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He's 14. He called his 69-year-old mentor a ''coin collector.'' We'd give a penny for his thoughts.
By MIKE WILSON, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 31, 2002
ST. PETERSBURG -- Did you see the article the other day? The one about the 14-year-old boy and his 69-year-old mentor? Business types help kids in need, great program, etc., etc.
Anyway. The reporter asked the kid what it was like meeting his mentor.
"At first, it was weird," he said. "I thought, 'He's kind of old. He's some kind of coin collector or something.' "
Coin collector?
Coin collector?
What is that, a trendy teen insult? If you wear the wrong pants to school these days, do you risk being labeled a numismatist? Is "coin collector" the new "loser"?
We called the lawyer, Joe Fleece. Good man, community-oriented, knows everybody. Old Snell Isle guy.
Hey, Joe, tell us about your coin collection.
"I don't have a coin collection. But I had a client who called up and said he didn't know I was a coin collector. He said he'd bring me his coin collection and we can compare coin collections."
Do you collect anything?
"Not especially. I'm in the process of trying to get rid of stuff."
Then what was the kid talking about?
"I don't know what went through his mind. When I read that I thought, how do I look like a coin collector?"
Maybe it was the pants.
We called the kid's mother, Sharron Loyd. Class act. Single mom, making it all happen. But she's as bewildered by her teenager as any parent. You could almost hear her shaking her head.
"I have no idea what he meant by that."
Are coin collectors, in fact, losers? We checked around.
The American Numismatic Association has 28,000 members and is the largest such organization in the world. Florida United Numismatists Inc. -- FUN -- is the state organization. It has about 2,900 members. Jim Best is the editor of the FUN newsletter.
Hey, Jim, what kind of person collects coins?
"Varying kinds. There are people who collect coins as an investment. And there are people who collect coins, like the new state quarters, just because it's something neat to do."
He freely admits that some old people collect coins just to pass the time. But he points out that FUN has a YN -- "young numismatists" -- program with 60 to 70 kids in it. They can't all be losers.
Are coin collectors cool?
"I think they are. We're not weird. I'm 65 and I still collect coins. I still look through coins when I get change in the grocery store." You're not going to slip a 1909 S VDB penny past Jim Best.
So what was the kid talking about? When school let out, we called him. His name is Demetric Loyd-Knight. Nice kid. Big future.
Hey, Demetric, are you and your friends going around calling each other coin collectors?
"We don't say that."
Then what did you mean, some kind of coin collector?
"You know, old people -- well, he's not young -- they do things like that. They collect coins and stamps and stuff. They do stuff like that."
We called back Joe Fleece and told him what Demetric said. "Okay, well, good," he said, with grandfatherly understanding.
Still, the next time he sees Demetric, the kid had better be ready.
"I think I'll ask him about some of those quotations."