hake’s first foray into the field was far more traditional. A lifelong fascination with collecting started with a blue Whitman coin folder his parents got him when he was no bigger than a hiccup.
Little did they realize what they were unleashing on the world.
As a kid, Hake, now 77, chased down coins at Larry T. Henry’s shop on Market Street in downtown York, Pennsylvania, where he grew up, with the enthusiasm and purpose of the newly converted. He even discovered a coveted 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent, a rare penny long considered the holy grail of coin collectors.
But it wasn’t
