Ever see a 5-year-old get a shiny red fire truck for Christmas or some other gift that he wanted badly?

Then you have an idea of the excited tone of voice I heard on the phone when a collector from Memphis gave me a jingle.

He wanted me to know that large numbers of Mint State state quarters were being released by the banks in Memphis. He said they were in original rolls.

The state quarters that he had encountered in this form, he said, were New York, Texas, Maryland and Vermont.

He just wanted me to know about this. I appreciate it. It is amazing what I learn from the spontaneous calls from readers.

Sure the world seems all agog about Twitter messages or regular e-mails and cable news programs seem to be less about news and more about simply begging for viewers to send messages, but much useful information still comes to me in the form of telephone calls and U.S. Postal Service mail deliveries.

I would expect that if collectors undertake a canvas of other banks in other major cities that they might just find either supplies of state quarters backed up in the banking system or quantities cashed in by coin owners now down on their luck because of the severe recession.

However, they got there, now is the time to cherry-pick through the quarters to find the highest grades possible. Remember that original rolls might just contain some coins that can make an MS-70 grade, which in the long term is a better hold than “mere” MS-65 coins, especially for the state quarters that have astronomically high mintages.

The best part is this effort is that it takes time but little money as these coins can be acquired for face value.

Why not jump into this and let me know what you find in your neck of the woods?

Are collectors losing the ability to think independently? Some days I wonder.

I cannot tell you how many e-mails I receive where the writer expounds upon a topic, a specific course of action and then ends by asking me if he should do it. It usually involves buying something to make money.

I am not an investment advisor. I believe in collecting coins methodically over time, building nicely matched sets that please the eye.

Because I am not an investment advisor does not mean that I don’t recognize profits can be made in coins. Long-term collectors who follow the traditional hobby path usually make money unless perhaps the object of their ardor is XF Jefferson nickels.

I am also aware of the touts online. Buy this. Buy that. It will go to the moon. All the while the writer, often anonymous, is busily selling whatever it is online. The only person making a killing is the tout.

That’s not collecting.

If you want to run with the touts, go for it at your own risk. Often what happens afterwards is I get withering e-mails blaming greedy dealers, the U.S. Mint and any other target that comes within range.

Usually after reading this kind of message I think that I have saved a family dog somewhere from being kicked out of frustration.

It is human nature, but it is not collecting.

There is nothing wrong from indulging the urge to make a killing from time to time. My introduction to this was my scramble to buy a 1968-S proof set on the secondary market when it was heading for the moon. The touts of the era were pointing to $50. I paid $15. Issue price was $5. Persons who bought directly from the Mint and got early delivery had a nice tripling of their money at that point.

The set hit $20. I felt ecstatic. But then the bottom fell out. Eventually, the set fell under issue price. I see it is being sold in retail ads for $6.75.

But I received more for my $15 than a proof set. I received a lesson in life that told me to recognize what it was I was doing and to know that even my best guess will not guarantee a profit.

Swine flu is not really a numismatic topic, but with all the media focused on it, it is difficult to resist writing a little bit about it.

For individual collectors, if we feel there is a risk from interacting with other people for the duration of the potential epidemic, what can be more ideal than retreating to our homes and our numismatic interests?

The Internet will allow us to interact with others if we so choose to do so, but perhaps the best use of unexpected home time is the possibility to learn something new, or explore a familiar topic in slightly greater depth.

Without outside distractions, the chance to concentrate and to learn is enhanced. Carve out an hour or two. Turn off your cell phone. Tell any and all family members that this island of time is yours alone and you are going to spend it with your hobby.

Then simply luxuriate in the ability to give the topic of your choice your full attention.

Now your system might be shocked because you have blocked outside stimuli. Then again, you might find that you enjoy focused numismatic time so much that you will try to do it on a regularly scheduled basis instead of catching a few minutes here and there.

Numismatics cannot cure or mitigate swine flu, but it can cure any sense of being trapped where you happen to be. The whole world can be yours without actually physically exposing yourself to it.

I am not in the office Friday morning and will not be in a convenient location to post at the usual time, so I will write a few words ahead of time and hope that you won’t be too disappointed going into the weekend.

Of course, if something truly major happens during the interval between when this is written and posted and when the next one goes up on Monday, well, that is the risk.

Just know that I will be back at my desk on Monday morning.

There. I hope that wasn’t too painful.

This blog marks the completion of two full years’ worth of blogging. The actual anniversary is tomorrow, but, hey, this is Internet time. We have to make it snappy.

So I will celebrate the final day of the second year. Bring out the noise makers.

I think I have learned a lot doing this blog. I have had a lot of fun writing it. I hope you can say the same about reading it.

The wide ranging nature of topics is most interesting. Reader feedback is something that newspapers generate after the passage of weeks. Blog feedback can occur almost as quickly as I can post my comments.

I have found that some topics that I think will generate feedback instead generate the “loudest silence” that I experience. There are other topics that I never would have guessed in a thousand years will spark major attention, but do.

That’s the guiding hand of the audience telling me where we should go. I have a vantage point and readers want to learn what I can see over the horizon. Sometimes I see something worthwhile, but then sometimes I might just as well have stayed home that day.

But good or bad, the topics are part of the flow of discussion that the hobby and all hobbyists are having with each other and with themselves.

It would be interesting to know what future generations will make of these transcripts.

I get a lot of e-mails from frustrated collectors. When it is about a sold out item, I can sympathize with the U.S. Mint, because somebody is always disappointed in a sellout.

Most collectors think it wonderful that something sells out as long as they get one. I know. I have been there, done that myself.

However, in any sellout, there are more potential buyers who could not have their orders accommodated. This is what breeds disappointment.

When everyone can get something for weeks on end, there might be less disappointment but suddenly fewer collectors seem to really want it. Just look at the pattern of sales for the First Spouse gold coins. The first three sold out 40,000 mintages within hours. Sales totals since have declined by as much as 75 percent, but you can still buy them.

E-mails have begun to reach me with complaints of canceled Lincoln commemorative silver dollars orders. It is a popular coin that sold out within six weeks.

Someone had to lose.

The salt in the wound seems to be the electronic messages that show that orders are accepted and then canceled later. Is there anything that can be done about that? That might help.

But then again, disappointment is bitter no matter how it is coated. Hence my sympathy for the Mint. Even with a success, it just can’t win.

There is some talk among the producers of coins from precious metals that a half gram size is needed.

When I first saw this, I had to read it a second time. Half gram? Not half ounce?

There are more than 31 grams in a troy ounce, 31.103 to be precise. A half gram coin would be smaller than 1/60th the size.

The rationale is that a smaller size would be more affordable. To illustrate, if gold were $900 an ounce. A half gram coin would contain roughly $15 in bullion value.
I am rounding. Please, don’t make me use a calculator.

Oh, never mind. I will probably have to get one out to finish making my point.

Is there really a large unmet demand by $15 gold buyer’s? I haven’t noticed.

What I do know is the U.S. gold dollar, which was introduced in 1849 because at the time the United States was swimming in the precious metal bonanza from the California Gold Rush, was never popular because of its small and inconvenient size.

During its lifetime they even made it thinner to increase the diameter to 15mm from 13mm. For comparison, the dime is 17.9mm.

The dollar coin is actually more than three times the size of half a gram. It weighs in at 1.672.

Somehow, I think the world’s coin manufacturers should catch up with the demand for the one-ounce coin first. But then, the premium on the one-ounce coin is far lower than the mark-up would be for half a gram.

After all, what’s an extra $15 or $20 tacked onto a half gram gold coin price. Remember, you are paying for convenience. Yeah, right.

I had a phone call from a Numismatic News reader. She was looking at the weekly Coin Market at a Glance.

“The price of Morgans seeems to be down. Why?”

That’s a pretty broad generalization. I asked her what her point of reference was and I wasn’t trying to be funny. Was it Morgan prices 20 years ago, or from some other year in the past?

No, that wasn’t it.

She was looking at the Coin Market at a Glance from prior weeks.

I stated the obvious. If the prices as printed are lower than those from prior weeks, then indeed prices were lower. If she needed a specific slant on a specific issue, I invited her to e-mail the editor of that section, Harry Miller.

She asked if it had to do with silver?

I asked what date specifically she was looking at.

She replied, the 1921-D. I said it was possible that some of the price fluctuation for that date was due to silver’s moves. It is not a rare coin.

The caller pressed on. Why did the prices fall?

I told her I didn’t know the answer to her question.

She volunteered that she was pricing a friend’s collection and so she was noticing.

It is too bad I couldn’t be more helpful, but one observation I can make is I am getting a large number of calls asking about prices. What this usually means is the family budget is being pinched and some prized coins are going to find their way to eBay or a local coin shop. If enough people are doing this, prices will indeed drop.

One of the tasks I perform on a monthly basis is to make sure that the updates for the Coin Market monthly price guide section in Numismatic News is updated and makes its way through production.

Deadline is this afternoon.

While I was inputting some values for the American Eagle gold, silver and platinum bullion coins, I had the impression that the prices of the silver American Eagles were getting a bit weaker, more so than the swing in the price of bullion would warrant.

Does this mean the Mint is catching up with demand? Could be.

The proof version of the gold American Eagle keeps leaping even as the price of gold itself is lower. The demand is coming from Individual Retirement Account buyers who want to put an authorized gold coin into their accounts.

Now that tax time has just passed, will the proof gold American Eagles retreat a bit?
Again, perhaps.

The other observation I would like to share is the stealth recovery in the price of platinum. It is back over $1,200 a troy ounce after having been significantly below $1,000.

You would think with car sales in the tank that demand for platinum would still be tanking with them, but perhaps it isn’t. Perhaps buyers are looking beyond the present for a recovery.

For a Friday, the thought of an economic recovery is a happy one and something to look forward to – that and meeting the deadline.