Editor’s Note: For nearly 70 years, the feature-rich pages of Coins magazine, Numismatic News’ venerable sister publication, have tracked the history, fun and the growth of this great hobby, while also attracting new collectors to pursue what was once deemed the “hobby of kings.” Dusting off these time-aged issues, from the early 1960s and beyond, each installment of “Past Times with Coins,” written by its former longtime editor, explores what nuggets of interest they contain.
A lot of people remember where they were when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was in a grade-school classroom when the announcement came over the loudspeaker that the president had been shot while on a visit to Dallas, on Nov. 22, 1963. The nation was heartbroken, and within days there were calls for memorializing Kennedy. Perhaps the earliest within the numismatic
